22 And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good:

23 And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them:

24 And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears: and I told this unto the magicians; but there was none that could declare it to me.

I mentioned last time that Pharaoh spent far more time describing the sickly cattle than the well ones, and he also spent far more time describing the first dream than he spends here on the second. Evidently the sight of cattle consuming their own kind made far more of an impression than withered stalks consuming healthy ones. But as we will soon find out, it is the dream of grain that is a closer representation of what will soon befall the land. The famine will presumably affect the crops first, and the creatures secondarily.

Something I missed in the first recounting of the dreams is that they show the seven goodly specimens emerge from one source. With the cattle the source was the river, and for the ears it was a single stalk. I don’t know what the significance of that singular source is. Perhaps it is representative of God, stating that He is personally sending these changes?

In any case, Pharaoh complains to Joseph a second time that none of his magicians were able to tell the meaning of these dreams, and at last we are about to hear Joseph’s answer.