Thus far we have looked at symbols that were lived experiences (Jacob and Esau, Barabbas) or that were parables (the Prodigal Son, the poor man and his sheep). Today we now consider a symbol that was an image in a dream.

Seven Fat and Sickly Cattle)

This example comes from Genesis 41, in which we learn that the Pharaoh of Egypt received a strange dream that greatly troubled him. He sought an interpretation from all of his wise men, but none of them could explain it. Finally, his butler told him about Joseph, a foreign youth that he had met in jail, who possessed great interpretive powers from God. Joseph was summoned, and the Pharaoh recounted his dream to him.

In the dream, seven fat cattle emerged from the river and fed in the meadow. After them came seven more that were sickly and unpleasant, and they ate all of the fat cattle. But even though they ate such a fat meal, the seven remained just as scrawny and sickly as before.

This was the symbol, and Joseph gave the Pharaoh the interpretation of it: the seven fat cattle were seven good years with a bounteous crop and the seven sickly cattle were seven years of famine that would follow. The seven years of famine would so thoroughly eradicate the abundance of the good years, that it would be as if the abundance had never even occurred.

So, there we have the specific interpretation of it, but are there any other possible interpretations? I think so. I see in this a general concept of evil overtaking good and leaving none of it behind. This pattern can be seen in many specific instances in our lives. We see this in the addict who does shameful actions in secret and tries to cover them with an overabundance of external good deeds. The good on the surface is hollow, and does him no benefit, because he does them all with a guilty heart, so he remains as guilty and shameful as he always was. We see any time a wealthy man leaves an inheritance to a foolish and wasteful son, who then squanders all the riches until none of it is left, and he remains as foolish and wasteful as he always was.

I believe that this symbol has many universal applications, in addition to the specific one that Joseph gave to Pharaoh.

As it turns out, there is another symbol at play here, but before I can explain it, we need to consider another story that follows this exact same pattern. The similarities between that story and this one are uncanny, which speaks to the fact that they are cut from the same symbolic cloth. We will dive into that other story, and the shared theme between it and this one, tomorrow.