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[84]
To which Joseph replied: - "This dream," said he, "O
king, although seen under two forms, signifies one and the same event of
things; for when thou sawest the fat kine, which is an animal made for
the plough and for labor, devoured by the worser kine, and the ears of
corn eaten up by the smaller ears, they foretell a famine, and want of
the fruits of the earth for the same number of years, and equal with those
when Egypt was in a happy state; and this so far, that the plenty of these
years will be spent in the same number of years of scarcity, and that scarcity
of necessary provisions will be very difficult to be corrected; as a sign
whereof, the ill-favored kine, when they had devoured the better sort,
could not be satisfied. But still God foreshows what is to come upon men,
not to grieve them, but that, when they know it beforehand, they may by
prudence make the actual experience of what is foretold the more tolerable.
If thou, therefore, carefully dispose of the plentiful crops which will
come in the former years, thou wilt procure that the future calamity will
not be felt by the Egyptians."
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