What Does Genesis 41:30 Mean?

"But after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land." Joseph names the second period with equal explicitness: seven years of famine, following the seven of plenty, consuming the land. The phrase "all the plenty will be forgotten" is the verbal translation of the dream's visual of thin cows that showed no evidence of having eaten the fat ones. The famine will be so severe that the preceding abundance will be experientially erased: transformatively catastrophic, making the good years seem as if they had never occurred.

"The famine will consume the land" is the economic translation of the eating in the dreams: the thin cows ate the fat cows; the blighted grain swallowed the full grain; the famine will consume Egypt. The verb "consume" (yikhal) carries the sense of exhausting, using up completely, leaving nothing. It is specifically that the famine will be difficult; it will exhaust Egypt's resources unless the abundance is deliberately preserved in advance. The seven years of famine that consume the land is what the stored grain of the seven abundant years must be sufficient to withstand.

The detail that "all the plenty will be forgotten" also communicates the social and psychological effect of the famine. the memory of abundance: the human experience of the good years: will be overwhelmed by the severity of the lean years. Pharaoh's dream showed this in the image of thin cows that showed no change from eating fat ones. Joseph's interpretation translates this into the human experience of a famine so severe that the preceding abundance provides no psychological comfort. The forgotten plenty is the emotional reality of the people Joseph's administrative plan is designed to protect.