What Does Genesis 41:6 Mean?

And behold, after them there sprouted seven ears, thin and blighted by the east wind. The second set of seven grain ears is the second half of the grain dream: the counterpart to the seven plump ears, just as the ugly thin cows were the counterpart to the fat cows. "Thin and blighted by the east wind" describes the physical symptoms of grain that has been damaged by the hot, dry desert wind (the sirocco) that blows in from the eastern desert. Grain blighted by the east wind is shriveled, lightweight, and agriculturally worthless: the physical appearance of crop failure rather than abundance.

The east wind as the instrument of the grain's destruction in the dream is a specific agricultural detail: the sirocco that blows hot and dry from the desert is one of the most damaging weather events for Levantine and Egyptian grain crops. When the east wind blows during the critical ripening period, it shrivels the grain on the stalk, producing the thin, empty ears described here. Pharaoh's dream uses the specific natural mechanism of Egyptian crop failure to communicate the nature of the coming famine years.

The symmetry of the two dream pairs is now fully visible. Fat cows / thin cows from the Nile. Plump grain / blighted grain on the stalk. Both pairs use the same structure: seven good, seven bad; good devoured or supplanted by bad; the bad leaving no visible trace of the good. Joseph's eventual interpretation will explain both pairs as the same message in two registers: seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. The dream has already told the complete story in two different visual languages; the interpreter's task is to translate both into the same economic reality that Pharaoh needs to act upon.