Genesis 41:18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And, behold, there came, &c.— "Phantasms in dreams," says Bishop Warburton, "were superstitiously thought to be symbolical: God, therefore, when it was his good pleasure to send dreams to Pharaoh, made two well-known symbols the foundation of them; and this, doubtless, in order to engage the dreamer's more serious attention. But then, to confound the AEgyptian oneirocritics or interpreters of dreams, these dreams were so circumstanced with matters foreign to the principles of their art, that there was need of a truly divine interpreter.—Pharaoh had two dreams, one of seven kine, the other of seven ears of corn. Both these phantasms were symbols of AEgypt; the ears denoting its distinguished fertility, the kine its great tutelary patroness Isis. Pharaoh knew thus much without an interpreter; and hence arose his solicitude and anxiety to understand the rest, as a matter that concerned the public; accordingly, when Joseph came to decypher these dreams, he does not tell the king that the two sevens denoted seven years in AEgypt, but simply seven years."