And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it.
Pharaoh said ... I have dreamed a dream. The king's brief statement of the service required brought out the genuine piety of Joseph. Disclaiming all merit, he ascribed whatever gifts or sagacity he possessed to the Divine Source of all wisdom-declared his own inability to penetrate futurity, but, at the same time, his confident persuasion, that God would reveal what was necessary to be known. The dreams were purely Egyptian-founded on the productions of that country, and the experience of a native. The fertility of Egypt being wholly dependent on the Nile, the scene is laid on the banks of that river; and oxen being in the ancient hieroglyphics symbolical of the earth and of food, animals of that species were introduced in the first dream.