Behold, seven other cattle came up after them out of the river, ugly and thin, and stood by the other cattle on the brink of the river.
Parallel Translations
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Behold, seven other cattle came up after them out of the river, ugly and thin, and stood by the other cattle on the brink of the river.
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And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river.
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And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and lean-fleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river.
Cross-references (2)
Passages linked to Genesis 41:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 41:4 The ugly and thin cattle ate up the seven sleek and fat cattle. So Pharaoh awoke.
- Genesis 41:20-21 The thin and ugly cattle ate up the first seven fat cattle; and when they had eaten them up, it couldn’t be known that they had eaten them, but they were still ugly, as at the beginning. So I awoke.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (5 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 41:3 And, behold, seven other kine came up…
Gen 41:3 And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the [other] kine upon the brink of the river.
Ver. 3. Seven other kine came up out of the river.] These, by their leanness, portended drought and dearth, though they came up out of Nile also. This river, when it overflows unto twelve cubits’ height only, causeth famine; when to thirteen scarcity; when to fourteen, cheerfulness; when to fifteen, affluence; when to sixteen, abundance, as Pliny tells us. The greatest increase ever known, was of eighteen cubits, under Claudius (we read of a general famine in his days, Act 11:28, mentioned also by Suetonius and Josephus); {a} the smallest of five cubits, in the history of the Pharsalian wars. Such a thing might happen now, to cause this sore famine. Or the river, for their sins, might be dried up, as God threatens them. {Eze 29:3; Eze 29:9 Isa 19:5-6} And as it happened in the reign of Cleopatra, that prodigiously prodigal queen, the river overflowed not for two years together, saith Seneca: as at another time it overflowed not for nine years together, saith Callimachus; and after him Ovid. {b} How easy is it for God to starve us all, by denying us a few harvests! In case of famine, let us inquire the supernatural cause; as David did, {2Sa 21:1} when he knew the natural cause to be the drought.
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{a} Suet., in Claudio. Joseph., Antiq., lib. xx. cap. 2. Luc., lib. v. cap. 9.
Creditur Aegyptus caruisse iuvantibus arva
Imbribus, atque annis sicca fuisse novem. - Ovid.
{b} Sen., Nat. Quaest., lib. iv. cap. 2.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Which shows how sparingly the river overflowed the lands.
Which shows how sparingly the river overflowed the lands.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And, behold, seven other kine came up after them…
And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured, and leanfleshed,.... Thin and haggard, their bones stuck out, having scarce any flesh upon them, and made a wretched figure:
and stood by the other kine; and looked so much the worse, when compared with them:
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upon the brink of the river; it not being overflowed, so that there was no grass to be had, but just upon the bank, where these kept for that purpose; for the fruitfulness of Egypt was owing to the river Nile; as that overflowed or did not, there was plenty or famine; hence both these sorts of creatures came up out of that.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Very bank; to shew that the Nile had not…
Very bank; to shew that the Nile had not inundated far, and that consequently a great famine would prevail, as the fertility of Egypt depends greatly on the overflowing of the Nile. "When the river rises 12 cubits, sterility pervades Egypt; when 13, famine is still felt. Fourteen cubits bring joy, 15 security, 16 delight. It has never yet been known to rise above 18 cubits." (Pliny, Natural History v. 9.) This successive depression of the waters was an effect of God’s judgments, which no astrologers could foretel. (Tirinus)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And, behold, seven other kind came up after them…
And, behold, seven other kind came up after them out of the river, ill. favored and lean-fleshed. The second seven cows, "evil to look upon," i.e. bad in appearance, and "thin (beaten small, dakoth, from dakak , to crush or beat small) of flesh," also proceeded from the river, since a failure in the periodical overflow of the Nile was the usual cause of scarcity and famine in Egypt. And stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. The use of the term lip, hp; c; for brink, common enough in Hebrew (Gen_22:17; Exo_14:30; 1Ki_5:9) occurs also in a papyrus of the nineteenth dynasty, "I sat down by the lip of the river," which appears to suggest the impression that the verse in the text was written by one who was equally familiar with both languages (Canon Cook in "Speaker s Commentary," p. 485).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.