Genesi 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, Atti degli Apostoli 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. Ezechiele 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.

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.