Genesis 41:31 Meaning And the Plenty Will Not Be Known

Anicca: Impermanence Whatever has arisen runs down. The heavy harvests are already on their way out while the grain is still being carted to the storehouses, since a good season is a bundle of conditions like any other. Egypt loses the plenty the way a full barn empties, by ordinary passing rather than by anyone's fault.

Vipariṇāmadukkha: The suffering that comes when pleasant things turn Comfort does its damage at the point where it reverses. Seven years of eating well are exactly what make the later ration grievous, because the drop is felt from the height it falls from, and a mouth used to bread judges an empty bowl harshly. A land that had never been full would still go hungry, and it would not be crushed in the same way.

Sati: Holding in mind Sati is the mind keeping in view what it has already seen. Hunger closes attention around itself until seven years of full granaries go blank, as though the country had always been dry, and the plenty stops being known while the fields still bear its furrows. Joseph, who has come up through a pit and a prison into Pharaoh's court, keeps both seasons in view at once, which is what makes his reading of the dream worth acting on.

Anāgatabhaya: Dangers still ahead Effort gets urged by pointing at troubles that have not landed yet: sickness, aging, lean times when food is hard to come by. Pharaoh receives that kind of warning through gaunt cows walking up out of the Nile, and it is useful only in the years before it comes true. Foresight is worth a great deal during the plenty and worth nothing once the last grain is eaten.

Appamāda: Heedfulness Heedfulness is doing the needed thing while doing it is still possible. The grievous years are coming either way, so everything rests on the full ones being spent well, a fifth of each harvest set aside instead of consumed. It is the same care as putting money away in the months you have work, and here a whole country lives or dies on whether that care shows up in time.