Pharaoh’s Dream – A Modern Interpretation

Pharaoh’s dream of seven years of plenty and seven years of famine¹ was given a modern interpretation by J. Reuben Clark, Jr. In January 1945, some seven months before the Japanese surrender that signaled the end of WWII, President Clark gave a speech entitled “Some Elements of Post-War American Life” and said, in part:

We shall come into postwar America in substantial part . . . regimented for a . . . State and Government which deifies the State and makes of men its slaves. We have gone a long distance down this trail, too . . . .  The fundamentals of this technique are as old, certainly, as Joseph, who was sold into Egypt. For he, acting for Pharaoh, first purchased from the people with the taxes extorted from the people, all the grain produced by the people; then when the famine came Joseph sold this grain back to the people, in the first year for all the cash they had, which he turned over to Pharaoh; in the second year for all the flocks and herds they owned, which all went to Pharaoh; next, for all their lands, which he turned over to Pharaoh and finally, he gave them grain in exchange for their bodies and they became “servants unto Pharaoh”. The enslavement of the people was complete, Joseph saying to them, “Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh,” (Genesis 47:23) and thereafter Joseph moved the people as he willed, and they rented back their lands on the terms he prescribed. There is more than one lesson in Egypt’s seven years of plenty and seven years of famine.²

Sources:

1. Genesis 41.↩
2. “Socialism – The Royal Road to Communism“. Inspired Constitution. 24 Aug 2008; cf. Gordon B. Hinckley’s comments in Lay Up Grain for Seven Years.↩

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