Genesis Notes: Pharaoh's Dreams and Layers of Meaning

GENESIS 41
One of the things that I love so much about the Catholic approach to Scripture is the acceptance that there are layers upon layers of meaning to be found. This is very well illustrated when Joseph is needed to interpret Pharaoh's dreams. Until I read this I never would have connected the famine in Pharaoh's dreams with man's condition waiting for Jesus, the "Living Bread" but it makes a definite connection.

James Tissot, Joseph Interprets Pharaoh's Dream

Pharaoh's dreams are given in great detail and repeated several times in chapter 41. The net effect of the repetition is to focus our attention on them. "Notice the details!" it fairly shouts.

But why? What is there to notice, other than the fact that the dreams warned Pharaoh of an economic downturn that would wipe out all memory of prosperity and potentially wipe out the population? Wasn't it just a setup, so Joseph could be brought into power?

This is a good time to remember that there are layers of meaning in Scripture, and that understanding the literal meaning can be a springboard to illuminating a deeper spiritual sense. In this case, Pharaoh's dreams and the state of Egypt they represent gain significance when we realize that they are in microcosm a picture of the condition of mankind after the fall. We gain profound insight into the way Joseph saves Egypt by seeing it as sign of the way Christ will come to change that condition.

[...]

Returning to Pharaoh's dreams, it is significant that other than the account of the flood, which signifies baptism, all the major pictures of man's condition and the solution to come (the fruit in the Garden; the famine and grain; and later manna in the wilderness, bread from heaven, the feeding of the 5,000; etc.) are couched in terms of food. For what is it that gives us life but the food that Jesus provides, His Body and Blood? As we read in St. John's gospel: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." (John 6:51). As Catholics we take in this new life every time we eat the host at Mass. As the Catechism so aptly says,

"... when the faithful receive the Body of the Son, they proclaim to one another the Good News that the first fruits of life have been given.' Now too are life and resurrection conferred on whoever receives Christ." What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh -- given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit, "preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism." (1391-2)

All quotes from Genesis, Part II: God and His Family. This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.