Genesis 41:7 — Word Study

Seven

This number occurs frequently in Scripture, and in such connections as lead to the supposition that it has some typical meaning. On the seventh day God rested, and hallowed it (Gen. 2:2, 3). The division of time into weeks of seven days each accounts for many instances of the occurrence of this number. This number has been called the symbol of perfection, and also the symbol of rest. “Jacob’s seven years’ service to Laban; Pharaoh’s seven fat oxen and seven lean ones; the seven branches of the golden candlestick; the seven trumpets and the seven priests who sounded them; the seven days’ siege of Jericho; the seven churches, seven spirits, seven stars, seven seals, seven vials, and many others, sufficiently prove the importance of this sacred number” (see Lev. 25:4;

The frequent recurrence of certain numbers in the sacred literature of the Hebrews is obvious to the most superficial reader, but seven so far surpasses the rest, both in the frequency with which it recurs and in the importance of the objects with which it is associated, that it may fairly be termed the representative symbolic number. The influence of the number seven was not restricted to the Hebrews; it prevailed among the Persians, ancient Indians, Greeks and Romans. The peculiarity of the Hebrew view consists in the special dignity of the seventh, and not simply in that of seen. The Sabbath being the seventh day suggested the adoption of seven as the coefficient, so to say, for their appointment of all sacred periods; and we thus find the 7th month ushered in by the Feast of Trumpets, and signalized by the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Great Day of Atonement; 7…

As from the beginning this was the number of days in the week, so it often has in Scripture a sort of emphasis attached to it, and is very generally used as a round or perfect number. Clean beasts were taken into the ark by sevens, Ge 7:1-24. The years of plenty and famine in Egypt were marked by sevens, Ge 41:1-57. With the Jews, not only was there a seventh day Sabbath, but every seventh year was a Sabbath, and after every seven times seven years came a jubilee. Their great feasts of unleavened bread and of tabernacles were observed for seven days; the number of animals in many of their sacrifices was limited to seven. The golden candlestick had seven branches. Seven priests with seven trumpets went around the walls of Jericho seven days, and seven times on the seventh day. In…

(chelebh, chelebh): The layer of subcutaneous fat and the compact suet surrounding the viscera and imbedded in the entrails, which, like the blood, was forbidden as food in the Mosaic code (Le 3:17). It was to be sacrificed to God by being burnt upon the altar (Le 3:16; 30). This had to be done on the very day on which a beast had been slaughtered, to remove temptation from the Israelite to use it otherwise (Ex 23:18). The law was probably a sanitary restriction, for, at an early date, leprosy, scrofula and disfiguring cutaneous diseases were thought to be caused by the use of fat as food. It was, moreover, an important pedagogical provision teaching the idea of self-denial, and the maxim that the richest and best meat of the…

fa'-ro, fa'-ra-o (par`oh; Pharao); Egyptian per aa, "great house"):em; the King James Version Pharacim): One of the families of temple-servants who returned with Zerubbabel (1 Esdras 5:31; not found in Ezra or Nehemiah).

1. The Use of Name in Egypt:

Many and strange differences of opinion have been expressed concerning the use of this name in Egypt and elsewhere, because of its importance in critical discussions (see below). Encyclopaedia Biblica says "a name given to all Egyptian kings in the Bible"; it also claims that the name could not have been received by the Hebrews before 1000 BC. HDB (III, 819) says that a letter was addressed to Amenhotep as "Pharaoh, lord of," etc. According to Winckler's theory of a North Arabian Musri, it was the Hebrews alone in ancient times who adopted the term Pharaoh from the Egyptians, the name not being found even in the Tell el-Amarna Letters or…

Pharaoh

The official title borne by the Egyptian kings down to the time when that country was conquered by the Greeks. (See EGYPT.) The name is a compound, as some think, of the words Ra, the “sun” or “sun-god,” and the article phe, “the,” prefixed; hence phera, “the sun,” or “the sun-god.” But others, perhaps more correctly, think the name derived from Perao, “the great house” = his majesty = in Turkish, “the Sublime Porte.”

(1.) The Pharaoh who was on the throne when Abram went down into Egypt (Gen. 12:10-20) was probably one of the Hyksos, or “shepherd kings.” The Egyptians called the nomad tribes of Syria Shasu, “plunderers,” their king or chief Hyk, and hence the name of those invaders who conquered the native kings and established a strong government, with Zoan or Tanis as their capital. They were of…

the common title of the native kings of Egypt in the Bible, corresponding to P-ra or Ph-ra "the sun," of the hieroglyphics. Brugsch, Ebers and other modern Egyptologists define it to mean ’the great house," which would correspond to our "the Sublime Porte." As several kings are mentioned only by the title "Pharaoh" in the Bible, it is important to endeavor to discriminate them: The Pharaoh of Abraham . (Genesis 12:15) --At the time at which the patriarch went into Egypt, it is generally held that the country, or at least lower Egypt, was ruled by the Shepherd kings, of whom the first and moat powerful line was the fifteenth dynasty, the undoubted territories of which would be first entered by one coming from the east. The date at which Abraham visited Egypt was about B.C. 2081, which would accord with the time of Salatis the head of…

Is properly an Egyptian word adopted into the Hebrew, and signifies king; so that when we find this name it means everywhere the king. Thus, also, Pharaoh Hophra is simply king Hophra.

Of the kings of Egypt, there are not less than twelve or thirteen mentioned in Scripture, all of whom bore the general title of Pharaoh, except four. Along with this title, two of them have also other proper names, Necho and Hophra. The following is their order. Some of them have been identified, by the labors of Champollion and others, with kings whose proper names we know from other sources, while others still remain in obscurity. Indeed, so brief, obscure, and conflicting are the details of Egyptian history and ancient chronology, which no name before that of Shishak can be regarded as identified beyond dispute.

The orientals, and in particular the Jews, greatly regarded dreams, and applied for their interpretation to those who undertook to explain them. We see the antiquity of this custom in the history of Pharaoh’s butler and baker, Ge 40:1-23; and Pharaoh himself and Nebuchadnezzar are also instances. God expressly forbade his people to observe dreams, and to consult explainers of them. He condemned to death all who pretended to have prophetic dreams, even though what they foretold came to pass, if they had any tendency to promote idolatry, De 13:1-3. But they were not forbidden, when they thought they had a significant dream, to address the prophets of the Lord, or the high priest in his ephod, to have it explained. The Lord frequently made known his will in dreams, and enabled…