Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 6. Blasted with the east wind] It has been very properly observed that all the mischief done to corn or fruit, by blasting, smutting, mildews, locusts, &c., is attributed to the east wind. See Exod. x. 13; xiv. 21; Psa. lxxviii. 26; Ezek. xvii. 10; Jon iv. 8. In Egypt it is peculiarly destructive, because it comes through the parched deserts of Arabia, often destroying vast numbers of men and women. The destructive nature of the simoom or smoom is mentioned by almost all travelers. Mr. Bruce speaks of it in his Travels in Egypt. On their way to Syene, Idris their guide, seeing one of these destroying blasts coming, cried out with a loud voice to the company, ""Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom! I saw,"" says Mr. B., ""from the S. E. a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground, with my head northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat upon the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor or purple haze which I saw was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of a heat to threaten suffocation. for my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it; nor was I free from an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the bathe of Poretta, near two years afterwards.""-Travels, vol. vi., p. 462. On another occasion the whole company were made ill by one of these pestilential blasts, so that they had scarcely strength to load their camels. - ibid., p. 484. The action of this destructive wind is referred to by the Prophet Hos. xiii. 15: Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an EAST WIND shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up FROM THE WILDERNESS, and his spring shall BECOME DRY, and his fountain shall be DRIED up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-8 - The means of Joseph's being freed from prison were Pharaoh's dreams, a here related. Now that God no longer speaks to us in that way, it is n matter how little we either heed dreams, or tell them. The telling of foolish dreams can make no better than foolish talk. But these dream showed that they were sent of God; when he awoke, Pharaoh's spirit wa troubled.
Original Hebrew והנה2009 שׁבע7651 שׁבלים7641 דקות1851 ושׁדופת7710 קדים6921 צמחות6779 אחריהן׃310
