Verses 1-8
The "magicians" were "men of the priestly caste, who occupied themselves with the sacred arts and sciences of the Egyptians, the hieroglyphic writings, astrology, the interpretation of dreams, the foretelling of events, magic, and conjuring, and who were regarded as the possessors of secret arts (vid. Ex. vii. 11) and the wise men of the nation." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:349.]
Divination tries to understand the future, and magic seeks to control it. God withheld the Egyptian diviners from comprehending the meaning of Pharaoh’s dreams even though the clue to their interpretation lay in the religious symbols of Egypt.
"For the cow was the symbol of Isis, the goddess of the all-sustaining earth, and in the hieroglyphics it represents the earth, agriculture, and food; and the Nile, by its overflowing, was the source of fertility of the land." [Note: Ibid.]
Yet these symbols had multiple meanings to the Egyptians, which probably accounts for the difficulty of interpretation. [Note: Wenham, Genesis 16-50, p. 391.]
"Seven-year famines were a familiar feature of life in the ancient Near East." [Note: Ibid., p. 398.]
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