Then ¹  seven other cows came up after them; they were scrawny, very bad-looking, and lean. I had never seen such bad-looking cows ²  as these in all the land of Egypt!

The bad-looking, thin cows ate the seven fine-looking, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.

The lean, bad-looking cows ate up the seven ¹  fat cows.

Then seven bad-looking, thin cows were coming up after them from the Nile, ¹  and they stood beside the other cows at the edge of the river. ² 

When they had eaten them, ¹  no one would have known ²  that they had done so, for they were just as bad-looking as before. Then I woke up.

The seven lean, bad-looking cows that came up after them represent seven years, as do the seven empty heads of grain burned with the east wind. They represent ¹  seven years of famine.

One basket had very good-looking figs in it. They looked like those that had ripened early. ¹  The other basket had very bad-looking figs in it, so bad they could not be eaten.