Ambrose of Milan : However, I do not think that this dream is demonstrated to one or two, but to all; because the seven fat years of this world, rich with secular abundance, are absorbed by those ages which are yet to come, in which there will be perpetual rest and observance of the spiritual law, which Ephraem holds dear to God and fruitful for the three patriarchs. A good cow, not one with a distended body but abundant in spiritual milk and grace, on whose beauty God says He will sit, as it is written: Ephraem, the learned cow, loves victory. But I passed over the beauty of her neck. Therefore, our head should not be fattened by the oil of sinners, nor should false fruits delight us, lest it be said of us: You have sown wickedness and harvested iniquity. I am not moved by her thin and rotten ears of grain, for even David was better when he wasted away like a spider's web; and a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God; and those who have been oppressed by the spirit of evil in this world will be saved by a more excellent one. — On Joseph the Patriarch