Joseph and his brothers
42
📚Now when Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, Jacob said to his sons, “Why are you looking at one another?” 2 📚And he said, “Look, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Get yourselves down there and buy grain for us from there, so that we can live, and not die”.3 📚And ten brothers of Joseph went down to buy grain in Egypt. 4 📚But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, “Perhaps some harm may come to him”.
42:4 Benjamin was the only son of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel left in Canaan.⚜
5 📚So among those who came to Egypt, the sons of Israel also came to buy grain, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
6 📚And Joseph was the ruler over the land, and he was the one who sold grain to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came, and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the earth.
7 📚And Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but acted like a stranger to them, speaking roughly to them. And he said to them, “Where have you come from?” And they said, “From the land of Canaan to buy food”.
42:7 Joseph was not unforgiving (Gen 45:4-5). Evidently he waited to see if they had repented of their sin against him (Gen 37:18, 28).⚜
8 📚And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him 📖. 9 📚And Joseph remembered the dreams 📖 which he had about them, and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see the unprotected parts of the land”.
10 📚And they said to him, “No, my lord 📖, but your servants have come to buy food. 11 📚We are all the sons of one man. We, your servants, are honest men, not spies”.
12 And he said to them, “No! You have come to see the unprotected parts of the land”.
13 📚And they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. See, today the youngest is with our father, and one is no more”.
14 📚And Joseph said to them, “It is just as I told you when I said, You are spies. 15 📚This is how you will be tested: By the life of Pharaoh you will not go out of here unless your youngest brother comes here. 16 📚Send one of you, and let him bring your brother. And you will be kept in prison, so that your words can be tested, to see if there is any truth in you. Or else by the life of Pharaoh you are surely spies”. 17 📚And he put them all together in custody for three days.
18 📚And on the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and live, for I fear God 📖: 19 📚If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in the prison where you are. Then you go and take grain for the famine in your houses. 20 📚But bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you will not die”. And they did so.
21 📚And they said to one another, “We are, in fact, guilty about our brother 📖, for we saw the pain of his soul when he pled with us, and we would not listen. Therefore this distress has come on us”. 22 📚And Reuben answered them, saying, “Did I not tell you, saying ‘Do not sin against the boy 📖?’ And you would not listen. So see, his blood 📖 is being accounted for”. 23 📚And they did not know that Joseph understood them, for he spoke to them through an interpreter.
24 📚And he turned away from them and wept 📖. Then he turned back to them and talked with them. And he took Simeon from them, and tied him up before their eyes.
25 📚Then Joseph gave a command to fill their sacks with grain and to return each one’s money to his sack, and to give them provision for the road. And this was done for them.
26 And they loaded their donkeys with the grain and left there.
27 📚And when one of them opened his sack at the inn to feed his donkey, he saw his money, for there it was in his sack’s mouth. 28 📚And he said to his brothers, “My money has been returned, and lo and behold, it’s in my sack!” And their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying to one another, “What is this that God 📖 has done to us?”
29 And they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, and told him all that had happened to them, saying, 30 📚“The man who is the lord of the land spoke roughly to us, and took us for spies in the country. 31 📚And we said to him, ‘We are honest men, we are not spies. 32 We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and today the youngest is with our father in the land of Canaan.’ 33 📚And the man, the lord of the country, said to us, ‘This is how I will know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, and take food for the famine in your households, and go, 34 📚and bring your youngest brother to me. Then I will know that you are not spies, but that you are honest. Then I will hand over your brother to you, and you can trade 📖 in the land.’ ”
35 📚And when they emptied their sacks, it happened that, there, in his sack, was each man’s bundle of money. And when they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. 36 📚And their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is not here, and you will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me 📖”.
42:36 It seems that Jacob held his sons responsible for Joseph’s disappearance.⚜
37 📚And Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “If I don’t bring him to you, then kill my two sons! Give him into my hand, and I will bring him back to you”.
38 📚And he said, “My son shall not go down with you! For his brother is dead, and he is left alone 📖. If harm comes to him along the way you are going, then you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave”.