GENESIS 42
JOSEPH’S BRETHREN IN EGYPT
1 Now when Yaakov saw that there were rations in Egypt, Yaakov said to his sons: Why do you keep looking at one another?saw. He had probably seen the corn brought by caravans.
why do you look one upon another? Paralysed by doubt and helplessness (Luzzatto).
[RA] provisions. Most of the biblical occurrences of this noun shever, as well as the transitive verb shavar (verse 3, “to buy”) and the causative verb hishbir (verse 6) are in this story. The root means “to break,” and the sense seems to be: food provisions that serve to break an imposed fast, that is, a famine (hence “provisions to stave off the famine,” shever ra’avon, in verse 19). The term “rations” adopted by at least three recent translations has a misleading military connotation.
fearful. All English versions construe this as a reflexive of the verb for seeing (r-‘-h) and render it along the lines of “staring at one another.” But the four other occurrences of this root in the reflexive in the Bible invariably link it with panim (“face”), and staring as a gesture of inaction is not characteristically biblical. The Targum of Yonatan derived the verb from the root meaning “to fear” (y-r-‘), a construal feasible without emendation because the yod can be elided. Fearing and the injunction to fear not are recurrent elements in the story of the brothers’ descent to Egypt.
2 And he said: Here, I have heard that there are rations in Egypt, go down there and buy us rations from there, that we may live and not die.[EF] that we may live and not die: This becomes a refrain in the story, alternating in meaning between Yosef’s family (here and 43:8) and the Egyptians (47:19).
[RA] And he said. The repetition of the formula introducing speech with no intervening response from the person of persons addressed accords with the general biblical convention we have observed elsewhere: such repetition is an indication of a failure of response by the interlocutors. The brothers here do not know how to respond to their father’s challenge.
that we may live and not die. The almost excessive spelling out in Jacob’s words may reflect his impatience with his sons, who are acting as though they did not grasp the urgency of the situation.
3 So Yosef’s brothers went down, ten (of them), to buy some rationed grain from Egypt.
[RA] the ten brothers. Biblical narrative is meticulous in its choice of familial epithets. When the ten go down to Egypt to encounter the man who will prove to be their supposedly dead brother, they are identified as Joseph’s brothers, not Jacob’s sons.
4 But Binyamin, Yosef’s brother, Yaakov would not send with his brothers, for he said: Lest harm befall him![EF] Yosef’s brother: His full brother, as opposed to the others who were half-brothers.
[RA] Benjamin, Joseph’s brother. The identification of Benjamin as Joseph’s brother is formally identical to the family epithet in the previous verse, with the pointed difference that only Benjamin is Joseph’s full brother.
5 The sons of Yisrael came to buy rations among those that came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
[RA] among those who came. This economical phrase indicates a great crowd of people, from “all the earth,” drive by the famine to Egypt, where there was food to be bought.
6 Now Yosef was the governor over the land, it was he who supplied rations to all the people of the land. And Yosef’s brothers came and bowed low to him, brow to the ground.
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he it was that sold. He superintended the sales, and foreign purchasers would be brought to him to be interrogated. His dreams were being fulfilled, see XXXVII,7-10. The brothers ‘bowed themselves down before him’.
7 When Yosef saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended-no-recognition of them and spoke harshly with them. He said to them: From where do you come? They said: From the land of Canaan, to buy food-rations.spoke roughly with them. The brother who had been shamefully and pitilessly sold into slavery now had his opportunity for revenge. The greatness of Joseph lies in the fact that for all time he showed men a better way. He tests his brethren, holding his own natural feelings in check until convinced of their filial piety to their father, their love for Benjamin, and their sincere contrition for their crime towards him. Then he forgives them freely, fully, and lovingly.
[EF] recognized: Ironically recalling the brothers “Pray recognize” of 37:32. pretended-no-recognition: Others use “pretended to be a stranger.”
[RA] and recognized them, and . . . played the stranger to them. The verb for “recognize” and the verb for “play the stranger” are derived from the same root (the latter being a reflexive form of the root). Both uses pick up the thematically prominent repetition of the same root earlier in the story: Jacob was asked to “recognize” Joseph’s blood-soaked tunic and Tamar invited Judah to “recognize” the tokens he had left with her as security for payment for sexual services.
8 Now although Yosef recognized his brothers, for their part, they did not recognize him.
his brethren. Recognized, but not recognizing the Grand Vizier, who in dress, name, language, and bearing was an Egyptian, as their brother.
[RA] And Joseph recognized his brothers but they did not recognize him. Given the importance of the recognition theme and the verb to which it is linked, it is fitting that the fact of Joseph’s recognizing his brothers should be repeated, along with their failure to recognize him (in other words, the success of his playing the stranger).
9 And Yosef was reminded of the dreams that he had dreamt of them. He said to them: You are spies! It is to see the nakedness of the land that you have come!
and Joseph remembered his dreams. Not in a spirit of pride and hatred, but as the revealed will of the good God whose ways are inscrutable.
ye are spies. The most natural accusation to bring against strangers in Egypt, or anywhere.
nakedness of the land. The weak spots in the line of defence along the border. The North-East of Egypt was its weak side, and strangers entering from this direction were jealously watched.
[EF] nakedness: Vulnerability (strategically).
[RA] And Joseph remembered the dreams. This brief memory-flashback is a device rarely used in biblical narrative. Its importance here is that the brothers, prostrated before Joseph, are, unbeknownst to them, literally fulfilling his two prophetic dreams, the very dreams that enraged them and triggered the violence they perpetrated against him. There is surely an element of sweet triumph for Joseph in seeing his grandiose dreams fulfilled so precisely, though it would be darkened by his recollection of what the report of his dreams led his brothers to do. The repetition of Joseph’s angry accusation thus has psychological resonance: he remembers, and he remembers the reason for his long-standing anger.
the land’s nakedness. The idiom refers to that which should be hidden from an outsider’s eyes, as the pudenda are to be hidden from all but the legitimate sexual partner. Joseph’s language thus casts the alleged spies as violators of the land.
10 They said to him: No, my lord! Rather, your servants have come to buy food-rations. 11 We are all of us the sons of a single man, we are honest, your servants have never been spies!one man’s sons. A sufficient answer to the charge of being spies, for no man would risk the lives of ten sons in so dangerous an undertaking.
[EF] honest: They will be, by the end of the chapter (Redford).
[RA] We are all the sons of one man. We are honest. Your servants would never be spies. This series of three brief sentences, without connecting “and’s,” is uncharacteristic of biblical style, and may well be intended to reflect the brother’s emphatic, anxious defensiveness in the face of Joseph’s wholly unexpected accusation.
12 But he said to them: No! For it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see!nay. Joseph repeats his accusation. This throws them off their guard, and they seek to disarm his suspicions by volunteering information about their father and youngest brother, of which Joseph at once takes advantage.
13 They said: Your servants are twelve, we are brothers, sons of a single man in the land of Canaan: the youngest is with our father now, and one is no more.one is not. Refers of course to Joseph. They did not say that he was dead, because they did not really know what became of him.
[EF] twelve: At last they think of themselves as a unit “we are brothers!”
[RA] Twelve brothers your servants are. The Hebrew places the number twelve at the very beginning of the brother’s speech. They use the euphemism “is no more” (literally, “is not” ) to indicate that Joseph is dead, not imagining, in the strong dramatic irony of the scene, that the brother who makes the full complement of twelve stands before them. It is thematically pointed that they identify themselves as “twelve brothers,” although only ten of them stand before Joseph.
14 Yosef said to them: It is just as I spoke to you, saying: You are spies![RA] 15-16. Joseph’s swearing by Pharaoh at first seems merely part of his playing his role as Egyptian. Not until verse 23 do we learn that he is addressing them through an interpreter, so the locution also probably reflects the fact that he is speaking Egyptian.
15 Hereby shall you be tested: As Pharaoh lives! You shall not depart from this (place) unless your youngest brother comes here!ye shall be proved. Their story is improbable. It must be verified. Let them bring Benjamin down to Egypt. In this way, Joseph would test their loyalty to their youngest brother. Did they also hate Benjamin as they had hated him? He delicately refrains from cross-questioning them about the brother who ‘is not’.
16 Send one of you to fetch your brother, while (the rest of) you remain as prisoners. Thus will your words be tested, whether there is truth in you or not- as Pharaoh lives, indeed, you are spies![EF] tested: Heb. bahan, a different root from the word translated “tested” (nissa) in 22:1. Interestingly, the English “test” and the Hebrew bhn originally meant the refining of metals, separating pure from impure. or not–: Or “(in you.)/If not . . .”
17 He removed them into custody for three days. 18 Yosef said to them on the third day: Do this, and stay alive, for I hold God in awe:this do, and live. Better, ‘this do in order that ye m ay live.’ The brethren claimed to be upright, honest men. Profession was not enough. Let them bring the youngest brother, ‘so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die’ (v. 20).
for I fear God. And so am unwilling to treat you with unnecessary severity on mere suspicion. I will keep one of you as a hostage, the rest shall convey food for your families. ‘Fear of God is the universal element in religion which humanizes our dealings with “foreigners”, even when national interests are involved’ (Procksch).
19 if you are honest, let one of your brothers be held prisoner in the house of your custody, and as for you, go, bring back rations for the famine-supply of your households. 20 Then bring your youngest brother back to me, so that your words will be proven truthful, and you will not die. They (prepared to) do so.[RA] And your youngest brother you shall bring to me. The “test” of bringing Benjamin to Egypt is actually a test of fraternal fidelity. Joseph may have some lingering suspicion as to whether the brothers have done away with Benjamin, the other son of Rachel, as they imagine they have gotten rid of him.
21 But they said, each man to his brother: Truly, we are guilty: concerning our brother! -that we saw his heart’s distress when he implored us, and we did not listen. Therefore this distress has come upon us!we are verily guilty. Joseph had at last awakened remorse in their hearts. They had been blind to the distress of their brother, and deaf to his entreaties. They were guilty, and their misfortune was a just retribution for their cruelty. It is only now, in the mirror of their repentance, that we see reflected the agonizing scene when the lad was thrown into the pit many years before. See on XXXVII,23. With broken and contrite hearts, they now recall their inhuman callousness—all in the hearing of Joseph.
[EF] guilty: Perhaps it is the phrase “youngest brother” in Yosef’s words (v. 20) that jars their memory. They must now show responsibility to their father, which they had evaded in Chap. 37. distress. . . distress: Another example of justice in the Bible: the punishment fits the crime.
[RA] Alas, we are guilty. The psychological success of Joseph’s stratagem is confirmed by the fact that the accusation and the hostage taking immediately trigger feelings of guilt over their behavior toward Joseph. Notably, it is only now, not in the original report (37:23-24), that we learn that Joseph pleaded with them when they cast him into the pit, a remarkable instance of withheld narrative exposition. Reuben, who tried to save him, now becomes the chief spokesman for their collective guilt.
22 Re’uven answered them, saying: Did I not say to you, say: Do not sin against the child! But you would not listen, so for his blood-now, (satisfaction) is demanded!his blood is required. Reuben assumes that Joseph’s death, whatever form it took, was due to them. They were morally guilty of his death. His blood is ‘required’, i.e. is now being avenged (see IX,5).
[EF] Re’uven: A replay of Chap. 37, with Re’uven again making extravagant but ineffective declarations. Once again Yehuda will emerge in charge.
23 Now they did not know that Yosef was listening, for a translator was between them.interpreter. Joseph throughout spoke to them as the Viceroy, in Egyptian
[EF] translator: Interpreter.
[RA] And they did not know that Joseph understood. The verb for understanding which also means “to hear” or “to listen,” plays ironically against its use in the immediately preceding verse, “and you would not listen.”
24 But he turned away from them and wept. When he was able to return to them, he spoke to them and had Shim’on taken away from them, imprisoning him before their eyes.and wept. He is touched to tears by their penitence and contrition.
Simeon. As the next in age to Reuben, who is the eldest was to report to Jacob. According to Rabbinic tradition, it was Simeon who had counselled that Joseph be slain.
[EF] imprisoning: Or “fettering.” before their eyes: As opposed to the sale of Yosef where their presence is not mentioned, strictly speaking.
[RA] And he turned away from them and wept. This is the first of three times, in a clear crescendo pattern, that Joseph is moved to tears by his brothers.
25 Then Yosef commanded that they fill their vessels with grain and return their silver-pieces into each man’s sack, and give them victuals for the journey. They did so for them.
[EF] they fill: “They” refers to Yosef’s servants. silverpieces: Yosef had been sold for silver (37:28).
[RA] to put back their silver into each one’s pack. The return of the silver is also associated with the brothers’ guilt, for it repeats their receiving of silver from the Ishmaelites for the sale of Joseph as a slave. If the story reflects the realia of the Patriarchal period, the silver would be weights of silver, not coins, and the weighing out of silver in Abraham’s purchase of the burial site from the Hittites suggest that is what is to be imagined here.
26 Then they loaded their rations onto their donkeys and went from there. 27 But as one opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the night-camp, he saw his silver-there it was in the mouth of his pack!lodging-place. Wayside shelter.
28 He said to his brothers: My silver has been returned-yes, here in my pack! Their hearts gave way, and they trembled to one another, saying: What is this that God has done to us?they turned trembling. They wonder what such an unusual occurrence may portend. Will they be accused of theft?
[RA] My silver has been put back and, look, it’s actually in my bag. These words of astonishment, with their virtual redundance and their locutions of emphasis—wegam hineh be’amtati, “it’s actually in my bag”—ironically correspond to the language of amazement used by the young Joseph in reporting his dream (compare 37:7).
dumbfounded. The Hebrew says literally, “their heart went out.”
What is this that God has done to us? This is a kind of double dramatic irony. It is of course Joseph who has done this to them, but we are also invited to think of him as God’s instrument—an idea he himself will emphasize after he reveals himself to his brothers. Thus a double system of causation, human and divine, is brought to the fore.
29-34. They recount their experience to their father.
29 They came home to Yaakov their father, in the land of Canaan, and told him all that had befallen them, saying: 30 The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly with us, he took us for those that spy on the land!
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the lord of. The Heb. is in the plural, often used to express power or greatness. harshly: Paralleling their earlier attitude: they “could not speak to him in peace” (37:4).
[EF] The man. Used eight times of Yosef in Chaps. 42-44, perhaps out of ironic anonymity.
[RA] 31-34. The near verbatim repetition of reported speech, as we have seen elsewhere, is standard biblical practice, though more commonly there are subtle significant variations in the repetition. Here, the one notable change is that in addressing Jacob directly, they substitute “our father’ for “one man.”
31 Now we said to him: We are honest, we have never been spies! 32 We are twelve, brothers all, sons of our father: one is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in the land of Canaan. 33 Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us: Hereby shall I know whether you are honest: Leave one of your brothers with me, and as for the famine-supply of your households, take it and go.corn for the famine. The words ‘corn for’ are supplied from the context.
[RA] provisions against the famine. The Hebrew here uses an ellipsis, simply, “famine.”
34 But bring your youngest brother back to me, so that I may know that you are not spies, that you are honest. (Then) I will give your brother back to you, and you may travel about the land.traffic in the land. Joseph did not say this, but ‘and ye shall not die’ 9v. 20). This could only be by allowing the brethren to come to Egypt and buy corn.
[RA] trade. The primary meaning of the verb is “to go around,” and by extension, “to engage in commerce.” Given the situation of going back and forth to Egypt to buy grain, the sense of trading seems more likely here.
35 But it was, when they emptied their sacks: there was each man’s silver pouch in his sack! They looked at their silver pouches, they and their father, and became frightened.
they were afraid. i.e. Jacob and his sons. They looked upon it as a deliberate act on the part of the Egyptian lord to bring a charge of theft against them.
[RA] look, each one’s bundle of silver was in his pack. The second discovery of the silver in the baggage of course contradicts the first discovery at the encampment and probably reflects the splicing together of two variant traditions—unless one assumes that the brothers deliberately act out a discoery in the presence of their father in order to impress upon him how they are all at the mercy of a superior power.
36 Yaakov their father said to them: It is I that you bereave! Yosef is no more, Shim’on is no more, now you would take Binyamin- upon me has all this come!upon me are all these things come. The point of the reproach is that it is his children, not their own, that they are endangering: to which Reuben’s offer is the rejoinder.
[RA] Me you have bereaved. As earlier in the story, Jacob speaks as a prima donna of paternal grief: hence the “me” at the beginning of his discourse (the Hebrew has an accusative pronoun before the verb instead of the normal accusative suffix appended to the verb), and hence the emphatic rhythmic arrangement of his speech in a formal symmetry that verges on poetry: “Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and Benjamin you would take!” In a small envelope structure, the “me” at the beginning is balanced by the “It is I” at the end (the last sentence is literally: “Upon me they all were”). Jacob’s equation of Joseph and Simeon with the verb “is no more” teeters ambiguously between two possibilities: either he gloomily assumes that Simeon is already as good as dead, or, despite his protestations of grief, he clings to the hope that Joseph, like Simeon, is absent, not dead.
37 Re’uven said to his father, saying: My two sons you may put to death if I do not bring him back to you! Place him in my hands, and I myself will return him to you.slay my two sons. The impetuous nature of Reuben is seen here. ‘Two sons’ one for Benjamin and one for Joseph—of whose death he feels that he shares the guilt with his brothers.
[EF] My two sons: Re’uven is again spouting nonsense. I myself will reutnr him: But he did not in 37:22 (Ackerman 1982).
[RA] My two sons you may put to death. Reuben, as usual means well but stumbles in the execution: to a father obsessed with the loss of sons, he offers the prospect of killing two grandsons. David Kimhi catches this nicely: “[Jacob] said: ‘Stupid firstborn! Are they your sons and not my sons?” This is not the only moment in the story when we sense that Reuben’s claim to preeminence among the brothers as firstborn is dubious, and he will be displaced by Judah, the fourth-born.
38 But he said: My son is not to go down with you! For his brother is dead, and he alone is left! Should harm befall him on the journey on which you are going, you will bring down my gray hair in grief to Sheol![EF] My son is not to go own . . . you will bring down my gray hair in grief: Yaakov will indeed “go down,” but to Egypt, not to Sheol, to meet his “dead” son. The latter part of the phrase is basically repeated in 44;29 and 44:31, as a key to the father’s feelings. he alone is left” Of his mother Rahel (see 44;20).
[RA] My son shall not go down with you. The extravagant insensitivity of Jacob’s paternal favoritism continues to be breathtaking. He speaks of Benjamin as “my son” almost as though the ones he is addressing were not his sons. This unconscious disavowal of the ten sons is sharpened when Jacob says, “he alone remains,” failing to add “from his mother.” The histrionic refrain of descending in sorrow to Sheol, the underworld, is one Jacob first recited when he was handed Joseph’s blood-soaked tunic. “Should harm befall him” is a formula first spoken by Jacob in an interior monologue (verse 4) and now repeated in actual speech to the sons. Jacob is of course fearful of another dreadful accident like the one in which he believes Joseph was torn to pieces by a wild beast. There is, then, an ironic disparity between Jacob’s sense of a world of unpredictable dangers threatening his beloved son and Joseph’s providential manipulation of events, unguessed by his father and his brothers.
Genesis/Bereshith 43
THE SECOND VISIT OF JOSEPH’S BRETHREN TO EGYPT
1-14. Judah prevails upon Jacob to allow Benjamin to accompany the brethren. Judah now takes the lead in the place of Reuben, in whom his father had little confidence.
1 But the famine was heavy in the land. 2 And so it was, when they had finished eating the rations that they had brought from Egypt, that their father said to them: Return, buy us some food-rations.eaten up the corn. Not in its entirety; they must have left sufficient for their father and the household during their absence in Egypt.
3 But Yehuda said to him, saying: The man warned, yes, warned us, saying: You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.[EF] my face: The great confrontation theme of the Yaakov stories returns.
[RA] The man firmly warned us. “The man” refers elliptically to the phrase the brothers previously used in their report to their father, “the man who is lord of the land” (42:30). Their repeated use of this designation aptly dramatizes their ignorance of Joseph’s identity. In the second half of this chapter, there is pointed interplay between the references to the brothers as “the men”—almost as though they were represented from an Egyptian point of view—and to Joseph’s majordomo as “the man.”
You shall not see my face. The Hebrew idiom has distinct regal overtones: you shall not come into my presence.
4 If you wish to send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you some food-rations.[EF] send: Or “release,” “let go.”
5 But if you do not wish to send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us: You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.we will not go down. Judah’s decisive language has the desired effect with Jacob.
[RA] You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you. Judah reiterates this sentence word for word, at the end of his first speech to Jacob as at the beginning. The effect is to spell out the inexorable condition with heavy emphasis for the reluctant Jacob: it is only by bringing Benjamin along that we can return to Egypt.
6 Yisrael said: Why did you deal so ill with me, by telling the man that you have another brother?dealt ye so ill with me. This is not a question, but a reproach. He blames them for volunteering statements.
[RA] Why have you done me this harm? Consistent with his character from chapter 37 onward, Jacob flaunts his sense of personal injury.
7 They said: The man asked, he asked about us and about our kindred, saying: Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother? So we told him, according to these words. Could we know, know that he would say: Bring your brother down?straitly. Closely, particularly.
according to the tenor of these words. i.e. we gave the answers which his questions called for.
8 Yehuda said to Yisrael his father: Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, so we, so you, so our little-ones![RA] that we may live and not die, neither we, nor you, nor our little ones. The phrase “live and not die” was used by Jacob to his sons before their first journey to Egypt (42:2), and Judah now throws it back in his face. By adding to it, “neither we, nor you, nor our little ones,” Judah makes a vividly persuasive point: as Rashi sees, the implicit argument is that if we risk taking Benjamin, he may or may not be seized, but if we stay here, every one of us will perish from hunger.
9 I will act as his pledge, at my hand you may seek him! If I do not bring him back to you and set him in your presence, I will be culpable-for-sin against you all the days (to come).I will be surety for him. I guarantee to bring him back. Jacob is more impressed by his words than by Reuben’s wild offer.
bear the blame. lit. ‘I shall have sinned against thee for ever’.
[EF] I will act as his pledge/at my hand you may seek him: Echoing Yaakov’s own language of responsibility in 31;39 (“I would make good the loss/at my hand you would seek it”). in your presence: Literally “before your face.”
[RA] I will be his pledge, from my hand you may seek him. The repetition through synonymity signals a performative speech-act, a legally binding vow. Judah, who conceived the scheme of selling Joseph into slavery, now takes personal responsibility for Benjamin’s safety. But befitting the son who will displace Reuben as the progenitor of the kings of Israel, he asserts solemn responsibility without Reuben’s rash offer to put two of his own sons to death if harm befalls Benjamin.
10 Indeed, had we not lingered, we would indeed have been back twice already!except we had lingered. And wasted time in discussion.
11 Yisrael their father said to them: If it must be so, then, do this: Take some of the produce of the land in your vessels and bring them down to the man as a gift:a little balsam, a little honey, balm and ladanum, pistachio nuts and almonds.
if it be so now, do this. ‘Since it must be so, do this.” Jacob yields to the inevitable, and offers his children prudent counsel.
honey. i.e. the date-honey, rarely found in Egypt.
nuts. i.e. pistachio nuts. Still considered a delicacy in the East.
[EF] Take: Three times, culminating in the pathetic “And as for your brother, take him” (v. 13). alsam . . .honey; balm and ladanum, pistachio nuts and almonds: Another example of concealment in the story. The list includes the cargo of the caravan that carried Yosef away (37:25).
[RA] the best yield of the land. The Hebrew zimrat ha’arets occurs only here. The most plausible construal of the first term links it with a root that means “strength” or “power,” though it could be related to zemorah, “branch” or “sprout.”
some balm and some honey, gum and ladanum. The tribute or gift (minah) to Joseph includes three of the same items as those in the briefer list of luxury export goods carried by the Ishmaelite traders (37:25) who brought Joseph from the brothers and sold him as a slave in Egypt. As with the silver sent back and forth, the brothers are thus drawn unwittingly into a process of repetition of and restitution for their fraternal crime.
12 And silver two times over take in your hand; and the silver that was returned in the mouth of your packs, return in your hand, perhaps it was an oversight.double money . . . and the money. They were now to take double money, as they were returning the money that had been placed in their sacks.
[RA] And double the silver take. Now they are to go to Egypt with three times the original amount of silver: the amount they intend to return to Joseph, and double that amount besides. Nahum Sarna construes the second clause, “and the silver that was put back …,” as an explanation of the first, concluding that only double the amount in sum was taken, but his reading dismisses the clear additive sense of “and” in “and the silver.” Rashi, with characteristic shrewdness, suggests that extra silver was taken because the brothers were fearful that the price of grain might have gone up steeply—a plausible possibility, given Egypt’s monopoly of food supplies and the persisting famine.
take in your hand. The addition of “in your hand,” which is not strictly required by Hebrew idiom, is repeated several times in the story. One suspects it is linked with the theme of restitution: the very hands that were “raised against’ Joseph (37:22 and 27) now bear tribute to him.
13 And as for your brother, take him! Arise, return to the man,And your brother take. Jacob holds back the detail that is most painful to him, the sending down of Benjamin, until the very end of his instructions. Pointedly, he does not refer to Benjamin by name but instead calls him “your brother,” stressing the fraternal responsibility his nine older sons have for their half brother.
14 and may God Shaddai give you mercy before the man, so that he releases your other brother to you, and Binyamin as well. And as for me-if I must be bereaved, I must be bereaved!God Almighty. Heb. El Shaddai. ‘The God of Abraham can alone now help him, an old man trembling for the life of his two children’ (Procksch).
mercy. Divine pity for the helpless misery of the weak and the defenceless.
if I be bereaved. An expression of mournful acquiescence in the Divine will, like the exclamation of Esther, v. 16, ‘and if I perish, I perish.’
[RA] he discharge to you your other brother, and Benjamin. Jacob’s fearful formulation virtually presupposes that Benjamin will be seized by the Egyptians, just as Simeon was.
As for me, if I must be bereaved, I will be bereaved. Jacob is of course remembering his grief over the loss of Joseph and perhaps as well his concern over Simeon’s imprisonment. But he is also once more playing his role as histrion of paternal sorrow, echoing his dirgelike words to his sons (42:36),n”Me you have bereaved,” using the same verb that refers specifically in Hebrew to the loss of children and again placing the first-person singular pronoun at the beginning of his statement.
15-34. The brethren in Joseph’s palace.
15 The men took this gift, silver two times over they took in their hand and Binyamin as well. They arose and went down to Egypt and stood in Yosef’s presence.before Joseph. At his government office, where the people came to purchase corn.
16 When Yosef saw Binyamin with them, he said to the steward of his house: Bring the men into the house, slaughter some slaughter-animals and prepare them, for it is with me that these men shall eat at noon.the steward of his house. lit. ‘him that was over his house.’
dine with me at noon. This is interesting as indicating the time when meat was eaten in the house of the upper classes in ancient Egypt.
[RA] the one who was over his house. Virtually all the English versions represent this as “steward,” but the Hebrew opts for this more circumlocutionary phrase (which does occur, in a clear administrative sense, in notices about the later Israelite royal bureaucracy) instead of one of the available biblical terms for steward or majordomo. This roundabout designation reflects an Egyptian title and may at the same time intimate the perspective of the Hebrew brothers toward this Egyptian “man who was over the house” with whom they have to deal. It also enables the writer to play “man” against “men” in his narrative report.
17 The man did as Yosef had said, the man brought the men into Yosef’s house.Joseph’s house. The phrase is repeated three times in rapid sequence, and amplified by the secondary references to “the man who was over his house.” For the ten Hebrew men to go into Joseph’s house is a momentous thing, politically and thematically. Since they are aware that it is not customary for foreigners who have come to buy grain to be introduced into the residence of the viceroy, they are afraid it may be a trap (verse 18). Their last encounter with Joseph in Canaan, more than two decades earlier, was in an open field, where he was entirely in their power. Now, crossing the threshold of his house, they will be entirely in his power—whether for evil or for good they cannot say. Pointedly, their actual sitting down at Joseph’s table is prefaced by a literally liminal moment: they stand at the entrance, expressing their anxiety to Joseph’s steward.
18 But the men were frightened that they had been brought into Yosef’s house, and said: It is because of the silver that was returned in our packs before that we have been brought here, for (them to) roll upon us, and fall upon us, and take us into servitude, along with our donkeys!money that was returned. The brethren fear that they are entrapped and about to be punished.
take us for bondmen. As detected thieves; cf. Ex. XXII,2.
[EF] roll upon us: Others use “attack us.” roll upon us, and fall upon us: The rhythm reflects the brothers’ emotional anguish.
[RA] to fall upon us. The Hebrew verb might well have the sense of “to find a pretext against us,” as many English versions render it, but it is at least as plausible to construe it as a verb of physical assault, in apposition to the term that follows it.
and our donkeys. This odd addendum at the very end of the sentence looks suspiciously like a comic inadvertency.
19 They came close to the man, to the steward of Yosef’s house, and spoke to him at the entrance to the house,at the door of the house. Before crossing the threshold, they would clear themselves of the suspicion against them.
20 they said: Please, my lord! We came down, came down before to buy food-rations, 21 but it was, when we came to the night camp and opened our packs, there was each man’s silver in the mouth of his pack, our silver by its (exact) weight- but (here) we have returned it in our hand!we have brought it back. They say this to forestall the suspicion of theft.
22 And other silver as well we have brought down in our hand, to buy food. We do not know who put back our silver in our packs!we know not who put. They emphasize their ignorance of the entire transaction.
23 He said: It is well with you, do not be afraid! Your God, the God of your father, placed a treasure in your packs for you-(for) your silver has come in to me. And he brought Shim’on out to them.I had your money. Doubtless on the instruction of Joseph, the steward reassures them that what they found in their sacks was God’s gift.
[EF] has come in: I.e., I have received full payment.
[RA] has placed treasure for you in your bags. The majordomo dismisses their fears by introducing a kind of fairy-tale explanation for the silver they found in their bags.
Your silver has come to me. These words take the form of a legal declaration meaning “I have duly received payment.”
24 Then the man had the men come into Yosef’s house and gave them water so that they might wash their feet and gave them fodder for their donkeys. 25 They prepared the gift, until Yosef came back at noon, for they understood that they were to eat bread there.against Joseph’s coming. Here means, ‘so as to be ready when Joseph arrived.’ This is the old use of ‘against’, in the sense of ‘in readiness for the time when’.
[RA] they would eat bread. “Bread,” as in the English expression, “to eat the king’s bread,” is obviously a synecdoche for food, but it diminishes the literary dignity of the narrative to render this, as many modern translations have done, simply as “dine.”
26 When Yosef came into the house, they brought him the gift that was in their hand, into the house, and bowed down to him, to the ground. 27 He asked after their welfare and said: Is your old father well, of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?of whom ye spoke. Joseph carefully avoid betraying himself to his brethren.
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[EF] well: Or “at peace”—as before, a key element of the Yaakov stories.
28 They said: Your servant, our father, is well, he is still alive- and in homage they bowed low. 29 He lifted up his eyes and saw Binyamin his brother, his mother’s son, and he said: Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me? And he said: May God show you favor, my son!his mother’s son. These words augment the pathos of the situation
[EF] Is this: Or “So this is.”
[RA] God be gracious to you, my son. Benjamin, though considerably younger than Joseph, would be at least in his late twenties at this point. In addressing him as “my son,” Joseph faithfully maintains his role as Egyptian viceroy, though “my brother’ is hiding in the word he uses. The great medieval Hebrew poet Shmuel Hanagid (eleventh century Granada) would brilliantly catch this doubleness in a moving elegy to his brother by altering the end of the phrase: “God be gracious to you, my brother.”
30 And in haste-for his feelings were so kindled toward his brother that he had to weep- Yosef entered a chamber and wept there.Joseph made haste. To close the interview and to retire.
his heart yearned toward. Seeing his own mother’s son he felt unable to restrain his tears.
[RA] And Joseph hurried out…and he wanted to weep, and he went into the chamber and wept there. In the pattern of incremental repetition, this second weeping of Joseph’s is much more elaborately reported than the first (42:24), including as it does the flight to a private chamber and (in the next verse), his bathing his face to remove evidence of the tears and his effort of self-restraint when he returns to the brothers.
his feelings . . . overwhelmed him. The literal meaning of the Hebrew is “his mercy [the same term used by Jacob in verse 14] burned hot.”
31 Then he washed his face and came out, he restrained himself, and said: Serve bread!set on bread. i.e. let the food be served.
32 They served him by himself and them by themselves and the Egyptians who were eating with him by themselves, for Egyptians will not eat bread with Hebrews-for that is an abomination for Egyptians.for him by himself. As an Egyptian noble he would have his food apart from his retinue, and, or course, apart from the Hebrews, who were foreigners in the eyes of the Egyptians. The Hyksos conquerors soon adopted the old Egyptian exclusiveness in intercourse with foreigners.
[RA] for the Egyptians would not eat bread with the Hebrews. The dietary exclusionism of the Egyptians is also attested by Herodotus. Both medieval and modern commentators have linked this taboo with an Egyptian prohibition against eating lamb, a staple of Hebrew diet.
as it was abhorrent to Egypt. The consensus of English translations treats this as “to the Egyptians,” but the Masoretic vocalization of the final noun—mitsrayim and not mitsrim—construes it as “to Egypt,” which makes perfectly good sense.
33 But they were seated in his presence: the firstborn according to his rank-as-firstborn and the youngest according to his rank-as-youngest. And the men stared at each other in astonishment over it.the men marvelled. How could the Egyptian know their ages? They looked at one another in astonishment.
[RA] And they were seated before him. The seating in order of age of course has been done at Joseph’s direction: it constitutes a kind of dramatization of the contrast between knowledge and ignorance—“and he recognized them but they did not recognize him”—that has been paramount from the moment the brothers first set foot in Egypt.
34 He had courses taken to them from his presence, and Binyamin’s course was five times greater than all their courses. Then they drank and became drunk with him.were merry. lit. ‘drank largely’. Joseph wishes to divert their attention from his table, whence his goblet was about to be removed. The extra portion given to Benjamin was a special mark of respect.
[EF] five times: Others use “many times.” Yet the prominence of the number five throughout the Yosef story, as noted above, should not be overlooked.
[RA] they drank, and they got drunk with him. In the Hebrew, there are two entirely distinct verbs. The meeting between the eleven brothers and the man who is lord of the land o Egypt appears to end on a note of conviviality, which will quickly be reversed in the next scene of the drama Joseph has carefully devised for his brothers. It should be noted that the drinking at the conclusion of this scene anticipates the mechanism of what is to follow, for it is the alleged theft of Joseph’s silver goblet that will bring the brothers back to his house under strict arrest.