Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?”
Parallel Translations
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Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?”
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Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?
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Now Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, and Jacob said unto his sons: 'Why do ye look one upon another?'
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Genesis 42:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Acts 7:12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time.
- Joshua 7:10 Yahweh said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face like that?
- Genesis 41:54 The seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.
- Genesis 41:57 All countries came into Egypt, to Joseph, to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all the earth.
- Genesis 42:2 He said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there, and buy for us from there, so that we may live, and not die.”
- Exodus 5:19 The officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble when it was said, “You shall not diminish anything from your daily quota of bricks!”
- Exodus 20:18 All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance.
- 1 Kings 19:3 When he saw that, he arose, and ran for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
- 2 Kings 8:3-4 At the end of seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines. Then she went out to beg the king for her house and for her land. Now the king was talking with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, “Please tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.”
- Ezra 10:4 Arise; for the matter belongs to you, and we are with you. Be courageous, and do it.”
- Jeremiah 8:14 “Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves! Let’s enter into the fortified cities, and let’s be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh.
- Hosea 5:13 “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.
- Galatians 2:7 but to the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcised, even as Peter with the Good News for the circumcised—
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 1. Now when Jacob saw. Moses begins, in this…
1. Now when Jacob saw. Moses begins, in this chapter, to treat of the occasion which drew Jacob with his whole family into Egypt; and thus leaves it to us to consider by what hidden and unexpected methods God may perform whatever he has decreed. Though, therefore, the providence of God is in itself a labyrinth; yet when we connect the issue of things with their beginnings, that admirable method of operation shines clearly in our view, which is not generally acknowledged, only because it is far removed from our observation. Also our own indolence hinders us from perceiving God, with the eyes of faith, as holding the government of the world; because we either imagine fortune to be the mistress of events, or else, adhering to near and natural causes, we weave them together, and spread them as veils before our eyes. Whereas, therefore, scarcely any more illustrious representation of Divine Providence is to be found than this history furnishes; let pious readers carefully exercise themselves in meditation upon it, in order that they may acknowledge those things which, in appearance, are fortuitous, to be directed by the hand of God.
Why do ye look one upon another? Men are said to look one upon another, when each is waiting for the other, and, for want of counsel, no one dares to attempt anything. Jacob, therefore, censures this inactivity of his sons, because none of them endeavors to provide for the present necessity. Moses also says that they went into Egypt at the command of their father, and even without Benjamin; by which he intimates that filial reverence at that time was great; because envy of their brother did not prevent them from leaving their wives and children, and undertaking a long journey. He also adds, that they came in the midst of a great crowd of people; which enhances the fame of Joseph; who, while supplying food for all Egypt, and dispensing it by measure, till the end of the drought, could also afford assistance to neighboring nations.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain This story showeth plainly that all things are governed…
This story showeth plainly that all things are governed by God’s providence for the profit of his Church.
As men destitute of counsel.
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Or, corn.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 42:1 Now when Jacob saw that there was…
Gen 42:1 Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?
Ver. 1. Now when Jacob saw that there was corn.] A sale of corn. Heb., A breaking: so called, either because corn breaks famine; or, because it is broken and ground to make bread of; or, for that they made their bread in thin cakes and so broke it. Or lastly, because he that selleth it breaks the heap and gives part to the buyer.
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Why look ye one upon another?] As hopeless and helpless; or, as at your wits’ ends, and not knowing whither to turn you. Youth is one while witless, another while shiftless. Let days speak, and multitude of years teach wisdom. {Job 32:7} As at feasts, so at other meetings, old men should be vowels, young men mutes; or at most, but semivowels. {a}
{a} Convivium sit simile Alphabeto, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain When Jacob saw, i.e. heard, as the word is…
When Jacob saw, i.e. heard, as the word is used, Exo 20:18; as seeing is put for smelling, Exo 5:21; and for tasting, Psa 34:8; and for touching, Joh 20:29.
Why do ye look one upon another; like lazy, careless, and helpless persons, each one expecting relief from the other, but none offering either counsel or help for all our subsistence?
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Though Jacob's sons were all married, and had families…
Though Jacob's sons were all married, and had families of their own, yet, it should seem, they were still incorporated in one society, under the conduct and presidency of their father Jacob. We have here,
I. The orders he gave them to go and buy corn in Egypt, Gen 42:1, Gen 42:2. Observe, 1. The famine was grievous in the land of Canaan. It is observable that all the three patriarches, to whom Canaan was the land of promise, met with famine in that land, which was not only to try their faith, whether they could trust God though he should slay them, though he should starve them, but to teach them to seek the better country, that is, the heavenly, Heb 11:14-16. We have need of something to wean us from this world, and make us long for a better. 2. Still, when there was famine in Canaan, there was corn in Egypt. Thus Providence orders it, that one place should be a succour and supply to another; for we are all brethren. The Egyptians, the seed of accursed Ham, have plenty, when God's blessed Israel want: Thus God, in dispensing common favours, often crosses hands. Yet observe, The plenty Egypt now had was owing, under God, to Joseph's prudence and care: if his brethren had not sold him into Egypt, but respected him according to his merits, who knows but he might have done the same thing for Jacob's family which now he had done for Pharaoh, and the Egyptians might then have come to them to buy corn? but those who drive away from among them wise and good men know not what they do. 3. Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt; he saw the corn that his neighbours had bought there and brought home. It is a spur to exertion to see where supplies are to be had, and to see others supplied. Shall others get food for their souls, and shall we starve while it is to be had? 4. He reproved his sons for delaying to provide corn for their families. Why do you look one upon another? Note, When we are in trouble and want, it is folly for us to stand looking upon one another, that is, to stand desponding and despairing, as if there were no hope, no help, - to stand disputing either which shall have the honour of going first or which shall have the safety of coming last, - to stand deliberating and debating what we shall do, and doing nothing, - to stand dreaming under a spirit of slumber, as if we had nothing to do, and to stand delaying, as if we had time at command. Let it never be said, "We left that to be done tomorrow which we could a well have done today." 5. He quickened them to go to Egypt: Get you down thither. Masters of families must not only pray for daily bread for their families, and food convenient, but must lay out themselves with care and industry to provide it.
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II. Their obedience to these orders, Gen 42:3. They went down to buy corn; they did not send their servants, but very prudently went themselves, to lay out their own money. Let none think themselves too great nor too good to take pains. Masters of families should see with their own eyes, and take heed of leaving too much to servants. Only Benjamin went not with them, for he was his father's darling. To Egypt they came, among others, and, having a considerable cargo of corn to buy, they were brought before Joseph himself, who probably expected they would come; and, according to the laws of courtesy, they bowed down themselves before him, Gen 42:6. Now their empty sheaves did obeisance to his full one. Compare this with Isa 60:14 and Rev 3:9.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in…
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt,.... That is, to be sold there, or otherwise it being there, unless it could be bought, would have been of no avail to foreigners; wherefore the Septuagint version is, that there was a sale (w) there, a sale of corn; the word has the signification of "breaking" (x) in it, because that bread corn is broke in the mill, or is broken from the heap when sold or distributed, or because when eaten it breaks the fast. Now Jacob had either seen persons passing by with corn, of whom he inquired from whence they had it, who replied, from Egypt; or he understood by the report of others that corn was to be bought there; though some of the Jewish writers would have it, as Jarchi observes, that he saw it by the revelation of the Holy Spirit:
Jacob said unto, his sons, why do ye look one upon another? like persons in surprise, distress and despair, at their wits' end, not knowing what to do, what course to take, and which way to turn themselves, and scarce able to speak to one another, and consult with each other what was proper to be done; for it seems not so agreeable that they should be charged as idle persons, careless and unconcerned, indifferent and inactive; but rather, if the other sense is not acceptable, the meaning may be, "why do ye look?" (y) here and there, in the land of Canaan, where it is to no purpose to look for corn; look where it is to be had.
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(w) Sept. "frumentum venale", Schmidt; so Ainsworth, and the Targum of Jonathan. (x) "Fractio", Montanus, Munster, Piscator. (y) "ut quid circumspicitis", Schmidt.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain We have in this chapter,
We have in this chapter,
I. The humble application of Jacob's sons to Joseph, to buy corn, ver. 1-6.
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II. The fright Joseph put them into, for their trial, ver. 7-20.
III. The conviction they were now under of their sin concerning Joseph long before, ver. 21-24.
IV. Their return to Canaan with corn, and the great distress their good father was in upon the account they gave him of their expedition, ver. 25-38.
Jacob saw that there was corn - That is, he saw the corn that his neighbours had bought there and brought home.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Jacob sends his ten sons to Egypt to buy…
CHAPTER XLII
Jacob sends his ten sons to Egypt to buy corn, 1-3;
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but refuses to permit Benjamin to go, 4.
They arrive in Egypt, and bow themselves before Joseph, 5, 6.
He treats them roughly and calls them spies, 7-10.
They defend themselves and give an account of their family, 11-13.
He appears unmoved, and puts them all in prison for three
days, 14-17.
On the third day he releases them on condition of their
bringing Benjamin, 18-20.
Being convicted by their consciences, they reproach themselves
with their cruelty to their brother Joseph, and consider
themselves under the displeasure of God, 21-23.
Joseph is greatly affected, detains Simeon as a pledge for
Benjamin, orders their sacks to be filled with corn, and the
purchase money to be put in each man's sack, 24, 25.
When one of them is going to give his ass provender he discovers
his money in the mouth of his sack, at which they are greatly
alarmed, 26-28.
They come to their father in Canaan, and relate what happened
to them in their journey, 29-34.
On emptying their sacks, each man's money is found in his sack's
mouth, which causes alarm both to them and their father, 35.
Jacob deplores the loss of Joseph and Simeon, and refuses to let
Benjamin go, though Reuben offers his two sons as pledges for his
safety, 36-38.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLII
Verse 1. Jacob saw that there was corn] That is, Jacob heard from the report of others that there was plenty in Egypt. The operations of one sense, in Hebrew, are often put for those of another. Before agriculture was properly known and practised, famines were frequent; Canaan seems to have been peculiarly vexed by them. There was one in this land in the time of Abraham, Ge 12:10; another in the days of Isaac, Ge 26:1; and now a third in the time of Jacob. To this St. Stephen alludes, Ac 7:11: there was great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Gen 42:1-2. When Jacob saw — That is, heard,…
Gen 42:1-2. When Jacob saw — That is, heard, as the word is used, Exo 20:18; or saw the corn which his neighbours had bought there and brought home. Why look ye one upon another? — As careless and helpless persons, each one expecting relief from the other; but none offering either counsel or help for the subsistence of all. Go down thither — Masters of families must not only pray for daily bread for their families, but must, with care and industry, endeavour to provide it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain - Joseph and Ten of His Brethren
- Joseph and Ten of His Brethren
1. שׁבר sheber, “fragment, crumb, hence, grain.” בר bar “pure,” “winnowed,” hence, “corn” (grain).
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6. שׁליט shallı̂yṭ, “ruler, governor, hence,” Sultan. Not elsewhere found in the Pentateuch.
25. כלי kelı̂y, “vessel,” here any portable article in which grain may be conveyed. שׂק śaq, “sack,” the very word which remains in our language to this day. אמתחת 'amtachath “bag.”
Twenty years, the period of Joseph’s long and anxious waiting, have come to an end. The dreams of his boyhood are now at length to be fulfilled. The famine has reached the chosen family, and they look at one another perplexed and irresolute, not knowing what to do.
Gen 42:1-5
The aged Jacob is the only man of counsel. “Behold, I have heard there is grain in Mizraim:” go down and buy. The ten brothers are sent, and Benjamin, the youngest, is retained, not merely because of his youth, for he was now twenty-four years of age, but because he was the son of his father’s old age, the only son of Rachel now with him, and the only full brother of the lost Joseph. “Lest mischief befall him,” and so no child of Rachel would be left. “Among those that went.” The dearth was widespread in the land of Kenaan.
Gen 42:6-17
The ten brothers meet with a rough reception from the lord of the land. “The governor” - the sultan. This, we see, is a title of great antiquity in Egypt or Arabia. Joseph presided over the cornmarket of the kingdom. “Bowed down to him with their faces to the earth.” Well might Joseph think of those never-to-be-forgotten dreams in which the sheaves and stars bowed down to him. “And knew them.” How could he fail to remember the ten full-grown men of his early days, when they came before him with all their peculiarities of feature, attitude, and mother tongue. “And he made himself strange unto them.” All that we know of Joseph’s character heretofore, and throughout this whole affair, goes to prove that his object in all his seemingly harsh treatment was to get at their hearts, to test their affection toward Benjamin, and to bring them to repent of their unkindness to himself.
“They knew not him.” Twenty years make a great change in a youth of seventeen. And besides, with his beard and head shaven, his Egyptian attire, his foreign tongue, and his exalted position, who could have recognized the stripling whom, twenty years ago, they had sold as a slave? “Spies are ye.” This was to put a color of justice on their detention. To see the nakedness of the land, not its unfortified frontier, which is a more recent idea, but its present impoverishment from the famine. “Sons of one man are we.” It was not likely that ten sons of one man would be sent on the hazardous duty of spies. “And behold the youngest is with our father this day.” It is intensely interesting to Joseph to hear that his father and full brother are still living. “And one is not.” Time has assuaged all their bitter feelings, both of exasperation against Joseph and of remorse for their unbrotherly conduct. This little sentence, however, cannot be uttered by them, or heard by Joseph, without emotion. “By the life of Pharaoh.” Joseph speaks in character, and uses an Egyptian asseveration. “Send one of you.” This proposal is enough to strike terror into their hearts. The return of one would be a heavy, perhaps a fatal blow to their father. And how can one brave the perils of the way? They cannot bring themselves to concur in this plan. Sooner will they all go to prison, as accordingly they do. Joseph is not without a strong conviction of incumbent duty in all this. He knows he has been put in the position of lord over his brethren in the foreordination of God, and he feels bound to make this authority a reality for their moral good.
Gen 42:18-25
After three days, Joseph reverses the numbers, allowing nine to return home, and retaining one. “This do and live.” Joseph, notwithstanding the arbitrary power which his office enabled him to exercise, proves himself to be free from caprice and unnecessary severity. He affords them a fair opportunity of proving their words true, before putting them to death on suspicion of espionage. “The God do I fear.” A singular sentence from the lord paramount of Egypt! It implies that the true God was not yet unknown in Egypt. We have heard the confession of this great truth already from the lips of Pharaoh Gen 41:38-39. But it intimates to the brothers the astonishing and hopeful fact that the grand vizier serves the same great Being whom they and their fathers have known and worshipped; and gives them a plain hint that they will be dealt with according to the just law of heaven.
“Carry grain for your houses.” The governor then is touched with some feeling for their famishing households. The brothers, though honoring their aged father as the patriarch of their race, had now their separate establishments. Twelve households had to be supplied with bread. The journey to Egypt was not to be undertaken more than once a year if possible, as the distance from Hebron was upwards of two hundred miles. Hence, the ten brothers had with them all their available beasts of burden, with the needful retinue of servants. We need not be surprised that these are not especially enumerated, as it is the manner of Scripture to leave the secondary matters to the intelligence and experience of the reader, unless, as in the case of Abraham’s three hundred and eighteen trained servants, they happen to be of essential moment in the process of events. “Your youngest brother.” Joseph longs to see his full brother alive, whom he left at home a child of four summers. “Verily guilty are we concerning our brother.”
Their affliction is beginning to bear the fruit of repentance. “Because we saw the distress of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear.” How vividly is the scene of Joseph’s sale here brought before us. It now appears that he besought them to spare him, and they would not hear! “This distress.” Retribution has come at last. “His blood is required.” Reuben justly upbraids them with their hardness of heart. Their brother’s blood is required; for murder was intended, and when he was sold his death was pretended. “The interpreter was betwixt them.” The dragoman was employed in holding conversation with them. But Joseph heard the spontaneous expressions of remorse, coming unprompted from their lips. The fountain of affection is deeply stirred. He cannot repress the rising tear. He has to retire for a time to recover his composure. He now takes, not Reuben, who was not to blame, but Simon, the next oldest, and binds him before them: a speaking act. He then gives orders to supply them with corn (grain), deposit their money in their sacks without their knowledge, and furnish them with provision for the way. Joseph feels, perhaps, that he cannot take money from his father. He will pay for the corn out of his own funds. But he cannot openly return the money to his brothers without more explanation than he wishes at present to give.
Gen 42:26-34
The nine brothers return home and record their wonderful adventure. “In the inn;” the lodge or place where they stopped for the night. This place was not yet perhaps provided with even the shelter of a roof. It was merely the usual place of halting. They would probably occupy six or seven days on the journey. Apparently at the first stage one opened his sack to give provender to his ass. The discovery of the silver in its mouth strikes them with terror. In a strange land and with an uneasy conscience they are easily alarmed. It was not convenient or necessary to open all the bags on the way, and so they make no further discovery.
Gen 42:35-38
Upon emptying the other sacks all the silver turns up, to their great amazement and consternation. Jacob laments the loss of his son. Reuben offers two of his sons to Jacob as pledges for Benjamin, to be slain if he did not bring him back in safety. The sorrowing parent cannot yet bring himself to consent to Benjamin’s departure on this hazardous journey. “And ye shall bring down.” Jacob either speaks here in the querulous tone of afflicted old age, or he had come to know or suspect that his brothers had some hand in the disappearance of Joseph.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Careless. Hebrew, "gazing at one another," like idle people.
Careless. Hebrew, "gazing at one another," like idle people.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Retributive Discipline. The Famine and the First Journey to…
SIXTH SECTION
Retributive Discipline. The Famine and the First Journey to Egypt. Joseph’s struggles with himself. The repentance of the Brethren. Joseph and Simeon.
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Gen_42:1-38.
1Now when Jacob saw there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? 2And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. 3And Joseph’s ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt. 4But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief1 befall him. 5And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came; 6for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land; and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth. 7And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them, and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan, to buy food. 8And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. 9And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 10And they said unto them, 11Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man’s sons; we are, true men; thy servants are no spies. 12And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. 13And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not. 14And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies; 15Hereby ye shall be proved; By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. 16Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you; or else, by the life of Pharaoh 17surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. 18And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God: 19If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison; go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses; 20But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so. 21And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. 22And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required, 23And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter. 24And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes. 25Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man’s money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way; and thus did he unto them. 26And they laded their asses with the corn, and departed thence. 27And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied his money; for, behold, it was in his sack’s mouth. 28And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored, and, lo, it is even in my sack; and their heart failed them,2 and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that God hath done unto us? 29And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that befell unto them, saying. 30The man, who is the Lord of the land, spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country. 31And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies; 32We be twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan. 33And the man, the lord of the country, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men; leave one of your brethren here with me, and take food for the famine of your households, and be gone; 34And bring your youngest brother unto me; then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men; so will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffic in the land. 35And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. 36And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me. 37And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee; deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. 38And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone; if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
PRELIMINARY REMAKES
1. It appears uncertain to Knobel which narrator (the Elohist or the Jehovist) tells the story here. Many expressions, says he, favor the original Scripture, but some seem to testify for the Jehovist, e. g., land of Goshen (Gen_45:10), thy servant instead of I (Gen_42:10). Very singular examples truly! Yet the language, it is then said, is rich in peculiarities. This part the Jehovist is said to have made up from his first record. A very peculiar presentation this, of the ἅπαξ λεγόμενα of different authors, as obtained by such a combination. The ἅπαξ λεγόμενα (words or expressions occurring but once) are always forth-coming from behind the scene. Such is the dead representation of that spiritless book-making, or rather that book-mangling criticism, now so much in vogue with those who make synopses of the New Testament.
2. The history of Joseph’s reconciliation to his brethren extends through four chapters, from Genesis 41-45 It contains: 1) The history of the chastisement of the brothers, which, at the same time is a history of Joseph’s struggles; 2) of the repentance of his brothers, marked by the antithesis Joseph and Simeon (Genesis 42); 3) the trial of the brothers, in which appears their repentance and Joseph’s reconciliation, marked by the antithesis of Joseph and Benjamin (Gen_43:1; Gen_44:17); 4) the story of the reconciliation and recognition, under the antithesis of Judah and Joseph (Gen_44:18; Gen_45:16); 5) the account of the glad tidings to Jacob (Gen_42:7-28).
1. The contents of the present section: 1) The journey to Egypt (Gen_42:1-6); 2) the rough reception (Gen_42:7-17); 3 the tasks imposed and the arrangements made by Joseph (Gen_42:18-34); 4) The voluntary release, the return home, the report, the dark omen (Gen_42:25-35); 5) Jacob’s lament (Gen_42:36-38).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
3. Gen_42:1-6. The first journey of Joseph’s brethren to Egypt.—When Jacob saw.—It is already presupposed that the famine was raging in Canaan. Jacob’s observation was probably based upon the preparations of others for buying corn in Egypt. The word שבר is translated corn, but more properly means a supply of corn (frumenti cumulus, Gesen., Thesaur.), or vendible or market corn.—Why do ye look one upon another?—Their helpless and suspicious looking to each other seems to be connected with their guilt. The journey to Egypt, and the very thought of Egypt haunts them on account of Joseph’s sale.—And Joseph’s ten brethren.—They thus undertake the journey together, because they received corn in proportion to their number. For though Joseph was humanely selling corn to foreigners, yet preference for his own countrymen, and a regard to economy, demanded a limitation of the quantity sold to individuals.—But Benjamin.—Jacob had transferred to Benjamin his preference of Joseph as the son of Rachel, and of his old age (Gen_37:3). He guarded him, therefore, all the more carefully on account of the self-reproach he suffered from having once let Joseph take a dangerous journey all alone. Besides, Benjamin had not yet arrived at full manhood. Finally, although the facts were not clearly known to him, yet there must be taken into the account the deep suspicion he must have felt when he called to mind the strange disappearance of Joseph, their envy of him, and all this the stronger because Benjamin, too, was his favorite—Rachel’s son, Joseph’s brother.—Among those that came.—The picture of a caravan. Jacob’s sons seem willing to lose themselves in the multitudes, as if troubled by an alarming presentiment. Knobel thinks the city to which they journeyed was Memphis. According to others it was probably Zoar or Tanais (see Num_13:23). By the double הוּא the writer denotes the inevitableness of their appearing before Joseph. Having the general oversight of the sale, he specially observed the selling to foreigners, and it appears to have been the rule that they were to present themselves before him. Such a direction, though a proper caution in itself, might have been connected in the mind of Joseph with a presentiment of their coming. He himself was the שַׁלִּיט. The circumstance that this word appears otherwise only in later writers may be partly explained from the peculiarity of the idea itself. See Dan_5:29. Here Daniel is represented as the third שליט (shalit) of the kingdom. “It seems to have been the standing title by which the Shemites designated Joseph, as one having despotic power in Egypt, and from which later tradition made the word Σάλατις, the name of the first Hyksos king (see Josephus: Contra Apion. i. 14).”—Keil—And bowed themselves.—Thus Joseph’s dreams were fulfilled, as there had been already fulfilled the dreams of Pharaoh.
2. Gen_42:7-17. The harsh reception. Joseph recognized them immediately, because, at the time of his abduction, they were already grown up men, who had not changed as much as he, and because, moreover, their being all together brought out distinctly their individual characteristics. He was, besides, familiar with their language and its idioms. They, on the contrary, did not recognize him because he had attained his manhood since in Egypt,—because he appeared before them clad in foreign attire, and introduced himself, moreover, as an Egyptian who spoke to them through an interpreter. Add to this, that he had probable reasons for expecting his brethren, whilst they could have had no thought of meeting Joseph in the character of the shalit.—But made himself strange unto them.—By speaking roughly unto them. It is a false ascription to Joseph of a superhuman perfection and holiness, when, with Luther, Delitzsch, Keil, and others (see Keil, p. 259), we suppose that Joseph, with settled calmness, only intended to become acquainted with the disposition of their hearts, so as to lead them to a perception of their guilt, and to find out how they were disposed towards his hoary sire, and their youngest brother. Kurtz is more correct in supposing it a struggle between anger and gentleness. Their conduct to himself may have even made it a sign of suspicion to him that Benjamin did not accompany them. True it is, that a feeling of love predominates; since the humiliation foretold in his dreams was already, for the most part, fulfilled, and he might, therefore, expect the arrival of his father, and of his brother Benjamin, who would, at the same time, represent his mother. His future position towards them, however, must be governed by circumstances. The principal aim, therefore, of his harsh address, is to sound them in respect to their inner and outer relations. According as things should appear were they to expect punishment or forbearance. Finding them well disposed, self-renunciation becomes easier to him; whilst his harsh conduct is to them only a wholesome discipline.—Ye are spies.—That such a danger was common, in those ancient days of emigration and conquest, is clear from various instances (Num_21:32; Jos_2:1, etc.). See also Knobel, p. 321. Moreover, Egypt was exposed to invasion from the North. Supposing, too, that Joseph had already a presentiment of how the affair would turn out, he might term them spies, with something of an ironical feeling, because their coming was undoubtedly a preliminary to their settlement in Egypt.—The nakedness of the land—its unfortified cities, unprotected boundaries, etc. Afterwards Joseph himself becomes to them the gate through which they enter Egypt.—Nay, my Lord.—Their answer shows a feeling of dignified displeasure.—We are all one man’s sons, we are true men.—Yet their mortified pride is restrained by fear and respect. Joseph repeats his charge, and so gets from them the further information, that his father is still alive, and that Benjamin was well at home.—And one is not.—From this expression Keil concludes that they did not yet feel much sorrow for their deed. But are they to confess to the Egyptian shalit? If, however, their distress alone had afterwards drawn from them a sudden repentance, it could hardly have been genuine.—That is it that I spake with you.—Joseph’s great excitement shows itself in his wavering determinations quickly succeeding and correcting each other. They gravitate from severity to mildness. In Gen_42:14, we have his positive decision that they are spies, and are, therefore, to expect death. In Gen_42:15, it is made conditional. As a test of their truth they are to be retained until the arrival of their brother.—By the life of Pharaoh.3—The Egyptians, as the Hebrews afterwards, swore by the life of their kings (see Knobel, 322). Joseph thus swears as an Egyptian. His main solicitude, however, appears here already: he must know how Benjamin does, and their disposition towards him. In Gen_42:16, he expresses himself more definitely: one of them is to go and bring the brother, the others are to remain in confinement. A change follows in Gen_42:17, they are confined for three days, probably on account of the expression of their unwillingness to fetch Benjamin. Pit for pit (see Gen_37:24)! These three days, however, were to Joseph a time for reflection, and for the brothers a time of visitation. They all seemed now to have fallen into slavery in Egypt, even if they had not incurred the death of criminals. How this must have made them remember Joseph’s sale! One ray of hope has he left them: on Benjamin’s appearance they could be released.
3. Gen_42:18-24. The hard terms imposed; Joseph’s arrangement and the repentance of the brothers; Joseph’s struggle; Simeon in prison.—This do and live.—Joseph now presents the charge in its conditional aspect. The motive assigned: For I fear God.—This language is the first definite sign of peace—the first lair self-betrayal of his heart. Agitated feelings lie concealed under these words. It is as much as to say: I am near to you, and to your faith. For them, it is true, the expression meant that he was a religious and conscientious man, who would never condemn on mere suspicion. It is an assertion, too, on which they are more to rely than on the earlier asseveration made: by the life of Pharaoh.—Let one of your brethren he bound.—Before, it was said: one shall go, but the others remain; now the reverse, and more mildly: one shall remain, but the others may go. This guarantees the return with Benjamin, and leaves them under the impression that they are not yet free from suspicion. Joseph sees the necessity of the others going, for his father’s house must be supplied with bread.—And they did so.—A summary expression of what follows, but anticipatory of their readiness to comply with Joseph’s request.—We are verily guilty.—Not: “we atone for our brother’s death” (Delitzsch); for thus there would be effaced the thought that the guilt was still resting upon them. The expiation is expressed in what follows.—Therefore is this distress come upon us.–Knobel translates it atoning, and makes the trivial remark: “All misfortune, according to the Hebrew notion, is a punishment for sin.” Joseph’s case itself directly contradicts him.—When he besought us.–Thus vividly paints the evil conscience. The narrator had not mentioned this beseeching. Thus are they compelled to make confession in Joseph’s hearing, without the thought that he understands them. But their open confession, made, as it was, before the interpreter, betrays the pressure of their sense of guilt.—And Reuben answered.—A picture of the thoughts that “accuse or excuse one another” (Rom_2:15). Reuben, too, is not wholly innocent; but, as against them, he thought to act the censurer, and what he did to save Joseph he represents in the strongest light. We may, indeed, conclude that his counsel to cast him into the pit was preceded by unheeded entreaties for his entire freedom.—For he spake with them by an interpreter.—Knobel here has to encounter the difficulty that Joseph, “as an officer of the Hyksos” (to use his own language), assumes the appearance of not being able to speak Hebrew.—And he turned himself about from them.—Overcome by his emotion, he has to turn away and weep. This is repeated more powerfully at the meeting with Benjamin (Gen_43:30) and finally, in a most touching manner, after Judah’s appeal (Gen_44:18, etc.). The cause of this emotion, thrice repeated, and each time with increasing power, is; in every instance, some propitiating appeal. In the first case, it is the palliating thought that Reuben, the first-born, intended to save him, and yet takes to himself the feeling of the guilt that weighed upon them. In the second case it is the appearance of the young and innocent Benjamin, his beloved brother, as though standing before the guilty brethren. In the third instance, it is Judah’s self-sacrifice in behalf of Benjamin and his father’s house. The key-note of Joseph’s emotion, therefore, is this perception of atoning love, purifying the bitter recollection of injustice suffered. A presentiment and a sentiment of reconciliation melt the heart which the mere sense of right might harden, and becomes even a feeling, at the same time, of divine and human reconciliation. Only as viewed from this definite perception can we estimate the more general feelings that flow from it: “painful recollection of the past, and thankfulness to God for his gracious guidance.”—And returned to them again.—Joseph’s first emotion may have removed his harsh decisiveness. His feeling of justice, however, is not yet satisfied; still less is there restored his confidence in his brethren, especially in reference to the future of Benjamin. But before adopting any severer measures, he communed with them, doubtless in a conciliatory manner. Then he takes Simeon, binds him, or orders him to be bound, that he might remain as a hostage for their return. That he does not order Reuben, the first-born, to be bound, explains itself from the discovery of his guiltlessness. Thus Simeon, as standing next, is the first-born of the guilty ones. He did not adopt Reuben’s plan of deliverance, though he did not especially distinguish himself in Joseph’s persecution, as might have been expected of him from his zealous disposition shown in the affair of Shechem,—a fact the more easily credited since neither did Judah, the next after him, agree with the majority.
4. Gen_42:25-35. The voluntary release; the return; the report; the dark omen.—To fill their sacks.—כְּלֵיהֶם, receptacles or vessels, in the most general sense.—To restore every man’s money with his sack.—Joseph would not receive pay from his father, and yet he could not openly return the money without betraying a particular relation to them. Therefore the secret measure, one object of which, doubtless, was to keep up the fear and excitement, as it also served to give them reasons for expecting something extraordinary.—Provisions for the way.—To prevent the decrease of their store, and to make unnecessary the premature opening of their sacks.—One of them opened his sack.—At the place of their night-quarters. It could not have been what we now call an inn. Delitzsch supposes that, at that time, already, there were shed-like buildings, caravanseras, existing along the route through the desert (Exo_4:24). Keil doubts this. The fact of the separate opening of his sack by one of them, demands no explanation. He might have made a mistake in the sack, or the money might have been put in a wrong one; but even this circumstance is so arranged as to increase the fear of their awakened consciences.—What is this that God hath done unto us?—They are conscious of no deception on their part, and they cannot understand how the Egyptians could have done it. Whether it were an oversight on their side, or a cunning trick of the Egyptians to arrest them afterwards for theft—at all events, their aroused consciences tell them that they have now to contend with God. They see a dark and threatening sign in it, now that a sense of God’s judgments is awakened in them.—And they came unto Jacob.—The story of their strange intercourse with the terrible man in Egypt, is confirmed by the fearful discovery made when all the sacks are opened. Joseph’s intimation, which they report, that they might traffic again in Egypt, provided they fulfilled the imposed condition, is a ray of light, which, in their present mood, they hardly knew how to appreciate.
5. Gen_42:36-38. Jacob’s lamentation.—Me have ye bereaved of my children.—The pain of Simeon’s apparent loss, grief for Joseph here renewed again, and the anguish concerning Benjamin, move Jacob greatly, and cause him to express himself, hyperbolically indeed, but still truthfully, according to his conception, as a man overwhelmed with misfortune, and losing his children, one after the other. So little thought the wise and pious Jacob how Dear was the joyful turning-point in the destiny of his house. His reproach: me have ye bereaved of my children, as addressed to those who might have formally contradicted it, is more forcible in its application than he could have thought. Or had he a presentiment of something he knew not? In regard to Joseph he could only knowingly charge that he had once sent him to them, and they had not brought him back. In respect to Simeon he could only reproach them with having told too much to the governor of Egypt respecting their family affairs (see Genesis 43). Respecting Benjamin he could only complain that they should ask to take him along. The aroused consciences of his sons, however, told them that truly all the threatening losses of Jacob were connected with their removal of Joseph; for they themselves considered the present catastrophe as a visitation on account of it.—And Reuben spake.—With a clearer conscience, he has also more courage; but his offer to leave his sons as hostages, so that Jacob might slay them if he did not return with Benjamin, is more expressive of a rude heroism than of true understanding; for how could it be a satisfaction to a grandfather to slay both his grandchildren! It can only be understood as a tender of a double blood-vengeance, or as a strong expression of assurance that his return without Benjamin was not to be thought of. Knobel thinks it strange that Reuben speaks of two sons, since at the time of the emigration to Egypt, according to Genesis 46, he had four sons. And yet he was quite advanced in years, according to the Elohistic account!—With sorrow to the grave (see Gen_37:35; 1Ki_2:6; 1Ki_2:9).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. A chapter showing the unfailing fulfilment of the divine decrees, the power of a guilty conscience, the righteous punishment of guilty concealers as visited by suspicion on all sides, the certainty of final retribution, the greatness of moral struggles, the imaginations of an evil conscience, the presentiments of misfortune as felt by a gray-haired sire in a guilty house, and, with it all, the change from judgment to reconciliation and salvation in the life of the now docile sons of the promise.
2. They came at last; late indeed, but come they must, even if it had been from the remotest bounds of the earth. Joseph’s brethren were to come and bow themselves down before him. God’s decrees must stand. It is not because Joseph saw it in a dream, but because in the dreams there was represented the realization of God’s decrees as already interweaving themselves with the future of the sons in the innermost movements of their most interior life. So sure is the fulfilment of the divine counsels,—so. unfailingly grow the germs of destiny in the deepest life of man.
3. Why do the sons of Jacob look so helplessly one upon the other? Why does it not come into their minds that corn is for sale in Egypt, and that a caravan of travellers is making preparation in their vicinity,? To their guilty conscience, Egypt is a foreboding name, threatening calamity. If they must go, however, they would rather go all together, that, in the multitude, they may find mutual encouragement. They have to explain why they come ten strong, and are thus driven to speak about Joseph; but with what embarrassment do they pass hastily over one who is no more! And now, terrified by the prospect of imprisonment, and threatened with death, they are unable, even in Joseph’s presence, and within the hearing of the interpreter, to suppress their self-accusation: “We are verily guilty concerning our brother.” And now, again, how vividly come to their minds the prayers of that brother, in vain beseeching them for mercy. So truthful is the memory of conscience. The money, too, found again in the sack of one of them, becomes another fearful sign that the divine judgments are at last to descend upon them. The last discovery of it in the sacks of all of them, fills up the measure of their fears. All favorable signs are gone: the twofold mitigation of Joseph’s purpose; his assurance: I fear God; his explanation that Benjamin’s appearance would satisfy him; the voluntary release; the finding again of their money. Reuben, too, though having a better conscience, shares in their feelings; he sees coming down upon them the full visitation of their blood-guiltiness; even the pious father has a foreboding, becoming even more distinct, that somehow, through the crime of his sons, a dark doom is impending over his house. Therefore is he not willing to trust his Benjamin, for so long a journey, to these sons, who seem, for some reason, to have a guilty conscience,—it may be in relation to Joseph.
4. Ye are spies. Though Joseph’s suspicion was unfounded, it expresses a righteous judgment: that guilty men who conceal a crime demanding an open atonement, must ever encounter suspicion as the reflex of their evil secret. Even when trusted they cannot believe it, because not yet true to themselves. To Joseph it must have appeared strangely suspicious that they came without Benjamin.
5. By regarding Joseph as a saintly man, who, from the very first, and with a freely reconciled spirit, was only imposing a divine trial upon his brothers, and leading them to repentance through a soul-enlightening discipline, we raise him above the Old-Testament stand-point; to say nothing of the fact that Joseph could not at first have known whether these, his half-brothers, were not also the persecutors of Benjamin, and with as deadly a hatred, perhaps, as they had shown to him. Neither had he any means of knowing whether or not he could ever be on friendly terms with them. But that he is to pass through a great religious and moral struggle with himself, is evident from his wavering decisions, from the time he takes for consideration, and especially, from the fact that he postpones the trial even after they had brought Benjamin to him. He adopts a course in which both his aged father and his beloved Benjamin are exposed, temporarily, to the greatest distress. Decidedly, from the very beginning, does he take a noble position, but by severe struggles is he to attain to that holy stand-point of complete forgiveness; and for this purpose his brothers’ confession of their guilt, and especially the appearance of Reuben, Benjamin, and Judah, are blessed to him, just as his own conduct assisted the brothers in bringing on their struggles of repentance and self-sacrifice by faith.
6. The turning of judgment into reconciliation. A principal point in this is the involuntary confession of the brethren in Joseph’s hearing, the discovery of Reuben’s attempt to save him, the atonement made by the proud-hearted Simeon, the melting of the brothers’ obduracy, and, through it, of Joseph’s exasperation. Above all, the recognition that God’s searching providence is present throughout the whole development. “Whatsoever maketh manifest is light” (Eph_5:13). Thus under the light of Christ’s cross the entire darkness of the world’s guilt was uncovered, and only in such an uncovering could it become reconciled.
7. Even now there already dawns upon Joseph the wonderful fact that his exaltation was owing mediately to the enmity of his brethren, and that they were together both conscious and unconscious instruments of God’s mercy and of his providential design to save much people alive (Genesis 45, 50).
8. Jacob feels the burden of his house, and his alarming presentiments of evil become manifest more and more. We must imagine this to ourselves, if we would clearly understand his depression. He is not strengthened by the spirit in his household, but put under restraint and weariness. He feels that there is something rotten in the foundation of his house.
9. Here, too, death is not denoted as a descending into Sheol, but as the dying from the heart’s sorrow of an uncompleted life. Opposed to it is the going home to the fathers when the soul is satisfied with the life on earth, and its enigmas are all solved.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See Doctrinal and Ethical. The brethren appearing before Joseph. Thus the world before Christ, the oppressors in the forum of the oppressed, the wicked at the judgment-seat of the pious.—Joseph and his brethren as they stand confronting each other: 1. He recognizes them, but they do not recognize him; 2. the positions of the parties are changed, but Joseph exercises mercy; 3. the judgment must precede the reconciliation; 4. human and divine reconciliation go together. We are verily guilty concerning our brother: 1. This language considered in their sense; 2. according to Joseph’s understanding; 3. in the sense of the spirit. The guilty conscience terrified, at first, by signs that were really favorable. Jacob’s lamentation as the seeming curse of his house becomes gradually known. At the extremest need help is near. Benjamin’s dark prospects (his mother dead, his brother lost, himself threatened with misfortune), and their favorable issue.
Taube: The hours of repentance that come to Joseph’s brethren: 1. How the sinner is led to repentance; 2. how repentance manifests itself; 3. the relation of the Lord to the penitent sinner.
First Section (Gen_42:1-6). Starke: The utility of commerce. The different products which God has given to different countries, demand mutual intercourse for their attainment. A believer must employ ordinary means, and not tempt God by their refusal. Nothing can hinder God’s decrees in behalf of the pious.—Schröder: The guilt of Benjamin’s brothers in respect to Joseph seems to weigh upon the father’s heart as a kind of presentiment.—Calwer Handbuch: Joseph’s brethren are they called, because Joseph stands here in the foreground of history, and the destiny of the family is connected with him. The very ten by whom he was sold must bow themselves before him, and receive the righteous and higher requital.—Heim: The expression sons of Israel, instead of sons of Jacob, points to Israel the man of faith, whose children they were, who accompanied them with his prayers, and for whose sake, although he knew it not, this journey to Egypt, so dark in its commencement, became a blessing to them all.
Second Section (Gen_42:7-17). Starke: Formerly they regarded him as a spy—now are they treated as spies in turn.
Gen_42:15. This expression is not an oath, but only a general asseveration. The first Christians, though making everything a matter of conscience, did not hesitate thus to affirm by the life of the Emperors, but they were unwilling to swear by their divinity. Juramus sicut non per genios Cœsarum, ita per salutem eorum quœ est augustior omnibus geniis. Tert. Apol.—Hall: The disposition of a Christian is not always to be judged by his outward acts.—Gerlach: Gen_42:9. Nothing is more common than this reproach upon travellers in the East, especially when they would sketch any parts of the country.—Schröder: He who was hungry when they were eating, now holds the food for which they hunger. To him (Joseph) there was committed, for some time, the government of a most important part of the world. He was not only to bless, but also to punish and to judge; i.e., become forgetful of all human relations and act divinely. [Krummacher: Still Joseph felt as man, not as though he were Providence.] Joseph plays a wonderful part with his brethren, but one which humbles and exercises him greatly. A similar position God assumes towards believers when in tribulation; let us, therefore, hold assuredly that all our misfortunes, trials, and lamentations, even death itself, are nothing but a hearty and fair display of the divine goodness towards us (Luther). Joseph’s suspicion, though feigned in expression, has, nevertheless, a ground of fact in the former conduct of his brothers towards him.
Third Section (vers 18–24). Starke: God knows how to keep awake the conscience.
Gen_42:18. The test of a true Christian in all his doings, is the fear of the Lord.—Bibl. Tub.: How noble is religion in a judge!—Lange: Chastisements as a means of self-examination. There may be times when sins, long since committed, may present themselves so vividly before the eyes as to seem but of yesterday.—The same: God’s wise providence so brings it about, that though a guilty man may escape the deserved punishment for a time, the visitation will surely come, even though it be by God’s permitting misfortunes to fall upon him through the guilt of others, when he himself is innocent.
Fourth Section (Gen_42:25-35). Starke: Simeon may now let his thoughts wander back, in repentance for his murderous deeds at Shechem, in weeping for the grief he had caused to Joseph, and in imploring God’s forgiveness. God does not bestow the blessing of the gospel on the sinner in any other way than in the order of the law, or in the knowledge of his sins. A frightened conscience always expects the worst (Wis_17:11).—Schröder: Simeon is bound; probably because the leader at Shechem was also the prime mover against Joseph (Baumgarten.
Fifth Section (Gen_42:35-38). Starke: He “who wrestled with God (and man) and prevailed, shows here great weakness of faith. Yet he recovers, and again struggles in faith, like Abraham his grandfather.—Cramer: When burdened with trials and temptations, we interpret everything in the worst way, even though it may be for our peace.—Gerlach: Jacob’s declarations betray a feeling that the brothers were not guiltless respecting Joseph’s disappearance. He knew their jealousy, and he had experienced the violent disposition of Simeon and Levi.—Schröder: There is nothing so restless or so great a foe to peace as a frightened heart, that turns pale at a glance, or at the rustle of a leaf (Luther). He had long suspected them in regard to Joseph (see Gen_42:4); the old wound is now opened again. Reuben is once more the tender-hearted one. He offers everything (Gen_42:37) that he may prevail with his father. “But it is out of reason what he offers.” Luther.—Heim: Jacob’s painful language. There breaks forth now the hard suspicion which he had long carried shut up in the depths of his own heart.
Footnotes:
[1][Gen_42:4.—אָסוֹן. A rare Hebrew word, occurring only here, in Gen_42:38, and in Exo_21:22-23. Gesenius would connect the root with the Arabic ַה ל, others with the Arabic ٱ׃ַ and the Syriac ܐ̃ܣܐ, which means to heal. The first comes nearer to it in sense, but a much closer agreement, both in form and significance, exists between it and the Arabic ٱ׃ל, to be in grief or pain, and its noun ٱ׃ًל, pain, affliction. It occurs in the Koran, v. 29, 72; vii. 91; lvii. 23, in the very sense here demanded by the context.—T. L.]
[2][Gen_42:28.—וַיֵּצֵא לִבָּם, and their heart went out. LXX, ἐξέστη ἡ καρδία αὐτῶν. Hence the Greek ἔκατασις, ecstasy. It may denote rapture, astonishment, overwhelming sorrow—any condition of soul in which the thoughts and affections seem to pass beyond the control of the will. The heart goes forth, the mind wanders, the soul loses command of itself. It is the same imagery, and nearly the same terms, in many languages. Corresponding to it are the expressions for the opposite state. Compare the Latin exire de mente, ratione, etc., to be or go out of one’s mind, and the opposite, colligere se, to take courage, to recover one’s self. So the English, to be collected, or composed. There is a similar usage of the Greek συναναγείρεσθαι and ἀθροίζεσθαι, to collect, gather back the soul. See the Phædo, 67 c. Vulgate, obstupefacti sunt.—T. L.]
[3][Gen_42:15. חֵי פַרְעֹה. Literally, by the lives of Pharaoh; but the primitive conception, whatever it may have been (see note, p. 163, 2d. column), that gave rise to the plural form of this word, had probably become dim or lost, and there is intended hero only the one general sense of life. There is, however, a remark of Maimonides on this phrase, in this place, that is worthy of note. His critical, as well as most philosophical, eye observes a difference in this little word חי, and the vowel pointing it has in the Scriptures according as it is used of God or man. Thus in the Hebrew oath, חַי יְהוָֹה וְחֵי נַפְשְׁךָ (comp. 1Sa_20:3; 1Sa_25:26; 2Ki_2:2; 2Ki_2:4; 2Ki_2:6; 2Ki_4:30; and other places), which is rendered, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, he notices what has escaped most critics, viz., the change of vowel in the word חי; so that the rendering should be, as the Lord liveth, or by the living Jehovah, and by the life of thy soul. The reasons of this he thus states in the Sepher Hamada, or Book of Knowledge, the first part of the great work entitled Yad Hachazakah, ch. ii. sec. Genesis 14 : “In Gen_42:15, it is said, חֵי פַרְעֹה, by the life (lives) of Pharaoh; so in 1°Sam. Gen_1:26, חֵי נַפְשְׁךָ, by the life of thy soul, as also in many other places. But in the same connection it is not said חֵי יְהוָֹה (chei), but חַי יְהוָֹה (chai), in the absolute form instead of the construct or genitive, because the Creator, blessed be he, and his life are one, not separate, as the lives of creatures or of angels. Therefore, he does not know creatures by means of the creatures, as we know them, but by himself (מחמת עצמוֹ), because all life leans upon him, and by his knowing himself he knoweth all things—since he and his knowledge also, as well as he and his life, are one. This is a matter which the tongue has not the power of uttering, nor the ear of hearing, nor can the mind comprehend it; but such is the reason of the change, and of its being said חֵי פ־עה, by the life of Pharaoh, in the construct state, since Pharaoh and his life are two.” Again, sec. xi. and xii.: “All things beside the Creator, blessed be he, exist through his truth (or truthfulness) and because he knows himself, he knows everything. And he does not know by a knowledge which is without (or outside, חוץ ממנו), to himself, as we know, because we and our knowledge are not one; but as for the Creator, blessed be he, both his knowledge and his life are one with himself in every mode of unity. Hence we may say that he is, at the same time, the knower, the known, and the knowledge itself, all in one.” Or, as he tells us in the beginning of this profound treatise, ch. i. sec. Genesis 1 : “God’s truth is not like the truth of the creatures, and thus the prophet says (Jer_10:10), Jehovah God is truth, and God is life (plural חיים lives; compare πατὴρ τῶν φώτων, Jam_1:17), he is the מלך עולם the king of eternity, the king of the world.” That is, he is, at the same time, the truth, the life, the everlasting law. Compare, also, Maimonides, Porta Mosis, Pococke edition, p. 256.—T. L.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain JOSEPH’S FIRST MEETING WITH HIS BRETHREN, Gen_42:1-38.
JOSEPH’S FIRST MEETING WITH HIS BRETHREN, Gen_42:1-38.
1. Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt — He, perhaps, saw caravans returning from Egypt with grain, and he also heard (Gen_42:2) that grain could there be had.
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Why do you look one upon another — The mention of Egypt and the thought of going thither probably filled the sons of Jacob with strange fears, and the aged father noticed their peculiar looks whenever the matter was alluded to. They seemed to shrink from going thither, as if they feared some retributive judgment in the land whither they had sold their brother.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1–5. The Descent into Egypt
1–5. The Descent into Egypt
1. look one upon another] In silence, as if desperate. Jacob’s words indicate the energy and resourcefulness of the old man, as compared with the helpless despondency of the sons.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) When Jacob saw.—That is, learned, understood, that there…
XLII.
FIRST VISIT OF JOSEPH’S BRETHREN TO EGYPT.
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(1) When Jacob saw.—That is, learned, understood, that there was corn in Egypt. As we have seen (Gen_37:25), there was a large caravan trade between Palestine and Egypt, and the report would gradually get abroad that food might be purchased there.
Why do ye look . . . —In the second rainless season not only would the flocks and herds begin to languish, but the numerous retainers of Jacob and his sons would also become enfeebled from insufficient nourishment, and begin to die of low fever and those other diseases which follow in the train of famine. Jacob’s words, therefore, mean, Why are you irresolute, and uncertain what to do? And then he encourages them to take this journey as a possible means of providing for the wants of their households.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain Genesis 37 - 50
Genesis 37 - 50
On which we shall dwell more particularly. There is not in scripture a more perfect and beautiful type of Christ than Joseph. Whether we view Christ as the object of the Father’s love, the object of the envy of His own, - in His humiliation, sufferings, death exaltation, and glory, in all we have Him strikingly typified by Joseph.
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In Gen. 37 we have Joseph’s dreams, the statement of which draws out the enmity of his brethren. He was the object of his father’s love, and the subject of very high destinies, and inasmuch as the hearts of his brothers were not in communion with these things, they hated him. They had no fellowship in the father’s love. They would not yield to the thought of Joseph’s exaltation. In all this they represent the Jews in Christ’s day. He came to His own and his own received him not." He had "no form nor comeliness in their eyes." They would neither own Him as the Son of God, nor king of Israel. Their eyes were not open to behold "his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of "grace and truth." They would not have Him; yea, they hated Him.
Now, in Joseph’s case, we see that he, in no wise, relaxed his testimony in consequence of his brethren’s refusal of his first dream. "And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren;" and they hated him yet the more....And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren." This was simple testimony founded upon divine revelation; but it was testimony which brought Joseph down to the pit. Had he kept back his testimony, or taken off ought of its edge and power, he might have spared himself; but no; he told them the truth, and therefore they hated him.
Thus was it with Joseph’s great Antitype. He bore witness to the truth - He witnessed a good confession He kept back nothing - He could only speak the truth because He was the truth, and His testimony to the truth was answered, on man’s part, by the cross, the vinegar, the soldier’s spear. The testimony of Christ, too, was connected with the deepest, fullest, richest grace. He not only came as "the truth," but also as the perfect expression of all the love of the Father’s heart:" grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." He was the full disclosure to man of what God was. Hence man was left entirely without excuse. He came and showed God to man, and man hated God with a perfect hatred. The fullest exhibition of divine love was answered by the fullest exhibition of human hatred. This is seen in the cross; and we have it touchingly foreshadowed at the pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren.
"And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams." These words forcibly remind us of the parable in Matthew 22. "But, last of all, he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." God sent His Son into the world with this thought, "They will reverence my son;" but, alas! man’s heart had no reverence for the "well beloved" of the Father. They cast him out. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ; and they are at issue still. Man crucified Him; but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves; God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man gave Him the very lowest place on earth; God gave Him the very highest place in heaven, in brightest majesty.
ALL this is shown out in Joseph’s history. "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;) even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren." (Gen. 49: 22-26)
These verses beautifully exhibit to our view "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." "The archers" have done their work; but God was stronger than they. The true Joseph has been shot at and grievously wounded in the house of his friends; but "the arms of his hands have been made strong" in the power of resurrection, and faith now knows Him as the basis of all God’s purposes of blessing and glory in reference to the Church, Israel, and the whole creation. When we look at Joseph in the pit, and in the prison, and look; at him afterwards as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of God and the. thoughts of men; and so when we look at the cross, and at "the throne of the majesty in the heavens," we see the same thing.
Nothing ever brought out the real state of man’s heart toward God but the coming of Christ. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." (John 15: 22) It is not that they would not have been sinners. No; but "they had not had sin." So He says, in another place, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin." (John 9: 41) God came near to man in the Person of His Son, and man was able to say, "this is the heir;" but yet he said, "come, let us kill him." Hence, "they have no cloak for their sin." Those who say they see, have no excuse. confessed blindness is not at all the difficulty, but professed sight. This is a truly solemn principle for a professing age like the present. The permanence of sin is connected with the mere profession to see. A man who is blind, and knows it, can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for one who thinks he sees, when he really does not?
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Now when Jacob saw literally, and Jacob saw, i.e.…
Now when Jacob saw literally, and Jacob saw, i.e. perceived by the preparations of others for buying corn in Egypt (Lange), but more probably learnt by the report which others brought from. Egypt (ver. 2)that there was corn rbv either that which is broken, e.g. ground as in a mill, from rbv; to break in pieces, to shiver (Gesenius), or that which breaks forth, hence sprouts or geminates, from an unused root, rbv; to press out, to break forth (Furst), is here employed to denote not simply grain, but a supply of it, frumenti cumulus, for sale and purchase.
The LXX render by prasiv, and the Vulgate by quod alimenta venderenturin Egypt, (vide Gen_41:54) Jacob (literally, and Jacob) said unto his sons, using verba non, ut multi volunt, in. crepantis, sed excitantis (RosenmWhy do ye look one upon another? i.e. in such a helpless and undecided manner (Keil), which, however, there is no need to regard as springing from a consciousness of guilt (Lange), the language fittingly depicting the aspect and attitude of those who are simply consiii inopes (Rosenm
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Vers. 1-38.
The first visit of Joseph"s brethren to Egypt.
I THE JOURNEY TO EGYPT (vers. 1-5).
1. The famishing household. Although Canaan was the land of promise, and the family of Jacob the Church of God, yet neither was the one nor the other exempted from the pressure of that heavy famine which had fallen on all surrounding lands and peoples. It is not God s intention that his people should escape participating in the ills of life. Besides enabling them, collectively and individually, to sympathize with their fellow-men, it is a means under God of advancing their own sanctification, and oftentimes as well of furthering the purposes of God concerning both the world and the Church.
1. The perplexed brethren. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, and the rest of them were manifestly at their wits" end what to do to keep themselves from starving. If the thought of Egypt had anything to do with their listlessness and inactivity, it may remind us how dangerous it is to sin, the memory of past transgressions having an uncomfortable habit of springing up at unexpected moments, like grim and shaggy lions in the path; if their spiritless dejection was in no way connected with the Dothan tragedy, it shows that saints are not necessarily a whit more talented or fertile in expedient than their ungodly neighbors, and are frequently as helpless as the rest of them in the face of sudden and overwhelming calamities. Grace, though it gives goodness, does not guarantee greatness.
2. The parental exhortation. Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, and forthwith proposed that his sons should undertake a journey thither to fetch a supply for their necessities, at the same time prefacing his sound advice with a word of brisk reproof at their want of push in the face of news so full of comfort and hope as that grain might be had for the purchase. Jacob clearly discerned that, while it was right in them to look to God for help in their distress, it was also expected of them by God that they should help themselves. Although God promises to give his people bread, he does not undertake to relieve them of all trouble in the matter. If he provides corn in Egypt, he expects men to go for it; and it is a mark of sound sense, if it is not a sign of grace, when men are able to detect in Egypt providential supplies for their necessities.
3. The important mission. Concerning which may be noticed
(1) The number of the travelers: Joseph"s ten brethren. Whether it was for safety to themselves, or for the advantage of the household to enable them to return with larger supplies, it was clearly a wise providential arrangement that the ten brethren who had sinned against the son of Rachel should go down to Egypt.
(2) The destination of the travelers: Egypt. In all probability Egypt was the last place that they would ever have thought of going to. It is scarcely likely that they had quite forgotten Joseph. Whether or not they suspected that Joseph might yet be alive, they knew that he had gone to Egypt as a slave. And now they were themselves upon the way to the scene of Joseph"s captivity. If Joseph"s brethren were thoughtful men at all, they must have had their reflections by the way.
(3) The object of the travelers: to buy corn. This at least was a lawful and an honorable purpose, which is more than could be said of some of their previous adventures. But God"s people, whether they abide in Canaan or go to Egypt, should follow peace with, and provide things honest in the sight of, all men.
4. The paternal reservation. "But Benjamin, Joseph"s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren." If Jacob"s reason for detaining Benjamin was anxiety for himself, who was now an old man, and afraid to lose the lad who served him as the son of his old age, it may remind us of the feebleness and helplessness of age, and of the duty of the young, to comfort and assist the old. If it was anxiety for Benjamin, whom he feared to expose to the fate of Joseph, it is a beautiful example of the tenderness and strength of a father"s love, and may well suggest the duty of rewarding that love with true filial affection. If it was anxiety for his ten sons, lest in the case of Benjamin they should repeat the crime which they had perpetrated against Joseph, it shows how difficult it is to remove from the minds of others, even of those who have the most disposition to judge us with charity, unfavorable impressions concerning ourselves when once they have been formed. There is good reason for believing that a change had passed upon the characters of Joseph"s brethren since the dark deed at Dothan. Yet the old man was afraid to trust them. If once by our wickedness we forfeit the confidence of our fellow-men, these are not to be blamed if in future they fail to trust our integrity and honor.
II THE INTERVIEW WITH THE GOVERNOR (vers. 6-25).
1. Humble homage to the governor. Arriving in Egypt, the sons of Jacob were conducted to the presence of the viceroy, and they "bowed down before him with their faces." Such respectful behavior was due to the majesty of him in whose presence they stood, (Rom_13:7) and was admirably fitted to the character in which they came. They who have a suit to press, at an earthly or a heavenly throne, should be "clothed with humility.
2. Non-recognition of the governor. The moment Joseph looked upon the Hebrew strangers he knew them to-be his brethren. But they entirely failed to discern him; because
(1) he spoke like a foreigner interpreter was between them;
(2) he dressed like an Egyptian he wore a garment-of byssus, like art Egyptian priest; (Gen_41:42)
(3) he swore like a courtier the life of Pharaoh," which certainly his brethren knew was not the language of Canaan. Yet, if they had been as anxious to see their lost brother as he had been to see them (it is just possible Joseph may have been on the outlook for his brethren, expecting them to arrive with every caravan that came from Canaan), not even these disguises would have concealed his identity.
3. Harsh treatment by the governor.
(1) The nature of it. He spoke to them roughly, he questioned them straitly, he accused them directly, he proved them severely, he imprisoned them closely.
(2) The reason of it. Scarcely revenge; ostensibly to test their sincerity; but really to conceal his own identity, in order to secure time for thought how to act, and, if possible, to penetrate into their characters.
(3) The mitigation of it. At the end of three days he somewhat relaxed his proposition, asking them to leave only one of their brethren instead of nine, viz., Simeon, whom he took and bound before their eyes.
4. Bitter grief before the governor.
(1) The remembrance of their sin. As a result of their rough handling by the Egyptian vizier, they began to think of Joseph and their early sin against him, which almost every step in their present experience vividly recalled. It is good when affliction brings sin to mind.
(2) The confession of their guilt. "We are verily guilty concerning our brother." It is better when tribulation leads to an acknowledgment of ill desert.
(3) The recognition of their punishment. They saw the hand of God pursuing them for their wickedness, and requiting them, as they imagined, for Joseph s blood. It is best when God"s retributive dispensations make the soul sensitive and humble.
5. Unexpected kindness from the governor. Though he did not depart from his original demand that they should bring down Benjamin, and though he insisted on retaining Simeon as a hostage for their obedience, he yet granted their request for corn, and, unknown to them as yet, caused their money to be restored to their sacks. So Christ often deals with penitents; first blows and buffetings, then benefits and blessings.
III THE RETURN TO CANAAN (vers. 26-38).
1. The startling discovery. Resting for the night at a wayside khan, or lodging-place, one of the brethren, having had occasion to give his beast a little provender, opened out his sack, and lo! the silver money he had paid for his corn was in its mouth. The same discovery was made by the rest on reaching Hebron. The instruction which Joseph gave his steward had not been heard by them, and they had penetration to see how the circumstance might be turned to their disadvantage. They were innocent of any crime in this matter; but how were they to explain it to the austere and impenetrable man who sat upon the throne of Egypt? "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all." The best that can be said of them in this connection is that they had piety enough to see the hand of God in the untoward affair.
2. The faithful report. On arriving at Hebron, they related to their father Jacob all that had befallen them in Egypt" beginning with the rough reception they had gotten from the governor, and ending with the startling discovery they had just made; in all which there was at least a symptom of improvement in the characters of those ten brethren. Here was none of the concealment and lying that marked them at an earlier stage in their history, as when they palmed off upon their aged parent the clever story of the wild beast and the bloody coat to account for Joseph"s disappearance. They presented themselves as before without their brother, but this time they told the truth: Simeon was a hostage in Egypt for the bringing down of Benjamin.
3. The parental sorrow. In the anguish of the moment Jacob committed three mistakes.
(1) About his sons who had returned from Egypt, whom he was manifestly blaming for the loss both of Simeon and Joseph, ye are bereaving," which should lead us to beware of passing hasty judgments upon thecharacters of others, of those even whom we may think we know best.
(2) About the two who were detained in Egypt, Joseph and Simeon, the first of whom he thought he knew was already dead, and the second of whom he feared had shared the same fate; whereas Joseph was in honor in Egypt, and Simeon was only languishing in temporary confinement.
(3) About himself. and Benjamin, that their separation would but be the beginning of sorrow for them both, whereas it was to be the means of leading both to happiness and honor. So God"s providences are often misinterpreted by his saints. Contrast with Jacob"s exclamation that of Paul Rom_8:28.
4. The filial security. Reuben offers to undertake the charge of Benjamin, and to he responsible for his safe-conduct to Egypt and back again, and in so far the act of Reuben was generous and kindly towards both Jacob and Benjamin; but his proposal that Jacob should slay two of his sons if he failed to deliver Benjamin was rash, unnatural, and sinful, and accordingly was at once rejected by the patriarch.
See in this interesting narrative
1. The fact of an overruling providence, exemplified in God"s bringing Joseph"s brethren to Egypt.
2. The strength of human affection, illustrated by Joseph"s emotion in presence of his brethren, and Jacob"s pathetic fondness for Benjamin.
3. The power of a guilty conscience, exhibited m the mutual recriminations of the brethren with reference to the sale of Joseph.
4. The beneficial influence of the discipline of life, as portrayed in the good effects produced by Joseph"s rough handling of his brethren.
5. The short-sightedness of sense and reason, as seen in Jacob"s lamentation, "All these things are against me," while, on the contrary, all things were working together for his good.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD Gen_15:13, Gen_15:14) But it is not merely a fact in the historical preparation for what he was bringing to pass; a link in the chain of events leading on to Christ. We must look upon it as part of a series of types foreshadowing gospel truths. The famine was a step towards the promised possession, and has its counterpart in the work of the Holy Spirit. It represents the spiritual want of man; conviction of sin. (Joh_16:8; cf. Rom_7:9) leading to know the power of Christ"s work. (Mat_18:11)
I The first step is CONSCIOUSNESS OF FAMINE; that a man"s life is more than meat; more than a supply of bodily wants. It is realizing that he has wants beyond the present life; that in living for time he has been following a shadow. This knowledge is not natural to us. Bodily hunger soon makes itself felt, bat the soul"s need does not; and until it is known, the man may be poor and blind and naked," and yet suppose that he is "rich and increased with goods.
II WE CANNOT OF OURSELVES SUPPLY THAT WANT. Gradually we learn how great it is. We want to still the accusing voice of conscience; to find a plea that shall avail in judgment; to see clearly the way of life that we may not err therein. In vain we look one on another, seeking comfort in the good opinion of men, in their testimony to our upright life. In vain we try to satisfy ourselves, by promises to do better, or by offerings of our substance or of our work. In vain is it to seek rest in unbelief, or in the persuasion that in some way all will be right. The soul cannot thus find peace. There is a voice which at times will make itself heard have sinned thou hast sinned.
III GOD HAS PROVIDED BREAD. "I have heard that there is corn in Egypt", (cf. Rom_10:18) answers to the gospel telling of the bread of life. As to this we mark
1. It was provided before the want arose (1Pe_1:20; Rev_13:8) The gospel tells us of what has already been done, not of a gift to come into existence on certain conditions. The ransom of our souls has been paid. We have to believe and take. (Rev_22:17)
2. How faith works. They must go for that food which was ready for them. To take the bread of life must be a real earnest act, not a listless assent. The manna which was to be gathered, the brazen serpent to which the sick were to look, the command to the impotent "Rise, take up thy bed and walk," all show that it is not enough merely to wish, there must be the effort of faith (cf. 1Th_1:3) This is a law of the spiritual kingdom. As natural laws regulate results within their, domain, so spiritual results must be sought in accordance with spiritual laws.
3. It is our Brother who has made provision for us. This is our confidence. He waits to reveal himself when in humility and emptiness we come to him, and to give us plenty. M. (1Co_3:21, 1Co_3:22)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in…
Gen_42:1-2
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt.
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The famine in the house of Jacob
I. CONSIDERED IN ITS REARING UPON THE DIVINE PURPOSES CONCERNING THE CHOSEN PEOPLE.
II. CONSIDERED IN ITS EFFECT UPON JACOBS SONS. Why do ye look one upon another? This sad question reavealed--
1. The utmost distress.
2. Great perplexity.
3. Forebodings of conscience. (T. H. Leale.)
The famine; or, good out of evil
I. THE WIDESPREAD CALAMITY.
II. THE ERRAND TO EGYPT.
III. THE DOUBTFUL RECEPTION. Learn:
1. When distresses and trials come, we should be ready to trust that God means to do good by them in some way, though we may not know how.
2. When difficulties occur, we should still hope on.
3. When disappointments are our lot, we should remember that they come not without Gods knowledge and permission.
4. Humility and faith will always lead to renewed hope. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Corn in Egypt
We have here a picture of mans lost estate, he is in a sore soul-devouring famine. We discover here mans hope. His hope lies in that Joseph whom he knows not, who has gone before him and provided all things necessary, that his wants may be supplied. And we have here practical advice, which was pre-eminently wise on the part of Jacob to his sons in his case, and which, being interpreted, is also the wisest advice to you and to me. Seeing that there is mercy for sinners, and that Jesus our brother has gone before us to provide for us an all-sufficient redemption, Why sit we here and look one upon another? There is mercy in the breast of God, there is salvation in Christ; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die.
I. A PITIFUL PLIGHT. These sons of Jacob were overtaken by a famine. They were cast into a waste, howling wilderness of famine, with but one oasis, and that oasis they did not hear of till just at the time to which our text refers, when they learned to their joy that there was corn in Egypt. Permit me now to illustrate the condition of the sinner by the position of these sons of Jacob.
1. The sons of Jacob had a very great need of bread. But what is this compared with the sinners needs! His necessities are such that only Infinity can supply them; he has a demand before which the demands of sixty-six mouths are as nothing.
2. Mark, again: what these people wanted was an essential thing. They did not lack clothes, that were a want, but nothing like the lack of bread; for a man might exist with but scanty covering. Oh that men should cry for bread--the absolute necessary for the sustenance of the body! But what is the sinners want? Is it not exactly this? he wants that without which the soul must perish.
3. Yet again: the necessity of the sons of Jacob was a total one. They had no bread; there was none to be procured. Such is the sinners case. It is not that he has a little grace and lacks more; but he has none at all. Of himself he has no grace. It is not that he has a little goodness, and needs to be made better; but he has no goodness at all, no merits, no righteousness--nothing to bring to God, nothing to offer for his acceptance; he is penniless, poverty-stricken; everything is gone whereon his soul might feed.
4. But yet worse: with the exception of Egypt, the sons of Jacob were convinced that there was no food anywhere. In speechless silence they resigned themselves to the woe which threatened to overwhelm them. Such is the sinners condition, when first he begins to feel a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, he looks to others. There is no hope for us; we have all been condemned, we have all been guilty, we can do nothing to appease the Most High; what a wretched world were ours, if we were equally convinced of sin, and equally convinced that there was no hope of mercy! This, then, was the condition of Jacobs sons temporally, and it is our condition by nature spiritually.
II. Now we come, in the second place, to the GOOD NEWS. Jacob had faith, and the ears of faith are always quiet; faith can hear the tread of mercy, though the footfall be as light as that of the angel among the flowers. Jacob had the ears of faith. He had been at prayer, I doubt not, asking God to deliver his family in the time of famine; and by and by he hears, first of his household, that there is corn in Egypt. Jacob heard the good news, and communicated it as speedily as possible to his descendants. Now, we also have heard the good news. Good news has been sent to us in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is corn in Egypt. We need not die. Now, we have better news than even Jacob had; although the news is similar, understanding it in a spiritual sense.
1. We are told to-day, by sure and certain witnesses, that there is corn in Egypt, there is mercy in God. Jacobs messenger might have deceived him--idle tales are told everywhere, and in days of famine men are very apt totell a falsehood, thinking that to be true which they wish were so. The hungry man is apt to hope that there may be corn somewhere; and then he thinks there is; and then he says there is; and then, what begins with a wish comes to be a rumour and a report. But this day, my friends, it is no idle talk; no dream, no rumour of a deceiver. There is mercy with God, there is salvation with Him that He may be feared.
2. There is another thing in which we have the start of Jacob. Jacob knew there was corn in Egypt, but did not know who had the keeping of it. If he had known that, he would have said, My sons, go down at once to Egypt, do not be at all afraid, your brother is lord of Egypt, and all the corn belongs to him. Nay, more, I can readily imagine that he would have gone himself, forthwith. Sinner, the mercies of God are under no lock and key except those over which Christ has the power. The granaries of heavens mercy have no steward to keep them save Christ. He is exalted on high to give repentance and remission of sins.
3. There is yet another thing which the sons of Jacob knew nothing of. When they went to Egypt, they went on hap-hazard: If they knew there was corn, they were not sure they would get it. But when you and I go to Christ, we are invited guests.
4. But one other remark, and I will have done with this second point. The sons of Jacob were in one respect better off than you are apparently, for they had money with which to buy. Jacob was not a poor man in respect of wealth, although he had now become exceedingly poor from lack of bread. His sons had money to take with them. Glittering bars of gold they thought must surely attract the notice of the ruler of Egypt. You have no money, nothing to bring to Christ, nothing to offer Him. You offered Him something once, but He rejected all you offered Him as being spurious coins, imitations, counterfeits, and good for nothing. And now utterly stripped, hopeless, penniless, you say you are afraid to go to Christ because you have nothing of your own. Let me assure you that you are never in so fit a condition to go to Christ as when you have nowhere else to go to, and have nothing of your own.
III. Thus I have noticed the good news as well as the pitiful plight. I come now to the third part, which is GOOD ADVICE. Jacob says, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold I have heard that there is corn in Egypt; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. This is very practical advice. I wish people would act the same with religion as they do in temporal affairs. Jacobs sons did not say: Well, that is very good news; I believe it, and then sit still and die. No, they went straightway to the place of which the good news told them corn was to be had. So should it be in matters of religion. We should not be content merely to hear the tidings, but we should never be satisfied until by Divine grace we have availed ourselves of them, and have found mercy in Christ. Lastly, let me put this question: Why do ye look one upon another? Why do ye sit still? Fly to Christ, and find mercy. Oh, says one, I cannot get what I expect to have. But what do you expect? I believe some of our hearers expect to feel an electric shock, or something of that kind, before they are saved. The gospel says simply, Believe. That they will not understand. They think there is to be something so mysterious about it. They cant make out what it is; but they are going to wait for it and then believe. Well, you will wait till doomsday; for if you do not believe this simple gospel, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God will not work signs and wonders to please your foolish desires. Your position is this--you are a sinner, lost, ruined; you cannot help yourself. Scripture says, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Your immediate business, your instantaneous duty is to cast yourself on that simple promise, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that as He came into the world to save sinners, He has therefore come to save you. What you have to do with, is that simple command--Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. In conclusion, I make this last remark: Did you notice the argument Joseph used why the sons should go to Egypt? It was this--That we may live, and not die. Sinner, this is my argument with thee this morning. My dear hearers, the gospel of Christ is a matter of life and death with you. It is not a matter of little importance, but of all importance. There is an alternative before you; you will either be eternally damned, or everlastingly saved. Despise Christ, and neglect His great salvation, and you will be lost, as sure as you live. Believe in Christ; put your trust alone in Him, and everlasting life is yours. What argument can be more potent than this to men that love themselves? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The famine in Canaan
I. FAMINE.
1. A dire calamity. Perhaps none greater. One which human wisdom cannot foresee. Affects all classes. Animal life depends on vegetable life, vegetable life on seasons, light, heat, rain, temperature, &c. These under the control of God. The lawmaker may suspend the operation of natural laws, moderate their influence, or affect their course.
2. Usually unexpected. In this case there was a warning given, and preparations made. Men cannot foresee the suspension or deviation of natural laws. Hopes for the future built on productiveness of the past.
3. Often over-ruled for good. In this case conspicuously so. Promotes human sympathy (thus the Irish famine, 1846-7, besides evoking much individual benevolence, was responded to by Parliamentary grants of, in the whole, £10,000,000. Ill. Indian famine, 1861). Provokes scientific inquiry into supply and demand. of food. Leads to emigration and breaking up of new ground.
4. Always possible and near. World at any time only a harvest off starvation.
5. Generally local (Gen_8:22). All countries (Gen_41:57), those adjacent to Egypt. Kindness of Providence in this. Nations in their turn dependent on each other. Each offers something for the general use.
II. PLENTY.
1. Where? In Egypt. A storehouse of plenty for hungry nations. Always food in some place, and will be while the earth lasts. He who feeds the ravens knows what man has need of.
2. Why? Does it seem strange that the promised land should suffer, rather than be the favoured spot?
(1) It was a small country.
(2) Had other nations gone thither they would have conquered it.
(3) Chiefly: it was part of the Divine plan that Israel should go down into Egypt, and the famine necessitated this.
3. How? By the extraordinary productiveness of seven preceding years, and the storing of the surplus corn. This effected by the instrumentality of Joseph. His mind supernaturally illuminated. Favour given him in the sight of the king of Egypt. Him appointment to office, including the absolute control of the produce of the land.
III. BUYING FOOD.
1. Want in the house of Jacob.
2. The ten sent out to buy corn in Egypt.
3. They arrive in Egypt, and visit the royal granaries.
4. Joseph recognizes them, and they bow before him, and thus fulfil the dream.
5. To disarm suspicion, and to discover the temper of their minds, and the history of their family, they are charged with being spies, and cast into prison.
6. After three days they are liberated, and a hostage required for their return with the younger brother of whom they have spoken, and of whose existence Joseph affects to doubt.
7. Mutual recriminations respecting Joseph.
8. Joseph is affected by what he hears.
9. Simeon bound and left in prison, while they betake themselves away to Canaan. Learn: However great the dearth of the bread that perisheth, there is always sufficient of the bread of life, and it is always accessible. (J. C. Gray.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Genesis 42-44
VISITS OF JOSEPHS BRETHREN
Genesis 42-44
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"Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good."- Gen_50:19-20.
THE purpose of God to bring Israel into Egypt was accomplished by the unconscious agency of Josephs natural affection for his kindred. Tenderness towards home is usually increased by residence in a foreign land; for absence, like a little death, sheds a halo round those separated from us. But Joseph could not as yet either revisit his old home or invite his fathers family into Egypt. Even, indeed, when his brothers first appeared before him, he seems to have had no immediate intention of inviting them as a family to settle in the country of his adoption, or even to visit it. If he had cherished any such purpose or desire he might have sent down wagons at once, as he at last did, to bring his fathers household out of Canaan. Why, then, did he proceed so cautiously? Whence this mystery, and disguise, and circuitous compassing of his end? What intervened between the first and last visit of his brethren to make it seem advisable to disclose himself and invite them? Manifestly there had intervened enough to give Joseph insight into the state of mind his brethren were in, enough to satisfy him they were not the men they had been, and that it was safe to ask them and would be pleasant to have them with him in Egypt. Fully alive to the elements of disorder and violence that once existed among them, and having had no opportunity of ascertaining whether they were now altered, there was no course open but that which he adopted of endeavouring in some unobserved way to discover whether twenty years had wrought any change in them.
For effecting this object he fell on the expedient of imprisoning them, on pretence of their being spies. This served the double purpose of detaining them until he should have made up his mind as to the best means of dealing with them, and of securing their retention under his eye until some display of character might sufficiently certify him of their state of mind. Possibly he adopted this expedient also because it was likely deeply to move them, so that they might be expected to exhibit not such superficial feelings as might have been elicited had he set them down to a banquet and entered into conversation with them over their wine, but such as men are surprised to find in themselves, and know nothing of in their lighter hours. Joseph was, of course, well aware that in the analysis of character the most potent elements are only brought into clear view when the test of severe trouble is applied, and when men are thrown out of all conventional modes of thinking and speaking.
The display of character which Joseph awaited he speedily obtained. For so new an experience to these free dwellers in tents as imprisonment under grim Egyptian guards worked wonders in them. Men who have experienced such treatment aver that nothing more effectually tames and breaks the spirit: it is not the being confined for a definite time with the certainty of release in the end, but the being shut up at the caprice of another on a false and absurd accusation; the being cooped up at the will of a stranger in a foreign country, uncertain and hopeless of release. To Josephs brethren so sudden and great a calamity seemed explicable only on the theory that it was retribution for the great crime of their life. The uneasy feeling which each of them had hidden in his own conscience, and which the lapse of twenty years had not materially alleviated, finds expression: "And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us." The similarity of their position to that in which they had placed their brother stimulates and assists their conscience. Joseph, in the anguish of his soul, had protested his innocence, but they had not listened; and now their own protestations are treated as idle wind by this Egyptian. Their own feelings, representing to them what they had caused Joseph to suffer, stir a keener sense of their guilt than they seem ever before to have reached. Under this new light they see their sin more clearly, and are humbled by the distress into which it has brought them.
When Joseph sees this, his heart warms to them. He may not yet be quite sure of them. A prison-repentance is perhaps scarcely to be trusted. He sees they would for the moment deal differently with him had they the opportunity, and would welcome no one more heartily than himself, whose coming among them had once so exasperated them. Himself keen in his affections, he is deeply moved, and his eyes fill with tears as he witnesses their emotion and grief on his account. Fain would he relieve them from their remorse and apprehension-why, then, does he forbear? Why does he not at this juncture disclose himself? It has been satisfactorily proved that his brethren counted their sale of him the great crime of their life. Their imprisonment has elicited evidence that that crime had taken in their conscience the capital place, the place which a man finds some one sin or series of sins will take, to follow him with its appropriate curse, and hang over his future like a cloud-a sin of which he thinks when any strange thing happens to him, and to which he traces all disaster-a sin so iniquitous that it seems capable of producing any results however grievous, and to which he has so given himself that his life seems to be concentrated there, and he cannot but connect with it all the greater ills that happen to him. Was not this, then, security enough that they would never again perpetrate a crime of like atrocity? Every man who has almost at all observed the history of sin in himself, will say that most certainly it was quite insufficient security against their ever again doing the like. Evidence that a man is conscious of his sin, and, while suffering from its consequences, feels deeply its guilt, is not evidence that his character is altered.
And because we believe men so much more readily than God, and think that they do not require, for forms sake, such needless pledges of a changed character as God seems to demand, it is worth observing that Joseph, moved as he was even to tears, felt that common prudence. forbade him to commit himself to his brethren without further evidence of their disposition. They had distinctly acknowledged their guilt, and in his hearing had admitted that the great calamity that had befallen them was no more than they deserved; yet Joseph, judging merely as an intelligent man who had worldly interests depending on his judgment, could not discern enough here to justify him in supposing that his brethren were changed men. And it might sometimes serve to expose the insufficiency of our repentance were clear-seeing men the judges of it, and did they express their opinion of its trustworthiness. We may think that God is needlessly exacting when He requires evidence not only of a changed mind about past sin, but also of such a mind being now in us as will preserve us from future sin; but the truth is, that no man whose common worldly interests were at stake would commit himself to us on any less evidence. God, then, meaning to bring the house of Israel into Egypt in order to make progress in the Divine education He was giving to them, could not introduce them into that land in a state of mind which would negative all the discipline they were there to receive.
These men then had to give evidence that they not only saw, and in some sense repented of, their sin, but also that they had got rid of the evil passion which had led to it. This is what God means by repentance. Our sins are in general not so microscopic that it requires very keen spiritual discernment to perceive them. But to be quite aware of our sin, and to acknowledge it, is not to repent of it. Everything falls short of thorough repentance which does not prevent us from committing the sin anew. We do not so much desire to be accurately informed about our past sins, and to get right views of our past selves; we wish to be no longer sinners, we wish to pass through some process by which we may be separated from that in us which has led us into sin. Such a process there is, for these men passed through it.
The test which revealed the thoroughness of his brothers repentance was unintentionally applied by Joseph. When he hid his cup in Benjamins sack, all that he intended was to furnish a pretext for detaining Benjamin, and so gratifying his own affection. But, to his astonishment, his trick effected far more than he intended; for the brothers, recognising now their brotherhood, circled round Benjamin, and, to a man, resolved to go back with him to Egypt. We cannot argue from this that Joseph had misapprehended the state of mind in which his brothers were, and in his judgment of them had been either too timorous or too severe; nor need we suppose that he was hampered by his relations to Pharaoh, and therefore unwilling to connect himself too closely with men of whom he might be safer to be rid; because it was this very peril of Benjamins that matured their brotherly affection. They themselves could not have anticipated that they would make such a sacrifice for Benjamin. But throughout their dealings with this mysterious Egyptian, they felt themselves under a spell, and were being gradually, though perhaps unconsciously, softened, and in order to complete the change passing upon them, they but required some such incident as this of Benjamins arrest. This incident seemed by some strange fatality to threaten them with a renewed perpetration of the very crime they had committed against Rachels other son. It threatened to force them to become again the instrument of bereaving their father of his darling child, and bring about that very calamity which they had pledged themselves should never happen. It was an incident, therefore, which, more than any other, was likely to call out their family love.
The scene lives in every ones memory. They were going gladly back to their own country with corn enough for their children, proud of their entertainment by the lord of Egypt; anticipating their fathers exultation when he heard how generously they had been treated and when he saw Benjamin safely restored, feeling that in bringing him back they almost compensated for having bereaved him of Joseph. Simeon is revelling in the free air that blew from Canaan and brought with it the scents of his native land, and breaks into the old songs that the strait confinement of his prison had so long silenced-all of them together rejoicing in a scarcely hoped-for success; when suddenly, ere the first elation is spent, they are startled to see the hasty approach of the Egyptian messenger, and to hear the stern summons that brought them to a halt, and boded all ill. The few words of the just Egyptian, and his calm, explicit judgment, "Ye have done evil in so doing," pierce them like a keen blade-that they should be suspected of robbing one who had dealt so generously with them; that all Israel should be put to shame in the sight of the stranger! But they begin to feel relief as one brother after another steps forward with the boldness of innocence; and as sack after sack is emptied, shaken, and flung aside, they already eye the steward with the bright air of triumph; when, as the very last sack is emptied, and as all breathlessly stand round, amid the quick rustle of the corn, the sharp rattle of metal strikes on their ear, and the gleam of silver dazzles their eyes as the cup rolls out in the sunshine. This, then, is the brother of whom their father was so careful that he dared not suffer him out of his sight! This is the precious youth whose life was of more value than the lives of all the brethren, and to keep whom a few months longer in his fathers sight Simeon had been left to rot in a dungeon! This is how he repays the anxiety of the family and their love, and this is how he repays the extraordinary favour of Joseph! By one rash childish act had this fondled youth, to all appearance, brought upon the house of Israel irretrievable disgrace, if not complete extinction. Had these men been of their old temper, their knives had very speedily proved that their contempt for the deed was as great as the Egyptians; by violence towards Benjamin they might have cleared themselves of all suspicion of complicity; or, at the best, they might-have considered themselves to be acting in a fair and even lenient manner if they had surrendered the culprit to the steward, and once again carried back to their father a tale of blood. But they were under the spell of their old sin. In all disaster, however innocent they now were, they saw the retribution of their old iniquity; they seem scarcely to consider whether Benjamin was innocent or guilty, but as humbled, God-smitten men, "they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city."
Thus Joseph in seeking to gain one brother found eleven-for now there could be no doubt that they were very different men from those. brethren who had so heartlessly sold into slavery their fathers favourite-men now with really brotherly feelings, by penitence and regard for their father so wrought together into one family, that this calamity, intended to fall only on one of their number, did in falling on him fall on them all. So far from wishing now to rid themselves of Rachels son and their fathers favourite, who had been put by their father in so prominent a place in his affection, they will not even give him up to suffer what seemed the just punishment of his theft, do not even reproach him with having brought them all into disgrace and difficulty, but, as humbled men who knew they had greater sins of their own to answer for, went quietly back to Egypt, determined to see their younger brother through his misfortune or to share his bondage with him. Had these men not been thoroughly changed, thoroughly convinced that at all costs upright dealing and brotherly love should continue; had they not possessed that first and last of Christian virtues, love to their brother, then nothing could so certainly have revealed their want of it as this apparent theft of Benjamins. It seemed in itself a very likely thing that a lad accustomed to plain modes of life, and whose character it was to "ravin as a wolf," should, when suddenly introduced to the gorgeous Egyptian banqueting-house with all its sumptuous furnishings, have coveted some choice specimen of Egyptian art, to carry home to his father as proof that he could not only bring himself back in safety, but scorned to come back from any expedition empty-handed. It was not unlikely either that, with his mothers own superstition, he might have conceived the bold design of robbing this Egyptian, so mysterious and so powerful, according to his brothers account, and of breaking that spell which he had thrown over them: he may thus have. conceived the idea of achieving for himself a reputation in the family, and of once for all redeeming himself from the somewhat undignified, and to one of his spirit somewhat uncongenial, position of the youngest of a family. If, as is possible, he had let any such idea ooze out in talking with his brethren as they went down to Egypt, and only abandoned it on their indignant and urgent remonstrance, then when the cup, Josephs chief treasure according to his own account, was discovered in Benjamins sack, the case must have looked sadly against him even in the eyes of his brethren. No protestations of innocence in a particular instance avail much when the character and general habits of the accused point to guilt. It is quite possible, therefore, that the brethren, though willing to believe Benjamin, were yet not so thoroughly convinced of his innocence as they would have desired. The fact that they themselves had found their money returned in their sacks, made for Benjamin; yet in most cases, especially where circumstances corroborate it, an accusation even against the innocent takes immediate hold and cannot be summarily and at once got rid of.
Thus was proof given that the house of Israel was now in truth one family. The men who, on very slight instigation, had without compunction sold Joseph to a life of slavery, cannot now find it in their heart to abandon a brother who, to all appearance, was worthy of no better life than that of a slave, and who had brought them all into disgrace and danger. Judah had no doubt pledged himself to bring the lad back without scathe to his father, but he had done so without contemplating the possibility of Benjamin becoming amenable to Egyptian law. And no one can read the speech of Judah-one of the most pathetic on record-in which he replies to Josephs judgment that Benjamin alone should remain in Egypt, without perceiving that he speaks not as one who merely seeks to redeem a pledge, but as a good son and a good brother. He speaks, too, as the mouth-piece of the rest, and as he had taken the lead in Josephs sale, so he does not shrink from standing forward and accepting the heavy responsibility which may now light upon the man who represents these brethren. His former faults are redeemed by the courage, one may say heroism, he now shows. And as he spoke, so the rest felt. They could not bring themselves to inflict a new sorrow on their aged father; neither could they bear to leave their young brother in the hands of strangers. The passions which had alienated them from one another, and had threatened to break up the family, are subdued. There is now discernible a common feeling that binds them together, and a common object for which they willingly sacrifice themselves. They are, therefore, now prepared to pass into that higher school to which God called them in Egypt. It mattered little what strong and equitable laws they found in the land of their adoption, if they had no taste for upright living; it mattered little what thorough national organisation they would be brought into contact with in Egypt, if in point of fact they owned no common brotherhood, and were willing rather to live as units and every man for himself than for any common interest. But now they were prepared, open to teaching, and docile.
To complete our apprehension of the state of mind into which the brethren were brought by Josephs treatment of them, we must take into account the assurance he gave them, when he made himself known to them, that it was not they but God who had sent him into Egypt. and that God had done this for the purpose of preserving the whole house of Israel. At first sight this might seem to be an injudicious speech, calculated to make the brethren think lightly of their guilt, and to remove the just impressions they now entertained of the unbrotherliness of their conduct to Joseph. And it might have been an injudicious speech to impenitent men; but no further view of sin can lighten its heinousness to a really penitent sinner. Prove to him that his sin has become the means of untold good, and you only humble him the more, and more deeply convince him that while he was recklessly gratifying himself and sacrificing others for his own pleasure, God has been mindful of others, and, pardoning him, has blessed them. God does not need our sins to work out His good intentions, but we give Him little other material; and the discovery that through our evil purposes and injurious deeds God has worked out His beneficent will, is certainly not calculated to make us think more lightly of our sin or more highly of ourselves.
Joseph in thus addressing his brethren did, in fact, but add to their feelings the tenderness that is in all religious conviction, and that springs out of the consciousness that in all our sin there has been with us a holy and loving Father, mindful of His children. This is the final stage of penitence. The knowledge that God has prevented our sin from doing the harm it might have done does relieve the bitterness and despair with which we view our life, but at the same time it strengthens the most effectual bulwark between us and sin-love to a holy, over-ruling God. This, therefore, may always be safely said to penitents: Out of your worst sin God can bring good to yourself or to others, and good of an apparently necessary kind; but good of a permanent kind can result from your sin only when you have truly repented of it, and sincerely wish you had never done it. Once this repentance is really wrought in you, then, though your life can never be the same as it might have been had you not sinned, it may be, in some respects, a more richly developed life, a life fuller of humility and love. You can never have what you sold for your sin; but the poverty your sin has brought may excite within you thoughts and energies more valuable than what you have lost, as these men lost a brother but found a Saviour. The wickedness that has often made you bow your head and mourn in secret, and which is in itself unutterable shame and loss, may, in Gods hand, become food against the day of famine. You cannot ever have the enjoyments which are possible only to those whose conscience is laden with no evil remembrances, and whose nature, uncontracted and unwithered by familiarity with sin, can give itself to enjoyment with the abandonment and fearlessness reserved for the innocent. No more at all will you have that fineness of feeling which only ignorance of evil can preserve; no more that high and great conscientiousness which, once broken, is never repaired; no more that respect from other men which for ever and instinctively departs from those who have lost self-respect. But you may have a more intelligent sympathy with other men and a keener pity for them; the experience you have gathered too late to save yourself may put it in your power to be of essential service to others. You cannot win your way back to the happy, useful, evenly-developed life of the comparatively innocent, but the life of the true-hearted penitent, is yet open to yon. Every beat of your heart now may be as if it throbbed against a poisoned dagger, every duty may shame you, every day bring weariness and new humiliation, but let no pain or discouragement avail to defraud you of the good fruits of true reconciliation to God and submission to His lifelong discipline. See that you lose not both lives, the life of the comparatively innocent and the life of the truly penitent.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_42:1-2
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_42:1-2
THE FAMINE IN THE HOUSE OF JACOB
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I. Considered in its bearing upon the Divine purposes concerning the chosen people. It had been long ago predicted that the covenant people should be afflicted in a strange land four hundred years. God used ordinary means to bring this about. The family of Jacob must be driven to Egypt, and there increase to a nation, and by affliction and oppression be trained for entry into the Promised Land. It is remarkable that, not only Jacob, but his fathers Abraham and Isaac, had experienced a famine in Canaan and by reason of it were driven into Egypt. This must have sorely tried their faith; for the land which was promised to them seemed to be a land which ate up its inhabitants. But these afflictions wrought good for their souls, and trained them to lose sight of all selfish aims in religion and to be concerned only for the glory of God. They learned to submit to whatever means God might be pleased to use to bring about His purposes.
II. Considered in its effect upon Jacob’s sons. “Why do ye look one upon another?” This sad question revealed—
1. The utmost distress. They were as men who were stunned by a sudden blow.
2. Great perplexity. They could do nothing else but thus look one upon another. They seemed utterly helpless.
3. Forebodings of conscience. It was not altogether the great calamity of famine that made them so helpless and afraid. Conscience was now awake and filled them with other fears. Why must they wait for Jacob to tell them that there was corn in Egypt, and to suggest the obvious course of going down thither to buy? They surely must have heard this, and have known that in their very neighbourhood a caravan of travellers was already making preparation for that journey. (Gen_42:5.) The news that there was plenty of food in Egypt would naturally spread rapidly all over the country. Distress has a quick ear. Why, then, are Jacob’s sons of all others the last to bestir themselves to seek help! Alas! to their guilty conscience, Egypt is a dreaded name, a threatening calamity, a foreboding evil. To them the road to Egypt is haunted by the memory of an awful crime.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_42:1. Jacob’s words resemble those of the four lepers: “Why sit we here until we die?” It is a dictate of nature not to despair while there is a door of hope; and the principle will hold good in things of everlasting moment. Why sit we here, poring over our guilt and misery, when we have heard that with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him there is plenteous redemption? How long shall we take counsel in our soul, having sorrow in our hearts daily? Let us trust in His mercy, and our hearts shall rejoice in His salvation.—(Fuller.)
Gen_42:2. Here the Divine decree of Israel’s sojourning and suffering in Egypt begins to be fulfilled, by a wonderful providence. The fulness of Joseph’s barns invites Jacob first to send, and then to go thither himself for relief. Shall not the fulness that is in Christ (Joh_1:16) incite and entice us to come to Him, as bees to a meadow full of flowers; as merchants to the Indies, full of spices and other riches; as the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, full of wisdom; as Jacob’s sons to Egypt, full of corn, in that extreme famine; that we may return with treasures full fraught with treasures of truth and grace?—(Trapp.)
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain I. The story of Joseph is a good example…
Gen 42:3
I. The story of Joseph is a good example of what is meant by Providence working for the best in the lives of men. Look at the young foreigner, as he comes to a land not his own; see how he resists the one great temptation of his age and station; observe how, through means not of his own seeking, through good report and evil, through much misunderstanding of others, but by consistent integrity and just dealing on his own part, he overcomes all the difficulties of his position, and is remembered long afterwards in his adopted land as the benefactor of his generation and the deliverer of his country.
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II. The story of Joseph is, perhaps, of all the stories in the Old Testament, the one which most carries us back to our childhood, both from the interest we felt in it as children, and from the true picture of family life which it presents. It brings before us the way in which the greatest blessings for this life and the next depend on the keeping up of family love pure and fresh, as when the preservation and fitting education of the chosen people depended on that touching generosity and brotherly affection which no distance of time, no new customs, no long sojourn in a strange land, could extinguish in the heart of Joseph. Home is on earth the best likeness of heaven; and heaven is that last and best home in which, when the journey of life is over, Joseph and his brethren, Jacob and his sons, Rachel and her children, shall meet to part no more.
A. P. Stanley, Sermons in the East, p. 17.
References: Gen 42:3.—G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv, p. 218. Gen 42:4.—Weekly Pulpit, vol. i., p. 300. Gen 42:8.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 4.
Gen 42:9
Jacob became aware of a fact which his brother had not cared to know—a fact for himself and his seed after him. The Being who had made man in His own image told this man that he was made in His image; taught him that he was not meant, like the serpent, to go on his belly and eat dust. This is the only explanation given. It assumes that man lives because he is related to God, that when he denies that relation he chooses death; it assumes that God is continually teaching men of their relation to Him, and that they are continually flying from His voice.
I. Joseph’s story is in strict accordance with these principles. He had dreams of greatness: his brothers’ sheaves are to bow down before him; the sun and the moon are to pay him obeisance. In his vanity he tells the dreams, and is hated the more. His brothers plot against his life, throw him into a pit, sell him to a company of Ishmaelites. There is no description of his anguish, or of any thoughts of comfort that came to him. We are merely told that God was with him, that he found favour with Potiphar, and became the steward of his house.
II. We know that though our dreams have never told us anything about that which is to come, they have told us secrets of our own experience; they have shown how near dark, fierce thoughts, which we fancied at a great distance, were lying to us. The interpretation of dreams for us and for the old world lies in the belief that we are under a loving and Divine Teacher, who does not wish us to walk in darkness.
III. There are crises, however, in a man’s life, when he is neither troubled with the dreams of the night nor of the day—when he is called to act, and act at once—when life and death hang on the decision of a moment. To such a crisis had Joseph come when he spoke the words, "How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" The belief in a living, present God, was then all in all to him.
IV. Joseph’s sermon to Pharaoh was a simple declaration that the Righteous Being was the Lord over Egypt, that He could set it in order. And his sermon to the Egyptians was the proof which his administration gave that he had spoken truth.
F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 118.
References: Gen 42:11—J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 369. Gen 42:13.—G. Orme, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 15. Gen 42:18.—J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 369; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 131. Gen 42:21.—J. Burns, Sketches of Sermons on Missions, p. 248; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 178.
Gen 42:21-22
I. Joseph’s brethren had not been placed in any peculiar circumstances of trial since the loss of Joseph; consequently their sin had slept. There had been nothing to call it to light; they had well-nigh forgotten it; its heinousness had become dim in the distance. But now they were in trouble, and they could not help seeing the hand of God in that trouble. Their spiritual instinct told them that their trouble did not spring out of the ground; it had been planted there,—it had a root. Their sin had found them out at last, and their own adversity brought about that contrition for their offence which its own hatefulness ought to have been sufficient to produce.
II. We see from this story that men may commit sins, and may forget them; and yet the sins may be recorded, and may one day rise up again with a frightful vitality. Men will soon bury their own sins, if they be left to themselves; but it is like burying seed, which appears to die and be forgotten, and yet it. rises up again, and perhaps becomes a great tree.
III. The voice of conscience is a good voice, a wholesome voice,—yea, the very voice of God to our souls, and one to be welcomed by us if we only listen to it at the right time. The consciousness of guilt is a blessed thing, if only it come at the right time, and when there is opportunity for bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. Well for us if our estimate of our condition is the same, at least in its main features, as that estimate which God has made, and which the last day will produce!
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 118.
References: Gen 42:22.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 840. Gen 42:24.—Parker, vol. i., p. 329. Gen 42:25.—R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 194. Gen 42:28.—E. Garbett, The Soul’s Life, p. 125.
Gen 42:36
So spoke the patriarch Jacob when Joseph had been made away with, Simeon was detained in Egypt, Benjamin threatened, and his remaining sons were suspected by him and distrusted; when at his door was a grievous famine, enemies or strangers round about, evil in prospect, and in the past a number of sad remembrances. Thus did Almighty God remind His people that the world was not their rest.
I. In Jacob is prefigured the Christian. What he said in dejection of mind, the Christian must say, not in dejection, not in complaint or impatience, but calmly, as if confessing a doctrine—"’All these things are against me,’ but it is my portion; they are against me, that I may fight with and overcome them." If there were no enemy, there could be no conflict; were there no trouble, there could be no faith; were there no trial, there could be no love; were there no fear, there could be no hope.
II. To passages like these it is natural to object, that they do not belong to the present time, that so far from Christians being in trouble because they are Christians it is those who are not Christians who are under persecution. The answer is that affliction, hardship, and distress are the Christian’s portion, both promised and bestowed, though at first sight they seem not to be. If Christians are in prosperity, not in adversity, it is because, by disobedience, they have forfeited the promise and privilege of affliction.
III. Take up thy portion then, Christian soul, and weigh it well, and learn to love it. There is an inward world which none see but those who belong to it—an inward world into which they enter who come near to Christ. They have a portion in destinies to which other men are strangers; and, having destinies, they have conflicts also. Never, while the Church lasts, will the words of old Jacob be reversed—All things here are against us, but God; and if God be for us, who can really be against us?
J. H. Newman, Selection from Parochial and Plain Sermons, p. 113; also vol. v., p. 284.
References: Gen 42:36.—Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Sermons Preached at St. Paul’s, No. 18; J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 371; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 837; Old Testament Outlines, p. 19. Gen 42:38.—S. W. Skeffington, Our Sins and Our Saviour, p. 90. Gen 43—M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, p. 231; F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 156; W. M. Taylor, Joseph the Prime Minister, p. 122. Gen 43:6.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 96. Gen 43:14.—R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. ii., p. 194. 43:15-45:3.—Ibid., p. 205. Gen 43:27.—S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. i., p. 350.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The First Visit of Joseph's Brethren to Egypt
The First Visit of Joseph's Brethren to Egypt
1. When Jacob saw] The caravans which travelled from Egypt to Syria would bring the news to Hebron.
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3. Dr. Thomson, in 'The Land and the Book,' says he has often met large parties with their donkeys going from Palestine to Egypt in time of drought for food. Jacob's sons no doubt took servants with them and many asses.
8. Joseph, now a middle-aged man, was dressed as an Egyptian, and spoke in Egyptian through an interpreter (Gen_42:23). His brethren, on the other hand, would not have changed in appearance.
9. Ye are spies] Egypt was always liable to attack from Asia, and fortresses were built along that frontier to repel invasion. By suggesting that they were foreigners who were spying out the nakedness of the land, i.e. how far it was open to attack from hostile nations, Joseph had an opportunity of enquiring about his family. We may believe also that, though well-intentioned towards his brethren, he sought to bring their sin home to them.
11. We are all one man's sons.. thy servants are no spies] This was a strong argument. No father would have risked the lives of all his children at once on such dangerous work as that of spies.
13. Is not] i.e. is not alive, meaning Joseph.
14. Joseph perseveres in this charge in order to have a pretext for getting Benjamin to Egypt. He hoped too, perhaps, that his father would follow when his favourite son had left him.
15. By the life of Pharaoh] a common Egyptian oath: cp. 'As I live saith the Lord,' also 2Ki_2:4.
18. I fear God] 'and so will not punish on mere suspicion' (D.).
21. Conscience arouses in the brethren the fear that the day of reckoning, so long delayed, has come at last.
27. The inn] This would be no more than a mere shelter or camping place. Even now, when journeying in out-of-the-way parts in the East, travellers take their own food and bedding with them.
36. All these things are against me] So Jacob thought; but Providence was working out a merciful provision for the welfare of himself and his family.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain CHAPTER 42 The First Visit of Joseph’s Brethren
CHAPTER 42 The First Visit of Joseph’s Brethren
1. Joseph’s brethren sent to Egypt (Gen 42:1-5)
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2. Joseph meets his brethren (Gen 42:6-16)
3. Put in prison for three days (Gen 42:17)
4. Joseph’s demand (Gen 42:18-20)
5. The accusing conscience (Gen 42:21-23)
6. Joseph weeps and Simeon bound (Gen 42:24)
7. The return of the nine (Gen 42:25-38)
The famine years bring Joseph’s brethren to repentance and after the deepest exercise Joseph makes himself known to them and they find forgiveness and deliverance. Thus it will be during the tribulation of the last days of the present age. The remnant of Israel will pass through that time called “Jacob’s trouble” and be saved out of it. Then the Lord Jesus Christ will make Himself known to His brethren, according to the flesh.
Joseph’s treatment of his brethren, whom he recognized, was harsh, so that they might be led to acknowledge their sin. And they readily confess their guilt on account of having sold their brother and take the harsh treatment and imprisonment they received as a just retribution. And Joseph understood all their words so that he wept. And He who was rejected by His own has a loving sympathy for this nation. Simeon remains behind; while Joseph demands Benjamin. The grief of Jacob is pathetic.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Arrival in Egypt
The Arrival in Egypt
v. 1. Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, having undoubtedly gotten the information from his Canaanite neighbors, many of whom were merchants, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? The mention of Egypt caused the brethren to look upon one another with a helpless and suspicious questioning, for their conscience reminded them of the fact that Joseph had been sold into Egypt.
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v. 2. And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt, grain which people could buy for their own needs; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. All this appears to have happened at a family council at which Jacob, as the head of the family or tribe, presided. He saw no need for a long discussion or for hesitation: it was a matter of life and death.
v. 3. And Joseph’s ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt, to obtain provisions for the family.
v. 4. But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, his full brother by Rachel,Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. Benjamin was now just entering manhood, being about twenty-one years old or somewhat more. Jacob had given him all the affection which he had formerly felt for Joseph, and his objection that some accident to life and limb might befall Benjamin was founded upon the fact that he believed Joseph to have been killed by wild beasts.
v. 5. And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came; for the famine was in the land of Canaan. They were only a few of a great number that came down from Canaan to buy a supply of grain for their needs, that were thus dependent upon the generosity of the Egyptian ruler for their food.
v. 6. And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land. As the ruler of the country by Pharaoh’s decree and as the chief overseer of the store-houses, Joseph exercised the greatest care in selling to strangers, and it seems to have been the rule that the foreigners were to be presented to him in person. And Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth, the dream of Joseph being thus fulfilled, Chatper 37:7-8.
v. 7. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them, he literally spoke to them hard things;and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. It was an easy matter for Joseph, even after the lapse of some twenty years, to recognize his brothers; their number, their language, their clothing, their manner indicated at once who they were. But not one of them would have looked for Joseph in the person of this despotic Egyptian, whose dress and language were entirely foreign to them. Joseph purposely spoke harshly to them, in order to sound them out, to find whether their hearts had changed in the last two decades. Though he still loved them, his treatment would provide some wholesome discipline for them.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Now Jacob became
Now Jacob became
The word "Now" marks a new part of the story. (See: Introduction of a New Event)
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Why do you look at one another?
Jacob uses a question to scold his sons for not doing anything about the grain. AT: "Do not just sit here!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
Go down there ... went down
It was common to speak of going from Canaan to Egypt as going "down."
from Egypt
Here "Egypt" refers to the people selling grain. AT: "from those selling grain in Egypt" (See: Metonymy)
Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob did not send
Benjamin and Joseph had the same father and mother. Jacob did not want to risk sending Rachel's last son. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
Jacob
grain
Egypt
Joseph (OT)
Benjamin
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 42:1–47:31 God used the famine to bring Israel to…
42:1–47:31 God used the famine to bring Israel to Egypt under Joseph’s rule, thus fulfilling two prophecies (15:13; 37:7-11).
42:1–44:34 Joseph did several unusual things to his brothers when they came looking for grain. The last time Joseph had been with them, they were filled with jealousy, hatred, and anger; they attempted to destroy their brother, and they deceived their father. Joseph put them through various tests, similar to the trying situations they had put him through, to see if they had changed.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.