But Jacob didn’t send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers; for he said, “Lest perhaps harm happen to him.”
Parallel Translations
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But Jacob didn’t send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers; for he said, “Lest perhaps harm happen to him.”
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But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him.
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But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said: 'Lest peradventure harm befall him.'
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Genesis 42:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 42:38 He said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left. If harm happens to him along the way in which you go, then you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”
- Genesis 3:22 Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—”
- Genesis 11:4 They said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad on the surface of the whole earth.”
- Genesis 33:1-2 Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah, Rachel, and the two servants. He put the servants and their children in front, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear.
- Genesis 35:16-19 They traveled from Bethel. There was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and Rachel travailed. She had hard labor. When she was in hard labor, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for now you will have another son.” As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Benoni, but his father named him Benjamin. Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath (also called Bethlehem).
- Genesis 43:14 May God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release to you your other brother and Benjamin. If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”
- Genesis 43:29 He lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin, his brother, his mother’s son, and said, “Is this your youngest brother, of whom you spoke to me?” He said, “God be gracious to you, my son.”
- Genesis 44:20-22 We said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother; and his father loves him.’ You said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’ We said to my lord, ‘The boy can’t leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’
- Genesis 44:27-34 Your servant, my father, said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One went out from me, and I said, “Surely he is torn in pieces;” and I haven’t seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.’ Now therefore when I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us; since his life is bound up in the boy’s life; it will happen, when he sees that the boy is no more, that he will die. Your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became collateral for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I don’t bring him to you, then I will bear the blame to my father forever.’ Now therefore, please let your servant stay instead of the boy, my lord’s slave; and let the boy go up with his brothers. For how will I go up to my father, if the boy isn’t with me?—lest I see the evil that will come on my father.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (8 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Hebrew, should meet him.
Hebrew, should meet him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Gen 42:4 But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not…
Gen 42:4 But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him.
Ver. 4. But Benjamin Jacob sent not.] Because best beloved; as last born, and likeliest to live longest; and the least, and least able to shift for himself; and all that was left of his dearest Rachel; his only darling that had been always at hand, and in the father’s eye.
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 Because he was very young, and now his best…
Because he was very young, and now his best beloved son.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the sons of Israel came to buy corn…
And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came,.... Either among the Egyptians that came to buy, or among those who came from different countries, or rather particularly among the Canaanites, as the Targum of Jonathan; with these they might join upon the road, and go together in a body where the market for corn was:
for the famine was in the land of Canaan: which obliged the inhabitants of it as well as Jacob's family to seek for corn elsewhere, and confirms the sense of the preceding clause: this, though a very fruitful land, yet when God withheld a blessing from it, it became barren, as it had been before, Gen 12:10, and was to try the faith of those good men to whom God had given it, and to wean their hearts from being set upon it, and to put them upon seeking a better country, as they did.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. Benjamin… Jacob sent not — His partiality for…
4. Benjamin… Jacob sent not — His partiality for Joseph has now become transferred to Benjamin. And Jacob seems to have entertained a suspicion that his elder sons had had something to do with Joseph’s strange disappearance. Comp. Gen_42:36.
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 4. mischief] See Gen_42:38. Jacob dares not part with…
4. mischief] See Gen_42:38. Jacob dares not part with Benjamin, for whom, both as his youngest child and as the surviving son of Rachel, he has special affection. On this trait the whole narrative turns, cf. Gen_42:38, Gen_44:20; Gen_44:30-31.
5 (? J). And the sons of Israel, &c.] “Sons of Israel,” cf. Gen_45:21, Gen_46:5. The verse reads like the commencement of a new section; while the words “for the famine, &c.” are not necessary after Gen_42:1-4. The change from the name of “Jacob” (Gen_42:1-4) to that of “Israel” is another indication that this verse is drawn from a different source of narrative from Gen_42:1-4.
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.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain But (literally, and) Benjamin, Joseph"s brother, (vide Gen_35:18) Jacob…
But (literally, and) Benjamin, Joseph"s brother, (vide Gen_35:18) Jacob sent not with his brethren. Not because of his youth (Patrick, Lange), since he was now upwards of twenty years of age, but because he was Joseph"s brother, and had taken Joseph"s place in his father"s affections (Lawson, Lange, Murphy, &c.), causing the old man to cherish him with tender solicitude. ;For he said (to, or within, himself, perhaps recalling the fate of Joseph), Lest peradventure mischief befall him. wOsa; from hsa; to hurt (Gesenius, Furst), and occurring only elsewhere in ver. 38, Gen_44:29, and Exo_21:22, Exo_21:23, denotes any sort of personal injury in general, and in particular here such mischance as might happen to a traveler.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 42:4 Jacob may have believed that Benjamin would not…
42:4 Jacob may have believed that Benjamin would not be safe with his brothers.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.