Judah Gives His Word and the Family Shares a Meal

Three words in Hebrew, and they settle the argument that closed the last chapter. Jacob said Benjamin would not go down; the famine says otherwise. The land is now Canaan, and the hunger has reached Jacob’s tents.

“A little food” makes it sound like an errand. Jacob says nothing of Simeon, still bound in Egypt, or of the ruler’s demand, as though the second journey could be the first one over again.

“Did solemnly protest” doubles the verb in Hebrew, ha’ed he’id, “warned, warned us”, the language of sworn testimony. “See my face” means admission to a ruler’s presence; David uses it when he will not receive Absalom, “let him not see my face” (2 Samuel 14:24).

Judah puts the choice in Jacob’s hands and phrases the journey as service to him: “buy thee food”. The condition comes first, the offer second.

The negative half of Judah’s speech mirrors the positive exactly, and it ends by quoting the ruler’s sentence a second time in three verses. Judah is not arguing; he is reading back terms that cannot be changed.

Genesis switches here to “Israel”, and keeps that name through Jacob’s part of the chapter as he moves from refusal to consent. “Dealt so ill” is hare’otem, you did evil to me. He blames his sons for a truthful answer, while the real wrong they did him years ago stays hidden.

“Straitly” means closely, strictly. The sons report two questions, “Is your father yet alive? have ye another brother?”, which chapter 42 did not record; Judah will repeat them before Joseph in 44:19. “According to the tenor of these words” is literally “by the mouth of these words”.

Judah calls Benjamin “the lad”, na’ar, but by 46:21 Benjamin has ten sons. The word marks the youngest and the protected, not his age. “Our little ones”, taf, are the children, and Judah puts them in the argument as those who will starve.

“Surety” is arav, the root of eravon, the pledge Judah once asked from a woman by the road and had to leave in her hand (38:17). Now he offers himself as the pledge. “Bear the blame for ever” is literally “I will be a sinner to thee all the days”.

“Lingered” is the verb used of Lot, who “lingered” in Sodom as the city was about to fall (19:16). “This second time” is literally “twice”: by now they could have gone and come back two times over.

“The best fruits in the land” is zimrat ha’arets, literally “the song of the land”, the produce the country is famous for. “Honey” is probably date syrup. “Nuts” are botnim, pistachios, named only here in the Old Testament.

“Double money” is kesef mishneh, a second amount of silver. “Oversight” is mishgeh, an error, a word found only here. The returned silver is to be carried “in your hand”, openly, not hidden again in sacks.

In 42:38 Jacob said, “My son shall not go down with you.” Now, in three Hebrew words, he says, “and your brother take.” The reversal takes one chapter and a famine.

“Mercy” is rachamim, compassion, from the word for womb. It is the very word Genesis uses in verse 30 for what stirs in Joseph when he sees Benjamin. “If I be bereaved, I am bereaved” has the shape of Esther’s “if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16), a sentence of resignation. He does not name Simeon, only “your other brother”.

A journey of well over two hundred miles by donkey, taking weeks, is told in a single chain of verbs: took, rose up, went down, stood. The list of what they carry ends with Benjamin, as Jacob’s did.

“The ruler of his house” is the post Joseph once held in Potiphar’s household (39:4). “Slay” is tevoach tevach, to slaughter an animal: meat, a rare luxury in famine. Noon was the hour of the main meal in Egypt.

The steward is called “the man”, ha’ish, three times in the chapter, the same word the brothers use of Joseph. Two unnamed men now control what happens to them.

“Seek occasion against us” is hitgolel, literally “roll himself upon us”, to come down on them. They imagine being made slaves in the house of the brother they sold as a slave. “And our asses” comes last, as the men list what they stand to lose.

They make their speech on the doorstep, before crossing into the house, and to the steward rather than the master. It is the first time in the account that they try to put a wrong right before anyone asks them to.

“O sir” is bi adoni, “on me, my lord”, a humble formula for opening a plea. Judah uses it to Joseph in 44:18, and Aaron to Moses when Miriam is struck (Numbers 12:11).

Their account tidies the facts. They say they all opened their sacks at the inn, but 42:27 says one did and 42:35 that the rest found theirs at home. “Full weight” is literally “by its weight”: silver was weighed, and each bundle had its known amount.

“We cannot tell who” is simply “we do not know who”. They say “in our hands” twice in two verses, the silver carried where anyone can see it. Openness is the whole of their defence.

“Treasure” is matmon, a hidden hoard, the word for treasure buried in a field (Jeremiah 41:8) or dug for (Job 3:21). “I had your money” is literally “your silver came to me”. The steward’s answer only makes sense if Joseph has told him what to say.

Water for the feet was the first courtesy to a traveller, given by Abraham under the oak at Mamre (18:4) and by Laban to Abraham’s servant (24:32). The verse repeats the phrase that frightened them in verse 18, “brought the men into Joseph’s house”, now as guests.

“Against Joseph came” means in readiness for his coming. They learn from the servants that they are to eat, which tells them they are not to be arrested, at least not before the meal.

In 42:6 ten brothers bowed to Joseph. Now Benjamin is with them, and eleven bow, the number of the stars in Joseph’s second dream (37:9). They bow twice in three verses.

Joseph asks after “the old man of whom ye spake”, pretending to recall a detail from the first interview. Jacob is about a hundred and thirty by now, the age he gives Pharaoh in 47:9. The second question, “Is he yet alive?”, is the one a son would ask.

“Bowed down their heads” is kadad, the bow of the head that Abraham’s servant made at the well when his prayer was answered (24:26). The brothers bow once more, with their father named as the ruler’s servant.

“God be gracious unto thee” is the wording of the priestly blessing, “The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee” (Numbers 6:25). “My son” is an elder’s word; Joseph uses it to a brother only a few years younger than himself.

“Did yearn” is nikhmeru, grew hot, the word used of the true mother before Solomon: “her bowels yearned upon her son” (1 Kings 3:26). The KJV’s “bowels” is the old way of naming the inward seat of feeling. His “chamber” is an inner room, out of sight of the hall.

“Refrained himself” is hit’appaq, held himself in. The same verb returns in 45:1, when “Joseph could not refrain himself” any longer. Here he still can. “Set on bread” is the order to serve.

Herodotus reports that Egyptians would not kiss a Greek or use a Greek’s knife, because Greeks ate cattle, which Egyptians held sacred. “Abomination” is to’evah, and 46:34 applies it to shepherds as well. Joseph eats alone, above both tables.

“Birthright” is bekorah, the right Esau sold for pottage (25:31–34); here it is a seating plan, with Reuben still placed first. “Marvelled” is tamah, the stunned surprise of kings in Psalm 48:5. Nobody in Egypt should know their birth order.

“Messes” are portions of food, sent from the host’s table as a mark of honour. Fives keep appearing in Joseph’s Egypt: a fifth of the grain (41:34), five changes of clothes for Benjamin (45:22), five brothers presented to Pharaoh (47:2). “Were merry” is the verb of drinking freely, used of Noah in 9:21.