Joseph Reveals Himself

“Made himself known” is hitvadda, the reflexive of the verb to know. It closes a pair: at their first meeting Joseph “made himself strange”, hitnakker (42:7). Two reflexive verbs bracket the whole disguise. He clears the room so that no Egyptian sees what comes next.

The Hebrew is “he gave his voice in weeping”, a cry loud enough to pass through the walls he had just emptied. The attendants he sent out hear it anyway, and so does the palace. The news will travel from this sound (verse 16).

“I am Joseph” is two words in Hebrew, ani Yosef. He has just heard at length that his father lives, and asks anyway, as a son rather than a ruler. “Troubled” is nivhalu, dismayed, struck with terror; the brothers who sold him are standing before the most powerful man in Egypt.

“Come near” is geshu, the verb Judah used when he stepped forward to plead (44:18). Now Joseph asks all of them to step toward him. A midrash says he drew them close to show them he was circumcised, a proof no Egyptian could give; the text says only that they came.

“Be not grieved” uses the root of itstsavon, the toil and sorrow of 3:16–17. “Nor angry with yourselves” is literally “let it not burn in your eyes”. “To preserve life” is michyah, the means of staying alive.

“Earing” is not ears of grain. It is an old English word for ploughing, from the verb to ear, and the KJV uses it again in Exodus 34:21, “in earing time and in harvest”. Two years gone and five to come make the seven Joseph foretold.

“A posterity” is she’erit, a remnant, the prophets’ word for the survivors of judgment (Isaiah 10:20–22). “Deliverance” is peletah, escape. Isaiah 37:31–32 puts the same pair together: “the remnant that is escaped”.

“A father to Pharaoh” may reflect an Egyptian court title, “father of the god”, given to senior advisers of the king. Joseph lists three offices in rising order: father to Pharaoh, lord of his house, ruler of the land.

“Thus saith thy son Joseph” is the messenger formula of the prophets, as in “Thus saith the LORD”. The brothers are to carry the words exactly. “Tarry not” is literally “do not stand still”.

Goshen lay in the eastern Nile delta, good grazing land and the part of Egypt nearest to Canaan. The name does not appear in Egyptian records, and the Greek Bible calls it “Gesem of Arabia”. Joseph lists three generations and all their animals.

“Nourish” is kilkel, to sustain, the verb Joseph repeats when the famine is at its worst (47:12) and again after Jacob’s death, “I will nourish you” (50:21). “Come to poverty” is from yarash, to possess or inherit; here it means to be dispossessed.

The mouth that speaks now uses their own language, without the interpreter of 42:23; Rashi drew exactly that from the verse. Benjamin is named as a separate witness, the one brother who had no part in the sale.

“Glory” is kavod, weight, the root of the “grievous” famine (41:31). The famine was heavy on the land; Joseph’s honour is heavy in it. The command to hurry comes twice in five verses.

“Fell upon his neck, and wept” is what Esau did when he met Jacob after twenty years: “fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept” (33:4). Joseph will do the same with his father in 46:29.

“His brethren talked with him” uses dabber, the verb of 37:4, where they “could not speak peaceably unto him”. The first thing they could not do with him is the last thing the scene records.

“The fame thereof” is qol, a voice, the same word as the weeping heard in verse 2. “It pleased Pharaoh well” is literally “it was good in the eyes of Pharaoh”, as Joseph’s plan was in 41:37.

Pharaoh takes Joseph’s invitation and reissues it in his own name, as a royal command. Joseph said “go up to my father”; Pharaoh says “get you unto the land of Canaan”, speaking as a king to a foreign clan.

“The fat of the land” is chelev, fat, the best part, the portion that in sacrifice belongs to God (Leviticus 3:16). In Numbers 18:12 the same word gives “the best of the oil”. Pharaoh promises them the choicest of Egypt.

“Wagons” are agalot, carts, the wheeled transport of Egypt’s flat valley and rare on the hill paths of Canaan. “Now thou art commanded” means Pharaoh orders Joseph to order it: the invitation comes with the weight of law.

“Regard not your stuff” is literally “let not your eye pity your goods”, the idiom Deuteronomy uses for sparing nothing: “thine eye shall have no pity” (Deuteronomy 7:16). Leave it behind, says Pharaoh; Egypt has better.

“The children of Israel” here means Jacob’s sons, but the phrase is on its way to naming a nation. Exodus opens with it: “Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt” (Exodus 1:1).

“Changes of raiment” are festal garments, the kind Samson wagers in Judges 14:12 and Naaman brings as a gift in 2 Kings 5:5, clothing of real value. Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver; Benjamin receives three hundred.

She-asses were the more valuable animals, and Jacob sent twenty of them among his gifts to Esau (32:15). Now the son sends the father ten asses and ten she-asses, one loaded with Egypt’s goods and the other with food for the road.

“Sent” is the chapter’s key verb. Joseph said three times that God sent him (verses 5, 7 and 8), and now he sends his brothers. The word ties their journey to his: God sent him down, and he sends them up.

“Went up out of Egypt” is the phrase that will become Israel’s confession: “the LORD... brought thee up out of the land of Egypt”. Here it is simply a family travelling home with carts.

“Governor” is moshel, from mashal, the verb of the brothers’ mocking question, “shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?” (37:8). They carry home the answer. “Fainted” is pug, to go numb or cold; Jacob cannot take it in.

“The spirit of Jacob their father revived” is literally “lived”. The Targum and Rashi read it as the return of prophecy, which they held had left Jacob in his years of grief. The words convince him only when the carts are in front of him.

“It is enough” is rav, much, the word Esau used when he refused Jacob’s gift, “I have enough” (33:9). Jacob, who spent his life bargaining for more, now asks for one thing. The name “Israel” returns as he decides to go.