Genesis 42

1. Now Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, and Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look 2 one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you 3 down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die. And Joseph’s ten 4 brethren went down to buy corn from Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent 5 not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. And the sons of 6 Israel came to buy among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was the governor over the land; he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves to him with their faces to the earth. 7 And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly with them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From 8 the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. 9 And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are 10 spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said unto him, Nay, my 11 lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man’s sons; we are true men, 12 thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land 13 ye are come. And they said, We 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. 14 And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies: hereby ye 15 shall be proved: by the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest 16 brother come hither. Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be bound, that your words may be proved, whether there be truth in you: or else by the life of 17 Pharaoh surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. And 18 Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I fear God: if ye be true men, 19 let one of your brethren be bound in your prison house; but go ye, carry corn for the famine 20 of your houses: and bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, 21 and ye shall not die. And they did so. And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we 22 would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, say- ing, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? 23 therefore also, behold, his blood is required. And they knew not that Joseph understood 24 them; for there was an interpreter between them. And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and he returned to them, and spake to them, and took Simeon from among them, 25 and bound him before their eyes. Then Joseph commanded to fill their vessels with corn, and to restore every man’s money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and 26 thus was it done unto them. And they laded their asses with their corn, and departed 27 thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the lodging place, 28 he espied his money; and, behold, it was in the mouth of his sack. And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they turned trembling one to another, saying, What is this that God hath done unto us? 29 And they came unto Jacob their father unto the land of Canaan, and told him all that had 30 befallen them; saying, The man, the lord of the land, spake roughly with us, and took us for 31 spies of the country. And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies: we be 32 twelve brethren, sons of our father; one is not, and the youngest is this day with our father

33 in the land of Canaan. And the man, the lord of the land, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men; leave one of your brethren with me, and take corn for the famine of your houses, and go your way; and 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. And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack: and when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. And 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. And 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. And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left: 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.

The use which God made of the sin of Joseph’s brethren exemplifies his consummate, far-reaching wisdom. He knew all the future. He saw the coming famine; knew how to advance Joseph to the lordship of all Egypt, and to put him there just in time to garner up the surplus of seven years of overflowing abundance, and then dispense these stores of corn for the sustenance of thousands less provident throughout Egypt and all adjacent countries. The resources of God’s providence, guided by such wisdom, are simply boundless. The case is equally demonstrative of his love. Mark how he bends the great powers of his infinite being to the production of good, to multiply the means of happiness. This view of his character is infinitely precious when studied in its developments in a world, or rather a universe, with sin in it. If the Lord were obliged to say—I must content myself with the co-operation of the good; as to the wicked, the evil they do must be endured as so much dead loss to the universe, never to be of any service toward virtue and happiness—the case would be, so far, one of unrelieved sadness. We may bless the name of our God that his resources of wisdom and power and the outgoings of his love are not thus limited. Good results will be extorted from even those horrible crimes of Joseph’s brethren. This story of God’s overruling hand in their case was shedding some rays of light on previously dark problems, and therefore was indicating progress in the revelations of God and of his ways with sinful men. H. C.

It was the will of God that Jacob should go down with his whole family to the land of Egypt, where his seed were to be oppressed till the time of their glorious deliverance; and considering the patriarch’s great age and his hereditary attachment to the land of promise, we can see that under the influence of ordinary motives he would not have been induced to leave it. But it did not come within the plan of the divine proceedings to exercise any force upon Jacob’s will. Whatever he did, he was to do it freely and rationally. Precisely such a train of events as that here related was adapted, as every one can see, with infinite wisdom to bring about the designed result. Bush.—Through our own free agency, we are all the time unconsciously working out his purposes; for, as Isaac Taylor remarks, “This is the very miracle of Providence, that no miracles are needed for the carrying out of its designs.” Every actor in this life-drama is seen working according to his own character, and acting according to his own unfettered will. No violence is done to the free agency of any one of them, and yet, in some inscrutable way, they all carry forward one great purpose, and the word of God is fulfilled. Thus God was in and over this history from first to last. But he is as really in each of our lives, and we shall miss the great moral of the story if we do not come to a clear recognition of that fact. W. M. T.

1,2. The notices we get of Jacob in the latter part of his history are very characteristic. He was one of those old men who maintain their vigor to the end, the energy of whose age seems to shame and overtax the prime of common men; whose minds are still the clearest, their advice the safest, their word waited for, their perception of the actual state of affairs always in advance of their juniors, more modern and fully abreast of the times in their ideas than the latest born of their children. Such an old age we recognize in Jacob’s half-scornful chiding of the helplessness of his sons even after they had heard that there was corn in Egypt. “Why look ye one upon another? Behold! I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get ye down thither and buy for us from thence.” Jacob, the man who had wrestled through life and bent all things to his will, cannot put up with the helpless dejection of this troop of strong men, who have no wit to devise an escape for themselves, and no resolution to enforce upon the others any device that may occur to them. It is the old Jacob, full of resources, equal to every turn of fortune, and never knowing how to yield. Dods.

3. 4. And Joseph’s ten brethren went. They are called “Joseph’s brethren” and not Jacob’s sons, because Joseph is at present the principal character in the story. But Benjamin is called Joseph’s brother in a stricter sense. One mother brought them both into the world, and Jacob’s fond attachment to Benjamin was in part the effect of his grief for the loss of Joseph. Bush.

5-7. And now Joseph’s brethren go to buy of him whom they had sold; and bow their knees to him for relief, who had bowed to them before for his own life. His age, his habit, the place, the language, kept Joseph from their knowledge; neither had they called off their minds from their folds, to inquire of matters of foreign state, or to hear that a Hebrew was advanced to the highest honor of Egypt. But he cannot but know them, whom he left at their full growth, whose tongue, and habit, and number were all one; whose faces had left so deep an impression in his mind, at their unkind parting; it is wisdom sometimes to conceal our knowledge, that we may not prejudice truth. Bp. H.

Joseph was seventeen years old at his departure from Canaan, and had now reached the age of at least thirty-seven. His dress of Egyptian fashion, and which betokened his distinguished rank,—his conversing with them by an interpreter,—his high position and dignity in Egypt, of which, in spite of his dreams, none of his brethren seem ever to have had the least idea,—all serve to account for their not recognizing him; whereas they, arriving from Canaan, speaking their mother tongue, and having all reached to man’s estate before his departure, were easily recognized by Joseph. C. G. B.

—6. Bowed down themselves. Joseph’s dreams were not literally fulfilled, his father being absent; but in spirit they were. Alf.—Spake roughly. It is evident from the whole narrative, that there was no harshness or revenge on the part of Joseph; but knowing as he did from personal experience what sort of persons his brethren were, and the just grounds their former conduct afforded far fearing what they might do to Benjamin and their old father, his intention was to put them effectually to the proof, to bring them to repentance and the confession of their offence, and, as the instrument of Divine Providence, to work out the good of his family, by making them feel in a very sensible way the wrong they had committed. C. G. B.

9. Ye are spies. It might well be suspected that they were spies, especially if the time usually assumed for their visit, that of the dynasty of the shepherd kings, be correct. For this dynasty, we are told by Manetho, was ever in fear of invasion from the then powerful Assyrians; and Josephus says that on that account they fortified the Eastern side of Egypt. Hence men arriving from Asia, and especially Jacob’s sons, who from their Chaldaic origin were more like the Eastern Semitic peoples than Canaanites, might well arouse suspicion as to their being Assyrian spies. The nakedness of the land may well refer to its being easily accessible, having fewer strong places than other countries. Alf.

11. We are all one man’s sons. We do not belong to different tribes, and it is not likely that one family would make a hostile attempt upon a kingdom. It is on the proof of this that Joseph puts them (ver. 15) in obliging them to leave one as a hostage, and insisting on their bringing their remaining brother; so that he took exactly the precautions to detect them, as if he had had no acquaintance with them and had every reason to be suspicious. A. C.—No man would send all his sons on so dangerous an enterprise. Nor was it probable that one man could have a design on Egypt but all the great men of Canaan must have joined in it; and then they would have sent men of different families. Patrick.

13. “One is not,” so they spoke of Joseph. It is simpler to take it not as the repetition of their old lie, but as the natural expression of what had come to be their belief. For twenty years they had heard nothing of him, and concluded that he was dead. Reuben, further on, speaking in all soberness, implies that they really thought him dead: “Therefore, behold, also his blood is required.” J. P. N.—Joseph has the satisfaction of learning that his father is yet alive, and that Benjamin is his favorite, as he himself had been. Moreover, that his brethren treated their father with the respect which he so well deserved, might be inferred from the manner in which they spoke of him, and from their leaving Benjamin to comfort him in their absence. Bush.

15. By the life of Pharaoh. As if he had said, as surely as the king of Egypt lives, so surely shall ye not go hence unless your brother come hither—here therefore is no oath; it is just what they themselves make it in their report to their father (chap. 43:3), the man did solemnly protest unto us. A. C.—Through all the details of his conduct here, in the work of securing the preservation of his family, Joseph has a part to play and must play it out consistently. If it is lawful for him to enact the part of an Egyptian prince at all, it is frivolous to raise questions about the details of his conduct—such as his affection of rudeness toward them as suspected spies, his asseverating “by the life of Pharaoh” in the current formula, and his putting on the air of an Egyptian sage familiar with magic. Admitting that he has the right for a time to keep up the disguise in personating Pharaoh’s viceroy, as seen from an Egyptian standpoint, then this admission carries with it all the details. S. R.

17. Put them.** Hebrew, collected or gathered them. It seems they did not consent to the terms proposed. None of them would consent to go and bring down Benjamin if all the rest, as Joseph proposed, were to be kept imprisoned till their return. He therefore, with great apparent severity, puts them all into custody for three days. All this was with a view to the end which he wished to have accomplished. Bush.—The severity of God only endures till the sinner is brought to recognize his guilt; it is indeed, like Joseph’s harshness with his brethren, nothing more than love in disguise; and having done its work, having brought him to the acknowledgment of his guilt and misery, reappears as grace again, granting him more than even he had dared to ask or hope, loosing the bands of his sins, and letting him go free. Trench.

All these arrangements and tests on the part of Joseph tended toward the humiliation and the penitence of his brethren. He might instantly have said, “I am Joseph!” They could not have borne it. At once he might have said, “Brethren, I forgive you all.” He might thus have done more harm than good. The men required to be tested. They had no right to any consideration before they were put to scrutiny and criticism. God has a long process with some of us. He has to take away the firstborn child, and the lastborn, and all between. He has to smite us with disease, foil our purposes, break up our schemes, and confound us at every point, until we begin to say, What does all this mean? J. P.

18. I fear God.** The declaration expresses nothing less than the ruling principle of his life. His unfeigned fear of God protects him in the hour of severest temptation; it adorns him in the dungeon as well as in the seat of the governor in Egypt; it becomes the source of that true wisdom which extends its blessing to thousands; it enables him to show that rare magnanimity and spirit of forgiveness, the glorious picture of which, after so many ages, we never behold without admiration; it heightens the enjoyment, lightens the pressure, brightens the evening of his life, and causes him at last, in the firm belief of God’s promises, to fall asleep in peace. “God was with him;” this conclusive sentence was spoken only of Joseph, but not of his brethren (Acts 7:9). Van O.

19. Carry grain for your houses.** The governor is touched with feeling for their famishing households. The brothers 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 upward 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 specially mentioned. M.—If ye be true men. In the first instance he proposed that one of their number should be sent for Benjamin, and all the rest confined till his return. Here he proposes that one should be confined, and all the rest dispatched to their father’s house. This would naturally give them a little further reviving in their bondage. And they did so. That is, agreed to do so. Bush.

21. And they said one to another, We are verily guilty.** While Joseph, the better to conceal himself, speaks and acts like a real Egyptian, God employs his affected sternness and severity to awaken their slumbering consciences. Though they were chargeable with many other sins, particularly Simeon and Levi, yet the treatment to which they were subjected brought to remembrance in a special manner their sin against their brother. This was an atrocious iniquity of which they were the most of them equally guilty. Conscience with unerring certainty refers their punishment to their crime, and charges it upon them with fearful distinctness. Their full hearts now begin to utter themselves, and as if they read in each other’s looks that the same thoughts were in all their minds at the same time, no sooner does one break silence than they all immediately join in ascribing the evil which had befallen them to its true source. Bush.

Conscience is a remembrancer, to bring to mind things long since said and done, to show us wherein we have erred though it was long ago, as this reflection here was above twenty years after the sun was committed. As time will not wear out the guilt of sin, so it will not blot out the records of conscience; when the guilt of this sin of Joseph’s brethren was fresh they made light of it, and sat down to eat bread; but now, long afterward, their consciences reminded them of it. H.—The human soul itself contains within itself all the necessary elements of retributive penalty. Here is nothing but memory, conscience, and reason, yet what an exhibition and illustration of the self-retributive power of sin! Memory: “We saw the anguish.” Conscience: “We are verily guilty.” Reason: “Therefore is this distress come upon us.” Let a soul go into the future state with a memory to recall, a conscience to accuse, and a reason to justify penalty as deserved, and what more is necessary to hell! Hence Milton: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven!” Pierson.

It is very manifest that, for creatures so constituted, there may be no need of any direct interference of God to punish the evil-doer. The life of sin becomes its own punishment as soon as the twenty-two years of prosperity and thoughtlessness are over, and death leads to the prison-houses. You need only be let alone throughout the endless existence that follows—left to the scorpion sting of remorse at the recollection of sins past, and to all the inborn agonies of vice. There is no need of supposing that God will take the punishment of sinners directly into his own hands, or commission and send forth an avenging train to torment and lacerate the wicked. Without any such direct and positive infliction, all that the Scriptures sketch for us by those terrible and ghastly images of the unquenched fire and the clank of the everlasting chains, may be fulfilled in leaving each sinner to be his own tormentor. S. R.

23,24. All this, too, was in the hearing of Joseph. Joseph heard them say that he was their brother. They used to call him “dreamer.” He heard them say “the child,"—tenderly. Once they mocked him. He heard them speak in subdued, gentle tones. J. P.—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. But 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 form’s 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. These men had to give evidence not only that they saw and in some sense repented of their sin, but that they had got rid of the evil passion that led to it. Dols.—The work is not yet complete; so he brushed away the tears and “returned to them and took from them Simeon and bound him before their eyes.” Why he chose Simeon is not indicated. Perhaps—not to say probably—he was the leading spirit in the cruel scenes thirteen years before. We remember that Simeon and Levi led off in that bloody affray with the men of Shechem. However this may be, he was the eldest after Reuben; and Reuben, though a coarse, rough nature, was on the side of mercy toward the abused Joseph. Simeon, therefore, is chosen for the hostage, to be kept in close confinement while the rest are dismissed to go home. Simeon will have abundant time to think over the guilty deeds of that dreadful past! H. C.—Reuben, who was the eldest, had resolved to save Joseph; and Judah also was inclined to favor him; had Simeon joined with them, their authority might have prevailed for his deliverance. Simeon was the eldest of those who had proposed to murder him, and was, therefore, a fit proxy for the rest: the man, as the Hebrews say, who put Joseph into the pit and was now very justly served in his kind. Stackhouse.

28. Their heart failed them. Their guilt made them afraid; otherwise they would have rejoiced. But all things terrify an evil conscience. Patrick.—What is this that God hath done unto us? Overlooking second causes, they attribute directly to the judgments of God what had now befallen them. It seemed to them that he was still pursuing them in a mysterious way, and with a design to require their brother’s blood at their hand. Bush.

The whole narrative shows that, so far from being void of fraternal feeling and hard-hearted, in fact it tasked his firmness of character to the utmost to suppress his emotions sufficiently to carry out his purpose. His main purpose was to bring them to thorough repentance. For this end he must needs throw their thought back upon their great sin and bring the heavy pressure of present calamity upon them with all its suggestive power to show them that God was taking them in hand for that wickedness. He also wished to see how they felt toward their father and toward Benjamin. Their feeling toward both the father and his youngest son would be an index of their penitence for their great sin toward himself. Joseph was a man of consummate wisdom. Few men have ever lived who understood human nature better than he, or could plan better for a given effect. Consequently we shall not miss greatly if we infer his design from the actual effect. When we see what he accomplished, we are reasonably safe in saying—This is what he aimed to do. H. C.

36. All these things are against me.** These things were not against him. They were really working for his after good. They were onward steps in that process by which he was to recover his long-lost son, and was to have conferred upon him those years of happiness which, as we read the story, we are apt to call the Sabbath of his life, with its rest, its thankfulness, and its joy. W. M. T.—Instead of being against him, all these things were for him; and by all these means, was the merciful God working for the preservation of himself and his family, and the fulfilment of his ancient promise, that the posterity of Abraham should

be as the stars of heaven for multitude. A. C.—Notwithstanding all the promises he had received from the God of Bethel, Jacob’s heart sunk under the weight of this complicated distress; and in his infirmity he pronounced against himself and against the faithfulness of God, “All these things are against me.” How could any circumstance be against a good man to whom it was secured by covenant that all things should work together for his good? Poor man, how weak is thy faith! Is it so much against thee that Joseph is taken from thee to be the lord of Egypt and the nourisher of thine old age? But how glorious did the providence of God appear to Jacob when he lay infolded in the arms of his Joseph! What a sufficient explanation was that of the mysterious dealings of his heavenly Father! We shall not all see such full explanations in this life, but we shall all see them. When the whole skein of providence is unfolded, all will appear as those mysterious events did to Jacob when he met with his long-lost son. Love,—the love of God,—the love of Jesus, will appear to have animated the whole machine of government and to have moved every wheel. And ten thousand voices, which once pronounced, “All these things are against me,” will shout and sing, Hosanna to Him who made my tears to flow. Everlasting thanks to a Father’s care for the furnace in which I was purified for glory. Alleluia. Blessing and honor and glory to Him who made my tears to flow. Griffin.