1And the famine grew grave in the land. 2And it happened when they had eaten up the provisions they had brought from Egypt, that their father said to them, “Go back, buy us some food.” 3And Judah said to him, saying, “The man firmly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ 4If you are going to send our brother with us, we may go down and buy you food, 5but if you are not going to send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’” 6And Israel said, “Why have you done me this harm to tell the man you had another brother?” 7And they said, “The man firmly asked us about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still living? Do you have a brother?’ And we told him, in response to these words. Could we know he would say, ‘Bring down your brother?’” 8And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the lad with me, and let us rise and go, that we may live and not die, neither we, nor you, nor our little ones. 9I will be his pledge, from my hand you may seek him: if I do not bring him to you and set him before you, I will bear the blame to you for all time. 10For had we not tarried, by now we could have come back twice.” 11And Israel their father said to them, “If it must be so, do this: take of the best yield of the land in your baggage and bring down to the man as tribute some balm and some honey, gum and ladanum, pistachio nuts and almonds. 12And double the silver take in your hand, and the silver that was put back in the mouths of your bags bring back in your hand. Perhaps it was a mistake. 13And your brother take, and rise and go back to the man. 14And may El Shaddai grant you mercy before the man, that he discharge to you your other brother, and Benjamin. As for me, if I must be bereaved, I will be bereaved.”
15And the men took this tribute and double the silver they took in their hand, and Benjamin, and they rose and went down to Egypt and stood in Joseph’s presence. 16And Joseph saw Benjamin with them and he said to the one who was over his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and prepare it, for with me the men shall eat at noon.” 17And the man did as Joseph had said, and the man brought the men to Joseph’s house. 18And the men were afraid at being brought to Joseph’s house, and they said, “Because of the silver put back in our bags the first time we’ve been brought, in order to fall upon us, to attack us, and to take us as slaves, and our donkeys.” 19And they approached the man who was over Joseph’s house, and they spoke to him by the entrance of the house. 20And they said, “Please, my lord, we indeed came down the first time to buy food, 21and it happened when we came to the encampment that we opened our bags and, look, each man’s silver was in the mouth of his bag, our silver in full weight, and we have brought it back in our hand, 22and we have brought down more silver to buy food. We do not know who put our silver in our bags.” 23And he said, “All is well with you, do not fear. Your God and the God of your father has placed treasure for you in your bags. Your silver has come to me.” And he brought Simeon out to them. 24And the man brought the men into Joseph’s house, and he gave them water and they bathed their feet, and he gave provender to their donkeys. 25And they prepared the tribute against Joseph’s arrival at noon, for they had heard that there they would eat bread. 26And Joseph came into the house, and they brought him the tribute that was in their hand, into the house, and they bowed down to him to the ground. 27And he asked how they were, and he said, “Is all well with your aged father of whom you spoke? Is he still alive?” 28And they said, “All is well with your servant, our father. He is still alive.” And they did obeisance and bowed down. 29And he raised his eyes and saw Benjamin his brother, his mother’s son, and he said, “Is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me?” And he said, “God be gracious to you, my son.” 30And Joseph hurried out, for his feelings for his brother overwhelmed him and he wanted to weep, and he went into the chamber and wept there. 31And he bathed his face and came out and held himself in check and said, “Serve bread.” 32And they served him and them separately and the Egyptians who were eating with him separately, for the Egyptians would not eat bread with the Hebrews, as it was abhorrent to Egypt. 33And they were seated before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, the youngest according to his youth, and the men marveled to each other. 34And he had portions passed to them from before him, and Benjamin’s portion was five times more than the portion of all the rest, and they drank, and they got drunk with him.
CHAPTER 43 NOTES
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3. The man firmly warned us. “The man” refers elliptically to the phrase the brothers previously used in their report to their father, “the man who is lord of the land” (42:30). Their repeated use of this designation aptly dramatizes their ignorance of Joseph’s identity. In the second half of this chapter, there is pointed interplay between the references to the brothers as “the men”—almost as though they were represented from an Egyptian point of view—and to Joseph’s majordomo as “the man.”
You shall not see my face. The Hebrew idiom has distinct regal overtones: you shall not come into my presence.
5. You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you. Judah reiterates this sentence word for word, at the end of his first speech to Jacob as at the beginning. The effect is to spell out the inexorable condition with heavy emphasis for the reluctant Jacob: it is only by bringing Benjamin along that we can return to Egypt.
6. Why have you done me this harm. Consistent with his character from chapter 37 onward, Jacob flaunts his sense of personal injury.
8. that we may live and not die, neither we, nor you, nor our little ones. The phrase “live and not die” was used by Jacob to his sons before their first journey to Egypt (42:2), and Judah now throws it back in his face. By adding to it, “neither we, nor you, nor our little ones,” Judah makes a vividly persuasive point: as Rashi sees, the implicit argument is that if we risk taking Benjamin, he may or may not be seized, but if we stay here, every one of us will perish from hunger.
9. I will be his pledge, from my hand you may seek him. The repetition through synonymity signals a performative speech-act, a legally binding vow. Judah, who conceived the scheme of selling Joseph into slavery, now takes personal responsibility for Benjamin’s safety. But befitting the son who will displace Reuben as the progenitor of the kings of Israel, he asserts solemn responsibility without Reuben’s rash offer to put two of his own sons to death if harm befalls Benjamin.
11. the best yield of the land. The Hebrew zimrat haʾarets occurs only here. The most plausible construction of the first term links it with a root that means “strength” or “power,” though it could be related to zemorah, “branch” or “sprout.”
some balm and some honey, gum and ladanum. The tribute or gift (minḥah) to Joseph includes three of the same items as those in the briefer list of luxury export goods carried by the Ishmaelite traders (37:25) who bought Joseph from the brothers and sold him as a slave in Egypt. As with the silver sent back and forth, the brothers are thus drawn unwittingly into a process of repetition of and restitution for their fraternal crime.
12. And double the silver take. Now they are to go to Egypt with three times the original amount of silver: the amount they intend to return to Joseph, and double that amount besides. Nahum Sarna construes the second clause, “and the silver that was put back . . .,” as an explanation of the first, concluding that only double the amount in sum was taken, but his reading dismisses the clear additive sense of “and” in “and the silver.” Rashi, with characteristic shrewdness, suggests that extra silver was taken because the brothers were fearful that the price of grain might have gone up steeply—a plausible possibility, given Egypt’s monopoly of food supplies and the persisting famine.
take in your hand. The addition of “in your hand,” which is not strictly required by Hebrew idiom, is repeated several times in the story. One suspects it is linked with the theme of restitution: the very hands that were “raised against” Joseph (37:22 and 27) now bear tribute to him.
13. And your brother take. Jacob holds back the detail that is most painful to him, the sending down of Benjamin, until the very end of his instructions. Pointedly, he does not refer to Benjamin by name but instead calls him “your brother,” stressing the fraternal responsibility his nine older sons have for their half brother.
14. he discharge to you your other brother, and Benjamin. Jacob’s fearful formulation virtually presupposes that Benjamin will be seized by the Egyptians, just as Simeon was.
As for me, if I must be bereaved, I will be bereaved. Jacob is of course remembering his grief over the loss of Joseph and perhaps as well his concern over Simeon’s imprisonment. But he is also once more playing his role as histrion of paternal sorrow, echoing his dirgelike words to his sons (42:36), “Me you have bereaved,” using the same verb that refers specifically in Hebrew to the loss of children and again placing the first-person singular pronoun at the beginning of his statement.
16. the one who was over his house. Virtually all the English versions represent this as “steward,” but the Hebrew opts for this more circumlocutionary phrase (which does occur, in a clear administrative sense, in notices about the later Israelite royal bureaucracy) instead of one of the available biblical terms for steward or majordomo. This roundabout designation reflects an Egyptian title and may at the same time intimate the perspective of the Hebrew brothers toward this Egyptian “man who was over the house” with whom they have to deal. It also enables the writer to play “man” against “men” in his narrative report.
17. Joseph’s house. The phrase is repeated three times in rapid sequence, and amplified by the secondary references to “the man who was over his house.” For the ten Hebrew men to go into Joseph’s house is a momentous thing, politically and thematically. Since they are aware that it is not customary for foreigners who have come to buy grain to be introduced into the residence of the viceroy, they are afraid it may be a trap (verse 18). Their last encounter with Joseph in Canaan, more than two decades earlier, was in an open field, where he was entirely in their power. Now, crossing the threshold of his house, they will be entirely in his power—whether for evil or for good they cannot say. Pointedly, their actual sitting down at Joseph’s table is prefaced by a literally liminal moment: they stand at the entrance, expressing their anxiety to Joseph’s steward.
18. to fall upon us. The Hebrew verb might well have the sense of “to find a pretext against us,” as many English versions render it, but it is at least as plausible to construe it as a verb of physical assault, in apposition to the term that follows it.
and our donkeys. This odd addendum at the very end of the sentence looks suspiciously like a comic inadvertency.
23. has placed treasure for you in your bags. The majordomo dismisses their fears by introducing a kind of fairy-tale explanation for the silver they found in their bags.
Your silver has come to me. These words take the form of a legal declaration meaning “I have duly received payment.”
25. they would eat bread. “Bread,” as in the English expression, “to eat the king’s bread,” is obviously a synecdoche for food, but it diminishes the literary dignity of the narrative to render this, as many modern translations have done, simply as “dine.”
29. God be gracious to you, my son. Benjamin, although considerably younger than Joseph, would be at least in his late twenties at this point. In addressing him as “my son,” Joseph faithfully maintains his role as Egyptian viceroy, though “my brother” is hiding in the word he uses. The great medieval Hebrew poet Shmuel Hanagid (eleventh-century Granada) would brilliantly catch this doubleness in a moving elegy to his brother by altering the end of the phrase: “God be gracious to you, my brother.”
30. And Joseph hurried out . . . and he wanted to weep, and he went into the chamber and wept there. In the pattern of incremental repetition, this second weeping of Joseph’s is much more elaborately reported than the first (42:24), including as it does the flight to a private chamber and (in the next verse), his bathing his face to remove evidence of the tears and his effort of self-restraint when he returns to the brothers.
his feelings . . . overwhelmed him. The literal meaning of the Hebrew is “his mercy [the same term used by Jacob in verse 14] burned hot.”
32. for the Egyptians would not eat bread with the Hebrews. The dietary exclusionism of the Egyptians is also attested by Herodotus. Both medieval and modern commentators have linked this taboo with an Egyptian prohibition against eating lamb, a staple of Hebrew diet.
as it was abhorrent to Egypt. The consensus of English translations treats this as “to the Egyptians,” but the Masoretic vocalization of the final noun—mitsrayim and not mitsrim—construes it as “to Egypt,” which makes perfectly good sense.
33. And they were seated before him. The seating in order of age of course has been done at Joseph’s direction: it constitutes a kind of dramatization of the contrast between knowledge and ignorance—“and he recognized them but they did not recognize him”—that has been paramount from the moment the brothers first set foot in Egypt.
34. they drank, and they got drunk with him. In the Hebrew, these are two entirely distinct verbs. The meeting between the eleven brothers and the man who is lord of the land of Egypt appears to end on a note of conviviality, which will quickly be reversed in the next scene of the drama Joseph has carefully devised for his brothers. It should be noted that the drinking at the conclusion of this scene anticipates the mechanism of what is to follow, for it is the alleged theft of Joseph’s silver goblet that will bring the brothers back to his house under strict arrest.