Joseph’s Brothers Sent to Egypt
Genesis 42Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why do y’all look at one another?” He said, “Look, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Y’all go down there and buy some for us from there, so that we may live and not die.” Joseph’s ten brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob didn’t send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers; for he said, “Lest perhaps harm happen to him.” The sons of Israel were among those who went to buy, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
Now Joseph was the governor over the land. It was he who sold to all the people of the land. Joseph’s brothers came, and bowed themselves down to him with their faces to the earth. When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but made sure he was unrecognizable to them, and spoke roughly with them. He said to them, “Where did y’all come from?”
They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”
Joseph recognized his brothers, but they didn’t recognize him. Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed about them, and said to them, “Y’all are spies! Y’all have come to see the vulnerable parts of our land.”
They said to him, “No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. We are all one man’s sons; we are honest men. Your servants are not spies.”
He said to them, “No, but y’all have come to see the vulnerable parts of our land!”
They said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is with our father today, and one is no more.”
Joseph said to them, “It is like I told y’all, saying, ‘Y’all are spies!’ By this y’all will be tested. By the life of Pharaoh, y’all will not leave here, unless y’all’s youngest brother comes here. Y’all must send one of y’all to get y’all’s brother, while y’all remain bound, so that y’all’s words may be tested, whether there is truth in y’all. But if not, by the life of Pharaoh surely y’all are spies.” He put them all together into custody for three days.
Joseph said to them the third day, “Y’all do this, and y’all will live, for I fear God. If y’all are honest men, then let one of y’all’s brothers be bound in y’all’s prison while the rest of y’all go and carry grain for the famine in y’all’s households. Y’all bring y’all’s youngest brother to me, and then y’all’s words be verified, and y’all won’t die.”
They did so. They said to one another, “We are certainly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we wouldn’t listen. Therefore this distress has come upon us.” Reuben answered them, saying, “Didn’t I tell y’all, saying, ‘Don’t sin against the boy’? But y’all wouldn’t listen. Now we must account for his blood!” They didn’t know that Joseph understood them; for there was an interpreter between them. He turned himself away from them, and wept. Then he returned to them, and spoke to them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes.
Joseph Begins Testing His Brothers
Then Joseph gave a command to fill their bags with grain, and to restore each man’s money into his sack, and to give them food for the way. So it was done to them.
They loaded their donkeys with their grain, and departed from there. As one of them opened his sack to give his donkey food in the lodging place, he saw his money. There it was in the opening of his sack. He said to his brothers, “My money is restored! Look, it is in my sack!” Their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?” They came to Jacob their father, to the land of Canaan, and told him all that had happened to them, saying, “The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly with us, and took us for spies of the country. We said to him, ‘We are honest men. We are no spies. We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is today with our father in the land of Canaan.’ The man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I will know that y’all are honest men: leave one of y’all’s brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of y’all’s houses, and go y’all’s way. Y’all must bring y’all’s youngest brother to me. Then I will know that y’all are not spies, and that y’all are honest men. So I will deliver y’all’s brother back to y’all, and y’all will be allowed to trade in the land.’”
As they emptied their sacks, there they saw each man’s bundle of money in his sack. When they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid. Jacob, their father, said to them, “Y’all have bereaved me of my children! Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and y’all want to take Benjamin away. All these things are against me.”
Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “Kill my two sons, if I don’t bring him to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him to you again.”
He said, “My son must not go down with y’all; for his brother is dead, and he only is left. If harm happens to him along the way in which y’all go, then y’all will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”+42:38 Sheol is the place of the dead.