Genesis 42:23

_AND HE PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER INTO WARD THREE DAYS._ Put them all together into ward three days. Their confinement had been designed to bring them to salutary reflection. And this object was attained; because they looked upon the retributive justice of God as now pursuing them in that foreign land. The drift of their conversation is one of the most striking instances of the power of conscience on record. AND LIVE - literally, you shall live. Their conscience being awakened by the sudden perils in which they were involved, brought to their remembrance their relentless cruelty toward their brother; the recollection of what they had done filled them with remorse, while they saw and confessed the equity of Providence in measuring to them according to the measure they meted to him. Strauss pronounces the alleged affinity between sin and its punishment a 'common, Hebrew notion;' but a convic...

21-24 The office of conscience is to bring to mind things long since said and done. 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 accused them of it. See the good of afflictions; they often prove the happy means of awakening conscience, and bringing sin to our remembrance. Also, the evil of guilt as to our brethren. Conscience now reproached them for it. Whenever we think we have wrong done us, we ought to remember the wrong we have done to others. Reuben alone remembered with comfort, that he had done what he could to prevent the mischief. When we share with others in their sufferings, it will be a comfort if we have the testimony of our consciences for us, that we did not share in their evil deeds, but in our places witnessed against them. Joseph retired to weep. Though his reason...

Verse Genesis 42:23. _FOR HE SPAKE UNTO THEM BY AN INTERPRETER._] Either there was a very great difference between the two languages as _then_ spoken, or Joseph, to prevent all suspicion, might affect to be ignorant of both. We have many evidences in this book that the Egyptians, Hebrews, Canaanites, and Syrians, could understand each other in a general way, though there are also proofs that there was a considerable difference between their dialects....

- Joseph and Ten of His Brethren 1. שׁבר _sheber_, “fragment, crumb, hence, grain.” בר _bar_ “pure,” “winnowed,” hence, “corn” (grain). 6. שׁליט _shallı̂yṭ_, “ruler, governor, hence,” Sultan. Not elsewhere found in the Pentateuch. 25. כלי _k__e__lı̂y_, “vessel,” here any portable article in which grain may be conveyed. שׂק _śaq_, “sack,” the very word which remains in our language to this day. אמתחת _'amtachath_ “bag.” Twenty years, the period of Joseph’s long and anxious waiting, have come to an end. The dreams of his boyhood are now at length to be fulfilled. The famine has reached

EXPOSITION GENESIS 42:1 NOW WHEN JACOB SAW—literally, _and Jacob saw, i.e._ perceived by the preparations of others for buying corn in Egypt (Lange), but more probably learnt by the report which others brought from. Egypt (Genesis 42:2)—THAT THERE WAS CORN—שֶׁבֶר, either that which is broken, e.g. ground as in a mill, from שָׁבַר, to break in pieces, to shiver (Gesenius), or that which breaks forth, hence sprouts or geminates, from an unused root, שָׁבַר, to press out, to break forth (Furst), is here employed to denote not simply grain, but a supply of it, _frumenti cumulus, _for sale and purchase. The LXX. render by πρᾶσις, and the Vulgate by _quod alimenta venderentur_—IN EGYPT (vid

AND THEY KNEW NOT THAT JOSEPH UNDERSTOOD [THEM],.... For what is above related they spoke in his presence and hearing; but speaking to one another in the Hebrew language, and he being an Egyptian, as they took him to be, they did not imagine that he could understand them, and therefore were not at all upon their guard in what they said: and what confirmed them in this was, FOR HE SPAKE UNTO THEM BY AN INTERPRETER; which he the rather chose to do, that they might have no suspicion of him; and which shows, that though there was a likeness between the Hebrew language and the Egyptian in many things, yet in some they differed, and the difference was such that there was need of an interpreter, where the parties did not understand both languages: this interpreter between Joseph and his brethren, according to the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, was Manasseh, the eldest son of Joseph, and so...

CHAPTER 42 THE FIRST VISIT OF JOSEPH'S BRETHREN _ 1. Joseph's brethren sent to Egypt (Genesis 42:1)_ 2. Joseph meets his brethren (Genesis 42:6) 3. Put in prison for three days (Genesis 42:17) 4. Joseph's demand (Genesis 42:18) 5. The accusing conscience (Genesis 42:21) 6. Joseph weeps and Simeon bound (Genesis 42:24) 7. The return of the nine ...

GENESIS 42. JOSEPH'S BROTHERS COME TO EGYPT TO BUY CORN, AND UNWITTINGLY ENCOUNTER JOSEPH. The greater part is taken from E, but Genesis 42:2; Genesis 42:4_ b_, Genesis 42:5; Genesis 42:7; Genesis 42:9 _b_ - Genesis 42:11_ a_, Genesis 42:12; Genesis 42:27_ ab_,...

The second Interview 18. _for I fear God_ See notes on Genesis 20:3; Genesis 20:11; Genesis 22:12; Genesis 39:9. Cf. Leviticus 25:43; Nehemiah 5:15. Joseph reassures his brethren by representing to them that the potentate of Egypt is one who recognizes the universal Divine law of right and wrong. He fears God, who protects the stranger and the defenceless. Perhaps there is a reference to his brothers" disregard of this fear of God in their former treatmen

SPAKE UNTO THEM BY AN INTERPRETER— Not only to keep up an air of majesty, and to strike an awe upon his brethren, but to prevent his being discovered....