translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: GEN

label: NET study note

text: Why are you looking at each other? The point of Jacob’s question is that his sons should be going to get grain rather than sitting around doing nothing. Jacob, as the patriarch, still makes the decisions for the whole clan.


text: Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down before him . Here is the beginning of the fulfillment of Joseph’s dreams (see ). But it is not the complete fulfillment, since all his brothers and his parents must come. The point of the dream, of course, was not simply to get the family to bow to Joseph, but that Joseph would be placed in a position of rule and authority to save the family and the world ( 41:57 ).


text: But pretended to be a stranger . Joseph intends to test his brothers to see if they have changed and have the integrity to be patriarchs of the tribes of Israel. He will do this by putting them in the same situations that they and he were in before. The first test will be to awaken their conscience.


text: You are spies . Joseph wanted to see how his brothers would react if they were accused of spying.


text: The same Hebrew word is used for Joseph’s imprisonment in 40:3, 4, 7 . There is some mirroring going on in the narrative. The Hebrew word used here ( אָסַף , ’ asaf , “to gather”) is not normally used in a context like this (for placing someone in prison), but it forms a wordplay on the name Joseph ( יוֹסֵף , yosoef ) and keeps the comparison working.


text: For I fear God . Joseph brings God into the picture to awaken his brothers’ consciences. The godly person cares about the welfare of people, whether they live or die. So he will send grain back, but keep one of them in Egypt. This action contrasts with their crime of selling their brother into slavery.


text: The repetition of the Hebrew noun translated distress draws attention to the fact that they regard their present distress as appropriate punishment for their refusal to ignore their brother when he was in distress.


text: Joseph’s brothers soften the news considerably, making it sound like Simeon was a guest of Joseph ( Leave one of your brothers with me ) instead of being bound in prison. They do not mention the threat of death and do not at this time speak of the money in the one sack.


text: The expression he alone is left meant that (so far as Jacob knew) Benjamin was the only surviving child of his mother Rachel.


text: The expression bring down my gray hair is figurative, using a part for the whole – they would put Jacob in the grave. But the gray head signifies a long life of worry and trouble.