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Genesis 44:18-34

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Judah's Plea for Benjamin

18 But Judah approached him and said, "Sir, please let your servant speak personally to my lord.[a] Do not be angry with your servant, for you are like Pharaoh.
19 My lord asked his servants, 'Do you have a father or a brother?'
20 and we answered my lord, 'We have an elderly father and a young brother, the child of his old age. The boy's[b] brother is dead. He is the only one of his mother's sons left, and his father loves him.'
21 Then you said to your servants, 'Bring him to me so that I can see him.'
22 But we said to my lord, 'The boy cannot leave his father. If he were to leave, his father would die.'
23 Then you said to your servants, 'If your younger brother does not come down with you, you will not see me again.'
24 "This is what happened when we went back to your servant my father: We reported your words to him.
25 But our father said, 'Go again, and buy us some food.'
26 We told him, 'We cannot go down unless our younger brother goes with us. But if our younger brother isn't with us, we cannot see the man.'
27 Your servant my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons.
28 One left-I said that he must have been torn to pieces-and I have never seen him again.
29 If you also take this one from me and anything happens to him, you will bring my gray hairs down to Sheol in sorrow.'[c]
30 "So, if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us-his life is wrapped up with the boy's life-
31 when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hairs of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.
32 Your servant became accountable to my father for the boy, saying, 'If I do not return him to you, I will always bear the guilt for sinning against [you,] my father.'
33 Now please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave, in place of the boy. Let him go back with his brothers.
34 For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see[d] the grief that would overwhelm my father."
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Genesis 44:18-34 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 44

This chapter relates the policy of Joseph in making an experiment of his brethren's regard and affection for Benjamin; he ordered his steward to put every man's money into his sack, and his silver cup in Benjamin's, and when they were got out of the city, to follow after them, and charge them with the theft, as he did; and having searched their sacks, as they desired he would, found the cup with Benjamin, which threw them into the utmost distress, and obliged them to return to Joseph, Ge 44:1-14; who charged them with their ill behaviour towards him; they acknowledge it, and propose to be his servants; but he orders them to depart to their father, retaining Benjamin in servitude, Ge 44:15-17; upon which Judah addressed him in a very polite and affectionate manner, and relates the whole story, both of what passed between Joseph and them, concerning Benjamin, the first time they were in Egypt, and between their father and them upon the same subject, when he directed them to go a second time thither to buy corn, and how he became a surety to his father for him, and therefore proposed to be his bondman now, not being able to see his father's face without Benjamin, Ge 44:18-34.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Footnotes 4

Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.