Genesis 44:18-34

18 Then Judah went up to him and said, ¹“Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and ²let not your anger burn against your servant, for ³you are like Pharaoh himself.

19 My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father, or a brother? ’

20 And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, ⁴and a young brother, ⁵the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him. ’

21 Then you said to your servants, ⁶‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him. ’

22 We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, ⁷his father would die. ’

23 Then you said to your servants, ⁸‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again. ’

24 “When we went back to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord.

25 And when ⁹our father said, ‘Go again, buy us a little food, ’

26 we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us. ’

27 Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me ¹⁰two sons.

28 One left me, and I said, ¹¹“Surely he has been torn to pieces, ” and I have never seen him since.

29 If you ¹²take this one also from me, ¹³and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol. ’

30 “Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life,

31 as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol.

32 For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ¹⁴‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life. ’

33 Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers.

34 For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father. ”

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.

Cross References

• 1. 44:18 ch. 43:20
• 2. 44:18 Ex. 32:22
• 3. 44:18 ch. 41:40
• 4. 44:20 ver. 30; [ch. 43:8]
• 5. 44:20 [ch. 37:3]
• 6. 44:21 ch. 42:15, 20; 43:3, 5
• 7. 44:22 [ver. 31]
• 8. 44:23 ch. 43:3
• 9. 44:25 ch. 43:2
• 10. 44:27 ch. 46:19
• 11. 44:28 ch. 37:33
• 12. 44:29 ch. 42:36, 38
• 13. 44:29 ch. 42:4, 38
• 14. 44:32 ch. 43:9