Genesis 42:3

3 So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

Genesis 42:3 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 42:3

And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt.
] They obeyed their father's orders, and immediately set out for Egypt; "ten" of them went down in a body together, all but Benjamin, so that it is easily reckoned who they were, and they are called not Jacob's sons, as they were; but Joseph's brethren, whom they had sold into Egypt, and to whom now they were going, though they knew it not, to buy corn of him in their necessity, and to whom they would be obliged to yield obeisance, as they did.

Genesis 42:3 In-Context

1 When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why do you keep looking at one another?

2 I have heard," he said, "that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die."

3 So ten of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.

4 But Jacob did not send Joseph's brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he feared that harm might come to him.

5 Thus the sons of Israel were among the other people who came to buy grain, for the famine had reached the land of Canaan.