Genesis 42:19-29

19 If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison while the rest of you go and carry grain back to feed your hungry families.

20 Then bring your youngest brother back here to me. If you do this, I will know you are telling the truth, and you will not die." The brothers agreed to this.

21 They said to each other, "We are being punished for what we did to our brother. We saw his trouble, and he begged us to save him, but we refused to listen. That is why we are in this trouble now."

22 Then Reuben said to them, "I told you not to harm the boy, but you refused to listen to me. So now we are being punished for what we did to him."

23 When Joseph talked to his brothers, he used an interpreter, so they did not know that Joseph understood what they were saying.

24 Then Joseph left them and cried. After a short time he went back and spoke to them. He took Simeon and tied him up while the other brothers watched.

25 Joseph told his servants to fill his brothers' bags with grain and to put the money the brothers had paid for the grain back in their bags. The servants were also to give them what they would need for their trip back home. And the servants did this.

26 So the brothers put the grain on their donkeys and left.

27 When they stopped for the night, one of the brothers opened his sack to get food for his donkey. Then he saw his money in the top of the sack.

28 He said to the other brothers, "The money I paid for the grain has been put back. Here it is in my sack!" The brothers were very frightened. They said to each other, "What has God done to us?"

29 The brothers went to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan and told him everything that had happened.

Genesis 42:19-29 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 42

This chapter relates how that Jacob having heard there was corn in Egypt, sent all his sons but Benjamin thither to buy corn, Ge 42:1-5; and coming before Joseph, they bowed to him, and he knowing them, though they knew not him, spoke roughly to them, and charged them with being spies, Ge 42:6-9; they in their defence urged that they were the sons of one man in Canaan, with whom their youngest brother was left, on which Joseph ordered them to send for him, to prove them true men, Ge 42:10-16; and put them all into prison for three days, and then released them, and sent them away to fetch their brother, Ge 42:17-20; this brought to mind their treatment of Joseph, and they confessed their guilt to each other, which Joseph heard, and greatly affected him, they supposing he understood them not, and before he dismissed them bound Simeon before their eyes, whom he retained till they returned, Ge 42:21-24; then he ordered his servants to fill their sacks with corn, and put each man's money in his sack, which one of them on the road found, opening his sack for provender, filled them all with great surprise and fear, Ge 42:25-28; upon their return to Jacob they related all that had befallen them, and particularly that the governor insisted on having Benjamin brought to him, Ge 42:29-34; their sacks being opened, all their money was found in them, which greatly distressed them and Jacob also, who was very unwilling to let Benjamin go, though Reuben offered his two sons as pledges for him, and himself to be a surety, Ge 42:35-38.