Genesis 42:19
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If you are honest, leave one of your brothers in custody while the rest of you go and take back grain to relieve the hunger of your households.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
With the words "Why do ye look at one another!" viz., in such a helpless and undecided manner. Jacob exhorted his sons to fetch corn from Egypt, to preserve his family from starvation. Joseph's ten brothers went, as their aged father would not allow his youngest son Benjamin to go with them, for fear that some calamity might befall him (קרא = קרה, Gen 44:29 as in Gen 42:38 and Gen 49:1); and they came "in the midst of the comers," i.e., among others who came from the same necessity, and bowed down before Joseph with their faces to the earth. For he was "the ruler over the land," and had the supreme control of the sale of the corn, so that they were obliged to apply to him. השּׁלּיט seems to have been the standing title which the Shemites gave to Joseph as ruler in Egypt; and from this the later legend of Σάλατις the first king of the Hyksos arose (Josephus c. Ap. i. 14). The only other passages in which the word occurs in the Old Testament are in writings of the captivity or a still later date, and there it is taken from the Chaldee; it belongs, however, not merely to the Aramaean thesaurus, but to the Arabic also, from which it was introduced into the passage before us.
Open source ↗We had, in the foregoing chapter, the fulfilling of the dreams which Joseph had interpreted: in this and the following chapters we have the fulfilling of the dreams which Joseph himself had dreamed, that his father's family should do homage to him. The story is very largely and particularly related of what passed between Joseph and his brethren, not only because it is an entertaining story, and probably was much talked of, both among the Israelites and among the Egyptians, but because it is very instructive, and it gave occasion for the removal of Jacob's family into Egypt, on which so many great events afterwards depended. We have, in this chapter, I. The humble application of Jacob's sons to Joseph to buy corn (Gen 42:1-6). II. The fright Joseph put them into, for their trial (Gen 42:7-20). III. The conviction they were now under of their sin concerning Joseph long before (Gen 42:21-24). IV. Their return to Canaan with corn, and the great distress their good father was in upon hearing the account of their expedition (Gen 42:25, etc.).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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And he sent to his father the following: ten donkeys loaded with the best of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provisions for his father’s journey.
to open the eyes of the blind, to bring prisoners out of the dungeon and those sitting in darkness out from the prison house.
and they loaded the grain on their donkeys and departed.
and imprisoned them in the house of the captain of the guard, the same prison where Joseph was confined.
But this is a people plundered and looted, all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”
When the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened up all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians; for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.
The officials were angry with Jeremiah, and they beat him and placed him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for it had been made into a prison.