Genesis 44

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 25

   גָּבִיעַ is a drinking bowl or goblet. Its other uses fix the shape: the almond-shaped cups of the lampstand (Exod 25:31, 33–34; 37:17, 19–20; KJV "bowls"), and Jer 35:5, where the Rechabites are set "goblets full of wine, and cups" (גְּבִיעִים מְלֵאִים יַיִן וְכֹסוֹת), the two words side by side. "Cup" is the home gloss of כּוֹס, the cup of the cupbearer's dream (40:11, 13, 21), so the brothers' silver vessel takes "goblet," the word the chapter repeats (vv. 2, 12, 16, 17). The LXX has κόνδυ, the Vulgate scyphum.

2. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "follow after the men" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 2, 20

   אַחַר is split by construction: "after" of time, "behind" of place. With רָדַף it is neither a point in time nor a location but the line of a chase, the pursuer coming after the pursued (31:23 Laban after Jacob; Exod 14:4–9 Pharaoh after Israel). "Pursue behind" would read as the pursuer's position, not his motion, so "after" is printed here.

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 6

   The piel of שָׁלֵם is to make whole, and so to pay back. The steward's question is the formula of the Psalms: "they repay me bad in place of good" (Ps 35:12, יְשַׁלְּמוּנִי רָעָה תַּחַת טוֹבָה; 38:21) and Jer 18:20, "shall bad be repaid in place of good?" The same root gives שָׁלוֹם "peace," with which Joseph dismisses the brothers in v. 17.

4. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 6, 54, 74

   נַחֵשׁ יְנַחֵשׁ is the infinitive absolute with the finite verb, kept as "divining, divines" (6), as at v. 15. Laban "divined" that Adonai had blessed him (30:27); the practice is forbidden in Lev 19:26 and Deut 18:10. Divining by a liquid in a bowl (lecanomancy) is attested in Mesopotamian omen texts; the narrative does not say whether Joseph practises it or only claims it, and v. 15 has him claim it again. The LXX adds a question the Hebrew lacks after the one of v. 4, "Why have you stolen my silver cup?", and has the steward say that by it Joseph "divines by augury" (οἰωνισμῷ οἰωνίζεται).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 37

   The brothers pronounce sentence on themselves before the search, as their father did on Laban's search: "with whom you find your gods, he shall not live" (31:32), when the thief was Rachel. Here the thief will be found to be Rachel's son. The condition is kept: "the one … with whom it is found" names the culprit before anyone knows who he is, and וָמֵת "and he dies" follows as its consequence. With לַעֲבָדִים the verb הָיָה is "become" (104).

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 2

   כֵּן "thus" is the home gloss. The steward agrees in words and changes the terms: the brothers offered death for the one and slavery for all (v. 9); he takes slavery for the one and clears the rest. Joseph keeps the steward's terms in v. 17, which leaves Judah's offer in v. 33 to be made freely.

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "began at the eldest, and left at the youngest" (KJV) / "beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 6, 127, 128

   קָטָן with the article among more than two sons is "youngest" (127j), and the chapter prints it so (vv. 2, 23, 26). Here it is paired with גָּדוֹל, "the great one," in a span from first to last, the pair that 128(e) prints "the great one … the small one" (29:16; 27:1, 15). "The great one … the youngest" would print a pair of opposites as one superlative and one positive. The Hebrew has the positive in both, as in "from small to great" (19:11). The order is the order of birth by which Joseph seated them (43:33), so the search ends where the reader knows the goblet is.

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 37

   קָרַע "rip" with garments is the gesture of grief, and it has been used of this family before. Reuben ripped his garments at the empty pit (37:29), and Jacob ripped his cloaks over the tunic (37:34). Now all the brothers rip their cloaks over Benjamin, the brother they could have left behind.

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 20

   נִצְטַדָּק is the only hithpael of צָדַק in the Bible: "make ourselves just," "show ourselves in the right." The KJV and RSV have "clear ourselves." The verb is the one Judah used of Tamar, "she is more just than I" (38:26). The home gloss "just" is held so that the link is kept.

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 9, 123

    הָאֱלֹהִים with the article takes the singular verb מָצָא, so it is "the Elohim," capitalised (123c), WPRB "God." Judah does not say that the brothers stole the goblet. He says that Elohim has found out their iniquity, and עָוֹן is wrong, guilt and punishment in one word (4:13). Rashi hears an old debt in it (the creditor has found where to collect what is owed), the sale of Joseph, the iniquity for which they had already said, "we are guilty concerning our brother" (42:21).

11. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "behold, we are my lord's servants" (KJV) / "behold, we are my lord's slaves" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 37, 88, 124

    הִנֶּנּוּ is the particle הִנֵּה, "look," with the suffix "us," the plural of הִנְנִי "here I am" (22:1, 7, 11; 27:1, 18; 31:11). That is a declared construction (124i), printed "Here I am"; its plural is printed "Here we are," and the home gloss "look" (88) is departed from because "look, us" is not English. The brothers who sold Joseph as a slave offer themselves as slaves (34).

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 22, 123

    כִּי כָמוֹךָ כְּפַרְעֹה is literally "for like you, like Pharaoh": you are to me as the king himself. כְּמוֹ is an untagged function word (123j). Rashi gives three readings: you are as important as the king; you will be struck as Pharaoh was struck for Sarai (12:17); you promise and do not keep your word, as Pharaoh does. The plain sense is deference, and Judah keeps the third person of deferential speech (22) through the whole speech: "my lord," "your servant," "your servant my father."

13. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "for if he should leave his father, his father would die" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 1, 8

    וְעָזַב אֶת־אָבִיו וָמֵת: "and should he forsake his father, he would die." The subject of "die" is not named. It may be the father, who would not survive the lad's leaving (KJV, RSV), or the lad. Rashi takes it of the lad: "we fear he will die on the way, for his mother died on the way" (35:16–19). English "he" keeps both, so the crux stays open (1). In v. 31 Judah describes a different case, the lad's failure to come back, and there it is the father who dies.

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Surely" (KJV) / "Surely" (RSV)

    Rulings 20, 126

    אַךְ is "only" (the home gloss); in an assertion it is "surely," as at 26:9 (126h): "surely torn, he is torn."

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 6, 37

    אַךְ טָרֹף טֹרָף repeats Jacob's cry over the tunic, טָרֹף טֹרַף יוֹסֵף (37:33), with the infinitive absolute kept (6). "Surely" is the asseverative אַךְ (lexicon). Jacob, as Judah reports him, still says "torn," the conclusion the brothers led him to; Judah repeats it in front of the brother who was not torn.

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 6, 2

    Jacob's words at 42:38 were "you will bring down my grayness in grief (בְּיָגוֹן) to Sheol." Judah quotes them twice. In his quotation of Jacob (v. 29) the word is בְּרָעָה "in bad," the word of v. 34 ("the bad that will find my father"); in his own voice (v. 31) it is בְּיָגוֹן "in grief," as at 42:38. The variation is the Hebrew's and is kept (6).

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 8, 39

    נַפְשׁוֹ קְשׁוּרָה בְנַפְשׁוֹ: "his soul is knit with his soul." The two suffixes are the same and English "his … his" keeps them so: the father's soul knit with the lad's, or the lad's with the father's. The verb is the one of 1 Sam 18:1, "the soul of Jonathan was knit (נִקְשְׁרָה) with the soul of David." נֶפֶשׁ is "soul" (core table): the life that would go out of Jacob if the lad did not come back (v. 31).

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 37

    עָרַב is to stand surety, to give oneself as the pledge for another's return or debt (Prov 6:1; 11:15; 20:16). Judah made the promise at 43:9, "I will be pledge for him; from my hand you may seek him." The noun of the root, עֵרָבוֹן "pledge," is what Judah gave Tamar, his seal, cord and staff (38:17–18, 20), which convicted him. The man who once left a pledge and could not redeem it now offers himself as one.

19. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "let thy servant abide instead of the lad" (KJV) / "let your servant remain instead of the lad" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20

    יָשַׁב splits by construction: "sit" for posture, "dwell" with a place. Here no place is named. Judah asks to stay on in Egypt as a slave for life, which is residence, not posture; "sit" would be a seat, so "dwell" is printed. תַּחַת is "in place of," the substitution of 22:13, where the ram goes up "in place of his son."