Notes 60: The brothers are tested (42:15-38)

SYNOPSIS: To test whether their story is true, Joseph tells his brothers he will hold in Egypt all but one of them who must go back home and bring their little brother of whom they have spoken. He puts them all in jail for three days, then summons them again and modifies his proposal: only one brother need stay in Egypt and the rest are to go back home, but must come back with Benjamin if they want to redeem their brother. The brothers despair because they know Jacob won't want to part with Benjamin, and they start to think they are being punished for the sins they committed with their brother Joseph. Unbeknownst to them, Joseph is eavesdropping; they believe he is an Egyptian and don't dream that he can understand their language. He is overcome with emotion and turns away so that they will not see his tears. Joseph imprisons Simeon and sends the others on their way with the provisions they have purchased, but has the money they have paid for them placed in the sacks. They find the money when they interrupt their journey to stop somewhere for the night. When they reach home they tell Jacob all about their eventful trip. Jacob expresses his consternation: first Joseph was killed (he believes), now Shimon is a prisoner, and even Benjamin is under threat.

• Text of the passage (in Nawat)

42:19 exad ye'aserThere seems to be a contradiction between what Joseph said in v. 16 (shilxu mikkem exad... w'attem he'as'ru 'Let one of you go... while the rest of you remain') and what he now commands: 'Let one of your brothers be held... while the rest of you go', unless of course this was Joseph's plan all along and he was using scaring tactics or simply punishing them. Of course it could also be a narrative device, creating maximum tension but also maintaining a cogent plot.

42;24 wayyissov me‛alehem wayyevk wayyáshov alehem waydabber alehem
'He turned away from them and wept. But he came back to them and spoke to them.' In this way the text adds a deeper narrative dimension by showing us the external (although hidden) signs of the emotional experience that Joseph underwent in the course of this already dramatic scene. The words used for this are as simple as they possibly could be! The description's starkness is commensurate with the melodramatic intensity of this high-powered situation.

42:25 saqqo
This word for 'sack, bag' occurs three times in this chapter: here, ul'hashiv kaspehem ish el saqqo, v. 27, wayyiftax ha'exad et saqqo and v. 35, b'saqqo and saqqehem. But another word for the same thing is also found, as in amtaxti 'my sack', amtaxto 'his...', construct amtáxat (no absolute is attested), which appears to mean the same thing (see. vv. 27 and 28, plus numerous occurrences in ch. 44). They may just be synonyms. Source critics have used these to argue for separate sources; for Whybray, that is a good example of why their methods are unsound, because there is nothing to stop a single author from alternating between two synonyms where they exist. As for saq, the word appeared in 37:34 in the sense 'sack cloth.' The Eng. word sack and cognates in other European languages are ultimately borrowed from H via Greek and Latin (EK).

42:27 latet mispo laxamoro bammalon
JPS: 'To give feed to his ass at the night encampment.' The malon might have been either a lodging or just a place to camp for the night; the word derives from l-w-n 'spend the night', and might simply refer to a place (cf. maqom).

42:33 ra‛avon
This word actually means 'hunger', but of course that is not what Joseph is telling them to take home. Either an idiomatic usage or a mangled text must be involved here.

42:36-38
A well-written dramatic dialogue which rings true completely: the father laments, the eldest son tries his hardest to reassure, the father rebuffs him with scepticism and defiance. This brief exchange raises many of the complex points of contention between the two men, while with the narration it conveniently sums up the matters of concern for the audience's benefit: Jacob's suffering for his sons' plight which they repeatedly seem to him to be bringing on themselves putting more and more of the brothers at risk (oti shikkaltem...), Reuben's promises (t'na oto ‛al yadi...) and assumption of responsibilities (et sh'ne vanay tamit...) which sound hollow to the father (uq'ra'áhu ason baddérekh...); Jacob, emphasising his heartache for the losses already incurred (ki axiw met) and his fears for the rest (w'hu l'vaddo nish'ar), combines a stubborn refusal (lo yered b'ni ‛immakhem) with a final warning about his own vulnerability as a broken old man (w'horadtem et sevati b'yagon sh'óla).

42:38 w'horadtem et sevati b'yagon sh'óla
Lit. (JPS) 'You will send my white head down to Sheol in grief.' On Sheol see my note on 37:35. The noun seva (שיבה) means 'old age' (from s-y-b 'to grow old', apparently) though it is also translated as 'grey (or white) hairs', and it has occurred twice already in the collocation b'seva Tova (15:!5 and 25:8). In the present context the meaning wouldn't be quite 'you will send my old age down to Sheol' but rather 'you will send me...', of course, with me symbolized by sevati 'my old age' in the same sort of way as it can be symbolized by nafshi 'my soul', etc.