King James Version · The patriarchs
Genesis 42
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Now when saw that there was corn in , said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in : get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not . And ’s ten brethren went down to buy corn in . But , ’s brother, sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. And the came to buy corn among those that came: for the was in the land of . And was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and ’s brethren came, and themselves before him with their faces to the earth. And saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of to buy food. And knew his brethren, but they knew not him. And remembered the which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the the land ye are come. And they said unto him, Nay, my , but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man’s sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies. 12And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the the land ye are come. And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of ; and, behold, the youngest is this day with , and one is not. And said unto them, That is it that I spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies: Hereby ye shall be proved: By the life of ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you: or else by the life of surely ye are spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. And said unto them the third day, This do, and live; for I : If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: go ye, carry corn for the of your houses: But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not . And they did so. And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his , when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his is required. And they knew not that understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter. And he turned himself about from them, and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them , and bound him before their eyes. Then commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man’s money into his sack, and to give them provision for : and thus did he unto them. 26And they laded their asses with the corn, and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied his money; for, behold, it was in his sack’s . And he said unto his brethren, My money is restored; and, lo, it is even in my sack: and their failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What is this that hath done unto us? 29And they came unto their unto the land of , and told him all that befell unto them; saying, The man, who is of the land, spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country. And we said unto him, We are true men; we are no spies: 32We be twelve brethren, sons of ; one is not, and the youngest is this day with in the land of . And the man, of the country, said unto us, Hereby shall I know that ye are true men; leave one of your brethren here with me, and take food for the of your households, and be gone: And bring your youngest brother unto me: then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men: so will I you your brother, and ye shall traffick in the land. And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack: and when both they and their saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. And their said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: is not, and is not, and ye will take away: all these things are against me. And spake unto his , saying, my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is , and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the .
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The patriarchs, 2000 BC to 1600 BC ›
Abraham's family as herdsmen among settled Canaanite city-states, in a world where Egypt and Mesopotamia are the great powers and Canaan is the corridor between them.
- Mesopotamia
- Abraham's own century is Hammurabi's. The great empire of Ur has already fallen, and Babylon rises under a king who published a law code on a stone pillar for everyone to see. Reading Genesis alongside Hammurabi's laws is illuminating in both directions: some provisions are strikingly similar, and the places where Israel's later law diverges are the places worth stopping at.
- Egypt
- The Middle Kingdom, wealthy, bureaucratic, and organised around the Nile flood. Egyptian tomb paintings from this period show Semitic traders arriving with donkeys and striped cloaks, which is more or less the picture Genesis gives of a family going down to Egypt in a famine. Toward the end of the era the Hyksos, rulers of Semitic origin, take the delta.
- Anatolia and the Aegean
- Assyrian merchants run a long-distance trading colony at Kanesh in Anatolia, leaving thousands of clay letters about copper, tin, and debt. On Crete the Minoan palaces are at their height, with plumbing, frescoes, and a script nobody has yet read.
- Further afield
- The Indus Valley cities are in decline after centuries of grid-planned streets and drains. In China the Erlitou culture is building the first palace complexes. Stonehenge is standing and already old.
All of Genesis