The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 529

by some (Ainsworth, Wordsworth, Murphy, impress them. Nat only were tho nine to • Speaker's Commentary') the expression is be released, but their original demand for regarded simply as a strong asseveration (cf. grain to earn• home to Palestine \Vas to be l Sam. i. 26 ; xvii. 55)-ye shall not go complied with, the grand vizier adding, to forth hence (literally, life of Pliai·aoh! if their undoubted amazement, As for the rest ye qo from this. The language is elliptical, of you, go ye, carry corn for the famine meaning either, May Pharaoh perish if ye of your houses. "How differently had they escape from punishment as spies, unless, &c. ; acted tO\vards their brother, whom they had or, As surely as Pharaoh lives, may retribution intended to leave in the pit to sta1·ve" fall on me if ye go from this place) except (Keil). The Egyptian governor feels com- your youngest brother come hither. The passion for their famishing households, only condition, which must have appeared ex- he will not abandon his proposition that tremely frivolous to Joseph's brethren, was they must return with Benjamin. But clearly designed to ascertain the truth about bring your youngest brother unto me-or, Benjamin. Send one of you, and let him more emphatically, and your brother, the fetch your brother, and ye (i. e. the rest of little one, ye shall cause to come to me. you) shall be kept in prison (literally, shall That Joseph should have insisted on this be put in bonds), that your words may be stipulation, which he must have known proved (literally, and vow· words shall be would cause his aged father much anxiety proved), whether there be any truth in yon; and deep distress, is not to be explained as or else (literally, and if not) by the life of "almost designed" by Joseph as a chastise- Pharaoh surely ye are _spies-literally (sc. ment on Jacob for his undue predilection in I swear), that ye ai·e spi£s. favour of Benjamin (Kalisch), but must be Ver. 17.-A.nd he put them all together ascribed either to the intensity of his long- into ward (literally, and he assembled them ing to see his brother (Murphy), or to a into prison) three days. Ostensibly in con- desire on his part to ascertain how his sequence of their unwillingness to agree to brethren were affected towards Benjamin his proposal, but in reality to give them an (Lawson), or to a secret belief that the best experience of the suffering which they had mode of persuading his father to go down to inflicted on him, their brother, and so to him in Egypt was to bring Benjamin thither awaken in their hearts a feeling of repent- (' Speaker's Commentary'), or to an inward ance. Yet the clemency of Joseph appears conviction that the temporary concern which in this, that whereas he had lain three long Benjamin's absence might inflict on Jacob years in prison as the result of their in- would be more than compensated for by the humanity towards him, he only inflicts on ultimate good which would thereby be se- them a confinement of three days. cured to the whole family (Kurtz), or to the Vers. 18-20.-A.nd Joseph (whose bowels fact that God, under whose guidance through- of mercy were already yearning towards out he acted, was unconsciously leading him them) said unto them the third day, This in such a way as to secure the fulfilment ot do, and live ;-i. e. this do that ye may live his dreams, which required the presence ot ( vu:le Gesenius, 'Grammar,'§ 130, 2 ; Ewald's both Benjamin and Jacob in Eb,ypt (Words- 'Hebrew Syntax,' § 348b)-for I fear God worth, • Speaker's Commentary'). The rea- -literally, the Elohim I fear; the term son which Joseph himself gave to his brethren Elohim being employed, since to have said was that Benjamin's presence was indis- Jehovah would have been to divulge, if not pensable as a corroboration of their veracity. his Hebrew origin, at least his acquaintance So (literally, and) shall your words be with the Hebrew faith (Hengstenberg) .. At verified, and ye shall not die (the death due the same time its use would arrest them to spies). And they did so-i. e. they con- more than the preceding adjuration, By the sented to Joseph's proposal. life of Pharaoh I and, whether or not it im- Ver. 21.-A.nd they said one to another plied that the true God was not yet unknown (Joseph's treatment of them beginning by in Egypt (Murphy), was clearly designed to this time to produce its appropriate and show that he was a religious and conscientious designed result by recalling them to a sense ?erson, who would on no account condemn of their former guilt), We are verily guilty ....'i.em on mere suspicion (Lange). If ye be - " this is the only acknowledgment of sin true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the Book of Genesis" (Inglis)-concerning in the house of your prison. Joseph's first our brother. They had been guilty of many proposal, that one should go for Benjamin sins, but the special iniquity of which their while nine remained as hostages for their reception by the Egyptian governor had good faith, is now reversed, and only one is reminded them was that which some twenty required to be detained while the other nine years before they had perpetrated against 1:cturn. If the severity of the first proposal their own brother. Indeed the accusation f1Iled them with consternation, the singular preferred against them that they were spies, clemency of the second could not fail to tbo apparent unwillingness of the viceroy to OH. XLII. 1-38.) THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 477