•ieten to their request for food, and their what they had done to him (Wordsworth), 8Ubsequent incarceration, though innocent and perhaps hoping to incite them, through of any offence, were all calculated to recall pity for Simeon, to retlll'Il the more speedily to their recollection successive steps in their with Benjamin (Lawson). inhuman treatment of Joseph. In tha.t (or Ver. 25.-Then (literally, and) Joseph because) we sa.w the anguish of his soul, commanded to fill-literally, commanded, when ha besought us (literally, in his be- and they (i. e. Joseph's men) .filled-their seeching of us, e.n incident which the narrator sacks (rather, vessels or receptacles,•~:;,) with omits to mention, but which the guilty consciences of the brethren remember), a.nd corn, and to restore every man's 'money we would not hae.r ; therefore is this dis- (literally, the,ir pieces of silver, each) into tress coma upon us. Thtl retributive cha- his sack,-P~. saccus, <1a<o,, aa<oco,, sack racter of their sufferings, which they cannot (vide eh. xxxvii. 34). Joseph "feels it im- fail to perceive, they endeavour to express by possible to bargain with his father and his employing the same ,vord, n')J/, to describe brethren for bread" (Daumgarten)-a.nd to J oseph's anguish and their distress. give them provision for the way: and thus Ver. 22.-And Reuben-who had not con- did he (literally, it was done) unto them. sented to, but had been altogether unable to Ver. 26.-And they laded their asses with prevent, the wickedness of his brethren (eh. the corn (literally, put their grain upon xxxvii. 22, 29)-a.nswered them, saying, their asses), and departed (or went) thence. Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin Ver. 27.-And e.s one of them opened his age.inst the child (or lad); and ye would so.ck-literally, and the one opened his sack, not hea.r t therefore, behold, a.lso his blood is i. e. they did not all open their sacks on required-literally, and also his blood, be- the homeward journey, although afterwards, hold it is required. This was in accordance in rcpo1ting the circumstance to Joseph, with the Noa.chic law against bloodshed (eh. they represent themselves as having done i,:, 5), with which it is apparent that Jacob's so (eh. xliii. 21) ; but only one at the way- sons were acquainted. side inn, and the rest on reaching home Ver. 23.-And they knew not (while they (ver. 35; vide infra, eh. xliii. 21)-to ~va talked in what they imagined to be a foreign his ass provender in the inn (the 1t,9, dialect to the Egyptian viceroy) the.t Joseph from ,~,, to pass the night, was not an inn understood them ;-literally, heard (so as in the modern sense of the term, but simply to understand what was said)-for he spe.ka e. halting-place or camping station where unto them by an interpreter-literally, for travellers were wont to lodge, witho11t finding the interp1·eter (Y,?IPiJ, the hiph. part., with for themselves or animals any other food the art., of y~\ to sp eak barbarously, in the 0
than they cnrried with them), he espied his hiph. to a.et as e.n interpreter), i e. the money; for, behold, it was in his sack's official Court interpreter, ip/t1JVEVTrl' (LXX. ), mouth-literally, fa the openi11q of his was between them. amtacliath, ni,1:1r,:i~, from nt17?, to spread 0
Ver. 24.-And ha turned himself a.bout out, an old word for a sack (eh. xliii. 18, 21, from them (in order to hide his emotion), 22), hero used synonymously with P~', from and wept (as he reflected 011 the wonderful which it wo11ld seem that the travellers loadings of Divine providence, and beheld co.rried two sorts of bags, one for the corn tho pitiful distress of his brethren) ; and returned to them a.gain (having previo11sly called •?~ (ver. 25), o.nd another for the withdrawn from them a space), and com- asses' pro;endor called ni,l:)t;,~. It ,vns in muned with them (probably about the one the latter that the money haci been placed. of thom that should remain behind), and Ver. 28.-And he (i. e. tho one who hnd took from them-by a ro11gh act of authority, opened his sack) said unto his brethren, My siJ1co they either could not or would not money is restored ; e.nd, lo, it is oven in my sottle among themselves who should bo the so.ck (amtachath): and their heart failed prisoner (Candlish)-Simeon,-passing by them (literally, went forth; as it wcro, leapt Reuben not because ho was tho firstborn into their mouth~ through sudden appre- (T11ch, Lengerke), b11t because he was com- hension), e.nd they were afraid, ea.yin.,. one paratively guiltless (Keil, Kalisch, Lange, to another (literally, they trembled eacl one Candlish, 1md expositors generally), and se- to his brother, a consti·uctio pregnans for lecting Simeon either as the oldest of the theT turned trembling to,vards ono another, guilty ones (Aben Ezra, Keil, Lange, Murphy, saymg), What is this tho.t God ha.th done Wordsworth, Alford, and others), or as tho unto us t Elohim is 11Sed, and not Jehovah, chiof instigator of the salo of J oscph (Philo, because tho speakers simply desire to cha- Rosenmiillor, Furst, Kalisch, Gerlach, Law- racterise tho circumstance ns sLlpernatma.l. son, et alii)-a.nd bound him before their Vcrs. 29-34. -And they oa.mo unto ~ye~-t]l11s forcibly recalling to their minds J11,cob their father unto the land of Canaan, 478 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [cH, XLII. 1-88;