Chapter 42
Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?”
2He said, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy grain for us from there, so that we may live and not die.”
3Ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt.
4But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, “Lest harm come to him.”
5The sons of Israel came to buy grain among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
6Joseph was the governor over the land. He was the one who sold grain to all the people of the land. Joseph’s brothers came and bowed to him with their faces to the ground.
7Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them as strangers and spoke harshly to them. He said to them, “Where have you come from?” They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”
8Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.
9Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, “You are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land.”
10They said to him, “No, my lord. Your servants have come to buy food.
11We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies.”
12He said to them, “No. You have come to see the nakedness of the land.”
13They said, “Your servants are twelve brothers, sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is with our father today, and one is no more.”
14Joseph said to them, “It is as I said to you. You are spies.
15By this you will be tested. By the life of Pharaoh, you will not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here.
16Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while the rest of you stay confined, so that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. If not, by the life of Pharaoh, you are spies.”
17He put them together in custody for three days.
18On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and live, for I fear God.
19If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in the house of your custody, and the rest of you go and take grain for the hunger of your households.
20Bring your youngest brother to me, so that your words may be confirmed and you do not die.” And they did so.
21They said to one another, “Truly we are guilty because of our brother. We saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not listen. That is why this distress has come on us.”
22Reuben answered them, “Did I not say to you, ‘Do not sin against the boy,’ and you would not listen? Now his blood is being required.”
23They did not know that Joseph understood them, because an interpreter was between them.
24He turned away from them and wept. He came back and spoke to them, and he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.
25Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. It was done for them.
26They loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.
27At the lodging place one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder, and he saw his silver. There it was, in the mouth of his sack.
28He said to his brothers, “My silver has been returned. Here it is in my sack.” Their hearts failed, and they turned trembling to one another and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”
29They came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan and told him everything that had happened to them.
30“The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly to us and took us for men spying out the land.
31We said to him, ‘We are honest men. We have never been spies.
32We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is with our father today in the land of Canaan.’
33The man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I will know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, take grain for the hunger of your households, and go.
34Bring your youngest brother to me, so that I may know you are not spies but honest men. I will give your brother back to you, and you may trade in the land.’”
35As they emptied their sacks, there was each man’s pouch of silver in his sack. They and their father saw the pouches of silver, and they were afraid.
36Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children. Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you would take Benjamin. All these things are against me.”
37Reuben said to his father, “You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my care, and I will return him to you.”
38He said, “My son will not go down with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. If harm came to him on the journey you are taking, you would bring my gray hair down to Sheol in grief.”