Chapter 44
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.
1He commanded the steward of his house, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s silver in the mouth of his sack.
2Put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the youngest one’s sack, with his silver for the grain.” He did as Joseph had said.
3Morning came, and the men were sent off, they and their donkeys.
4They had left the city and were not far off when Joseph said to the steward of his house, “Get up, chase the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil?
5Is this not the one from which my lord drinks, and by which he practices divination? You have done a bad thing.’”
6He overtook them and spoke these words to them.
7They said to him, “Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do a thing like this.
8Look, the silver we found in the mouth of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house?
9Whoever of your servants it is found with, let him die, and we also will be slaves to my lord.”
10He said, “Yes, let it be as you have said. The one with whom it is found will be my slave, and the rest of you will be clear.”
11Each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each opened his sack.
12He searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.
13They tore their clothes, each man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.
14Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, and he was still there, and they fell to the ground before him.
15Joseph said to them, “What is this deed you have done? Did you not know that a man like me practices divination?”
16Judah said, “What can we say to my lord? What can we speak? How can we prove ourselves innocent? God has found out the guilt of your servants. Here we are, slaves to my lord, both we and the one in whose hand the cup was found.”
17He said, “Far be it from me to do that. The man in whose hand the cup was found, he will be my slave. As for the rest of you, go up in peace to your father.”
18Then Judah came near him and said, “Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not let your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself.
19My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’
20We said to my lord, ‘We have an old father, and a child of his old age, a young one. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.’
21You said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, so that I may set my eyes on him.’
22We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father. If he leaves his father, his father will die.’
23You said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’
24When we went up to your servant my father, we told him my lord’s words.
25Our father said, ‘Go back and buy us a little food.’
26We said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down, for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’
27Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.
28One left me, and I said, surely he is torn to pieces, and I have not seen him since.
29If you take this one also from me and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in misery.’
30Now, if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us, since his life is bound up with the boy’s life,
31when he sees that the boy is not there, he will die, and your servants will bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in grief.
32For your servant became surety for the boy to my father. I said, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before my father all my days.’
33Now please let your servant stay as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go up with his brothers.
34For how can I go up to my father if the boy is not with me? I could not bear to see the misery that would come on my father.”