Genesis 42:10

Complete Jewish Bible

"No, my lord," they replied, "your servants have come to buy food.

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
They said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

King James Version
And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come.

Lexham English Bible
And they said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

New Century Version
But his brothers said to him, "No, my master. We come as your servants just to buy food.

New English Translation
But they exclaimed, "No, my lord! Your servants have come to buy grain for food!

Amplified Bible
But they said to him, "No, my lord, for your servants have [only] come to buy food.

New American Standard Bible
And they said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

Geneva Bible (1587)
But they sayde vnto him, Nay, my lorde, but to bye vitayle thy seruants are come.

Legacy Standard Bible
Then they said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

Contemporary English Version
"No sir," they replied. "We're your servants, and we have only come to buy grain.

Darby Translation
And they said to him, No, my lord; but to buy food are thy servants come.

Easy-to-Read Version
But the brothers said to him, "No, sir, we come as your servants. We have come only to buy food.

English Standard Version
They said to him, "No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food.

George Lamsa Translation
And they said to him, No, our lord, but to buy grain your servants have come.

Good News Translation
"No, sir," they answered. "We have come as your slaves, to buy food.

Christian Standard Bible®
“No, my lord. Your servants have come to buy food,” they said.

Literal Translation
And they said to him, No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
They answered him: No my lorde, thy seruauntes are come to bye vytayle:

American Standard Version
And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come.

Bible in Basic English
And they said to him, Not so, my lord: your servants have come with money to get food.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And they sayde vnto hym: nay my Lord, but to bye vitayle thy seruauntes are come.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
And they said unto him: 'Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come.

King James Version (1611)
And they said vnto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy seruants come.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
But they said, Nay, Sir, we thy servants are come to buy food;

English Revised Version
And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come.

Berean Standard Bible
"Not so, my lord," they replied. "Your servants have come to buy food.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whiche seiden, Lord, it is not so, but thi seruauntis camen to bie metis;

Young's Literal Translation
And they say unto him, `No, my lord, but thy servants have come to buy food;

Update Bible Version
And they said to him, No, my lord, but to buy food have your slaves come.

Webster's Bible Translation
And they said to him, No, my lord, but to buy food have thy servants come.

World English Bible
They said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

New King James Version
And they said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

New Living Translation
"No, my lord!" they exclaimed. "Your servants have simply come to buy food.

New Life Bible
They said to him, "No, my lord. Your servants have come to buy food.

New Revised Standard
They said to him, "No, my lord; your servants have come to buy food.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, - but, thy servants, are come to buy food.

Douay-Rheims Bible
But they said: It is not so, my lord; but thy servants are come to buy food.

Revised Standard Version
They said to him, "No, my lord, but to buy food have your servants come.

THE MESSAGE
"No, master," they said. "We've only come to buy food. We're all the sons of the same man; we're honest men; we'd never think of spying."

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Then they said to him, "No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

Contextual Overview

⁷ Yosef saw his brothers and recognized them; but he acted toward them as if he were a stranger and spoke harshly with them. He asked them, "Where are you from?" They answered, "From the land of Kena‘an to buy food." ⁸ So Yosef recognized his brothers, but they didn't recognize him. ⁹ Remembering the dreams he had had about them, Yosef said to them, "You are spies! You've come to spot our country's weaknesses!" ¹⁰ "No, my lord," they replied, "your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹ We're all the sons of one man, we're upright men; your servants aren't spies." ¹² "No," he said to them, "you've come to spy out our country's weaknesses." ¹³ They said, "We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Kena‘an; the youngest stayed with our father, and another one is gone." ¹⁴ "Just as I said," replied Yosef, "you're spies! ¹⁵ Here's how you can prove you're not lying: as Pharaoh lives, you will not leave here unless your youngest brother comes here. ¹⁶ Send one of you, and let him bring your brother. Meanwhile, you will be kept in custody. This will prove whether there is any truth in what you say. Otherwise, as Pharaoh lives, you are certainly spies."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Genesis 27:29, Genesis 27:37, Genesis 37:8, Genesis 44:9, 1 Samuel 26:17, 1 Kings 18:7

Reciprocal: Genesis 23:6 - my lord Genesis 43:20 - we came indeed down

Cross-References

Genesis 27:29
May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. May you be lord over your kinsmen, let your mother's descendants bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!"

Genesis 27:37
Yitz'chak answered ‘Esav, "Look, I have made him your lord, I have given him all his kinsmen as servants, and I have given him grain and wine to sustain him. What else is there that I can do for you, my son?"

Genesis 37:8
His brothers retorted, "Yes, you will certainly be our king. You'll do a great job of bossing us around!" And they hated him still more for his dreams and for what he said.

Genesis 44:9
Whichever one of us the goblet is found with, let him be put to death — and the rest of us will be my lord's slaves!"

1 Samuel 26:17
Sha'ul recognized David's voice and said, "Is that your voice, my son David?" David said, "It is my voice, my lord king!"

1 Kings 18:7
‘Ovadyah was on the road when suddenly Eliyahu encountered him. ‘Ovadyah recognized him, fell on his face and said, "Is it really you, my lord Eliyahu?"

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And they said unto him, nay, my lord,.... One in the name of the rest, or each in his turn, denying that they were spies, and addressing him with the greatest reverence and submission, calling him their lord, and thus further accomplishing his dreams:

but to buy food are thy servants come; that and no other was the errand they came upon.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

- Joseph and Ten of His Brethren

1. שׁבר sheber, “fragment, crumb, hence, grain.” בר bar “pure,” “winnowed,” hence, “corn” (grain).

6. שׁליט shallı̂yṭ, “ruler, governor, hence,” Sultan. Not elsewhere found in the Pentateuch.

25. כלי k^elı̂y, “vessel,” here any portable article in which grain may be conveyed. שׂק śaq, “sack,” the very word which remains in our language to this day. אמתחת 'amtachath “bag.”

Twenty years, the period of Joseph’s long and anxious waiting, have come to an end. The dreams of his boyhood are now at length to be fulfilled. The famine has reached the chosen family, and they look at one another perplexed and irresolute, not knowing what to do.

Genesis 42:1-5

The aged Jacob is the only man of counsel. “Behold, I have heard there is grain in Mizraim:” go down and buy. The ten brothers are sent, and Benjamin, the youngest, is retained, not merely because of his youth, for he was now twenty-four years of age, but because he was the son of his father’s old age, the only son of Rachel now with him, and the only full brother of the lost Joseph. “Lest mischief befall him,” and so no child of Rachel would be left. “Among those that went.” The dearth was widespread in the land of Kenaan.

Genesis 42:6-17

The ten brothers meet with a rough reception from the lord of the land. “The governor” - the sultan. This, we see, is a title of great antiquity in Egypt or Arabia. Joseph presided over the cornmarket of the kingdom. “Bowed down to him with their faces to the earth.” Well might Joseph think of those never-to-be-forgotten dreams in which the sheaves and stars bowed down to him. “And knew them.” How could he fail to remember the ten full-grown men of his early days, when they came before him with all their peculiarities of feature, attitude, and mother tongue. “And he made himself strange unto them.” All that we know of Joseph’s character heretofore, and throughout this whole affair, goes to prove that his object in all his seemingly harsh treatment was to get at their hearts, to test their affection toward Benjamin, and to bring them to repent of their unkindness to himself.

“They knew not him.” Twenty years make a great change in a youth of seventeen. And besides, with his beard and head shaven, his Egyptian attire, his foreign tongue, and his exalted position, who could have recognized the stripling whom, twenty years ago, they had sold as a slave? “Spies are ye.” This was to put a color of justice on their detention. To see the nakedness of the land, not its unfortified frontier, which is a more recent idea, but its present impoverishment from the famine. “Sons of one man are we.” It was not likely that ten sons of one man would be sent on the hazardous duty of spies. “And behold the youngest is with our father this day.” It is intensely interesting to Joseph to hear that his father and full brother are still living. “And one is not.” Time has assuaged all their bitter feelings, both of exasperation against Joseph and of remorse for their unbrotherly conduct. This little sentence, however, cannot be uttered by them, or heard by Joseph, without emotion. “By the life of Pharaoh.” Joseph speaks in character, and uses an Egyptian asseveration. “Send one of you.” This proposal is enough to strike terror into their hearts. The return of one would be a heavy, perhaps a fatal blow to their father. And how can one brave the perils of the way? They cannot bring themselves to concur in this plan. Sooner will they all go to prison, as accordingly they do. Joseph is not without a strong conviction of incumbent duty in all this. He knows he has been put in the position of lord over his brethren in the foreordination of God, and he feels bound to make this authority a reality for their moral good.

Genesis 42:18-25

After three days, Joseph reverses the numbers, allowing nine to return home, and retaining one. “This do and live.” Joseph, notwithstanding the arbitrary power which his office enabled him to exercise, proves himself to be free from caprice and unnecessary severity. He affords them a fair opportunity of proving their words true, before putting them to death on suspicion of espionage. “The God do I fear.” A singular sentence from the lord paramount of Egypt! It implies that the true God was not yet unknown in Egypt. We have heard the confession of this great truth already from the lips of Pharaoh Genesis 41:38-39. But it intimates to the brothers the astonishing and hopeful fact that the grand vizier serves the same great Being whom they and their fathers have known and worshipped; and gives them a plain hint that they will be dealt with according to the just law of heaven.

“Carry grain for your houses.” The governor then is touched with some feeling for their famishing households. The brothers, though honoring their aged father as the patriarch of their race, had now their separate establishments. Twelve households had to be supplied with bread. The journey to Egypt was not to be undertaken more than once a year if possible, as the distance from Hebron was upwards of two hundred miles. Hence, the ten brothers had with them all their available beasts of burden, with the needful retinue of servants. We need not be surprised that these are not especially enumerated, as it is the manner of Scripture to leave the secondary matters to the intelligence and experience of the reader, unless, as in the case of Abraham’s three hundred and eighteen trained servants, they happen to be of essential moment in the process of events. “Your youngest brother.” Joseph longs to see his full brother alive, whom he left at home a child of four summers. “Verily guilty are we concerning our brother.”

Their affliction is beginning to bear the fruit of repentance. “Because we saw the distress of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear.” How vividly is the scene of Joseph’s sale here brought before us. It now appears that he besought them to spare him, and they would not hear! “This distress.” Retribution has come at last. “His blood is required.” Reuben justly upbraids them with their hardness of heart. Their brother’s blood is required; for murder was intended, and when he was sold his death was pretended. “The interpreter was betwixt them.” The dragoman was employed in holding conversation with them. But Joseph heard the spontaneous expressions of remorse, coming unprompted from their lips. The fountain of affection is deeply stirred. He cannot repress the rising tear. He has to retire for a time to recover his composure. He now takes, not Reuben, who was not to blame, but Simon, the next oldest, and binds him before them: a speaking act. He then gives orders to supply them with corn (grain), deposit their money in their sacks without their knowledge, and furnish them with provision for the way. Joseph feels, perhaps, that he cannot take money from his father. He will pay for the corn out of his own funds. But he cannot openly return the money to his brothers without more explanation than he wishes at present to give.

Genesis 42:26-34

The nine brothers return home and record their wonderful adventure. “In the inn;” the lodge or place where they stopped for the night. This place was not yet perhaps provided with even the shelter of a roof. It was merely the usual place of halting. They would probably occupy six or seven days on the journey. Apparently at the first stage one opened his sack to give provender to his ass. The discovery of the silver in its mouth strikes them with terror. In a strange land and with an uneasy conscience they are easily alarmed. It was not convenient or necessary to open all the bags on the way, and so they make no further discovery.

Genesis 42:35-38

Upon emptying the other sacks all the silver turns up, to their great amazement and consternation. Jacob laments the loss of his son. Reuben offers two of his sons to Jacob as pledges for Benjamin, to be slain if he did not bring him back in safety. The sorrowing parent cannot yet bring himself to consent to Benjamin’s departure on this hazardous journey. “And ye shall bring down.” Jacob either speaks here in the querulous tone of afflicted old age, or he had come to know or suspect that his brothers had some hand in the disappearance of Joseph.