Study Desk

Then they tore their clothes [in grief]; and after each man had loaded his donkey again, they returned to the city.

When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there; and they fell to the ground before him.

"My lord asked his servants, saying, 'Have you a father or a brother?'

"We said to my lord, 'We have an old father and a young [brother, Benjamin, the] child of his old age. Now his brother [Joseph] is dead, and he alone is left of [the two sons born of] his mother, and his father loves him.'

"But we said to my lord, 'The young man cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.'

"Now, therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the young man is not with us, since his life is bound up in the young man's life,

"Now, therefore, please let your servant (Judah) remain here instead of the youth [to be] a slave to my lord, and let the young man go home with his brothers.

Then Joseph could not control himself [any longer] in front of all those who attended him, and he called out, "Have everyone leave me." So no man stood there when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" But his brothers were speechless, for they were stunned and dismayed by [the fact that they were in] Joseph's presence.

And Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come closer to me." And they approached him. And he said, "I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.

"So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Then he embraced his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.

He kissed all his brothers and wept on them, and afterward his brothers talked with him.

When the news was heard in Pharaoh's house that Joseph's brothers had come, it pleased Pharaoh and his servants.

To his father he sent the following: ten male donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provision for his father [to supply all who were with him] on the journey.

So he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, "See that you do not quarrel on the journey [about how to explain this to our father]."

and they said to him, "Joseph is still alive, and indeed he is ruler over all the land of Egypt." But Jacob was stunned and his heart almost stopped beating, because he did not believe them.

So Israel set out with all that he had, and came to Beersheba [where both his father and grandfather had worshiped God], and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.

"I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you (your people) up again; and Joseph will put his hand on your eyes [to close them at the time of your death]."

And they took their livestock and the possessions which they had acquired in the land of Canaan and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him.