If you are honest, leave one of your brothers in custody while the rest of you go and take back grain to relieve the hunger of your households.
Parallel translations
- WEB If you are honest men, then let one of your brothers be bound in your prison; but you go, carry grain for the famine of your houses.
- KJV If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bound in the house of your prison: go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses:
- NKJV If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined to your prison house; but you, go and carry grain for the famine of your houses.
- NASB if you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in your prison; but as for the rest of you, go, carry grain for the famine of your households,
- NLT If you really are honest men, choose one of your brothers to remain in prison. The rest of you may go home with grain for your starving families.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Joseph relents, requiring only one brother to remain while the others carry grain home. Mercy now tempers the test.
Overview
Instead of holding nine and sending one, Joseph reverses the plan so that the famine-stricken households are relieved. His provision of grain shows genuine care beneath the stern exterior. The arrangement still secures the return with Benjamin, advancing the reconciliation God is orchestrating.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Gen 42:1–2When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you staring at one another?”
- Isa 42:22But this is a people plundered and looted, all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”
- Gen 42:26and they loaded the grain on their donkeys and departed.
- Gen 43:1–2Now the famine was still severe in the land.
- Gen 40:3and imprisoned them in the house of the captain of the guard, the same prison where Joseph was confined.
- Isa 42:7to open the eyes of the blind, to bring prisoners out of the dungeon and those sitting in darkness out from the prison house.
- Gen 45:23And he sent to his father the following: ten donkeys loaded with the best of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provisions for his father’s journey.
- Jer 37:15The officials were angry with Jeremiah, and they beat him and placed him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for it had been made into a prison.
- Gen 41:56When the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened up all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians; for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 42:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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