Now please let your servant stay here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy. Let him return with his brothers.
Parallel translations
- WEB Now therefore, please let your servant stay instead of the boy, my lord’s slave; and let the boy go up with his brothers.
- KJV Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren.
- NKJV Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers.
- NASB So now, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go up with his brothers.
- NLT “So please, my lord, let me stay here as a slave instead of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers.
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
Judah offers to remain as a slave in Benjamin's place so the boy can go free. This substitutionary plea is the heart of his intercession.
Overview
Judah makes the climactic offer to take Benjamin's punishment upon himself, exchanging his own freedom for the boy's. This is a striking act of self-sacrificial love from the man who once sold Joseph. The substitution prefigures the gospel, where Judah's greater Son willingly takes the place of the guilty to set them free.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- 1 Jn 3:16By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
- Rom 5:7–10Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
- Heb 7:22Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.
- Exod 32:32Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written.”
- Rom 9:3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 44:33 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.