Now therefore, please let your servant stay instead of the boy, my lord’s slave; and let the boy go up with his brothers.
Parallel translations
- 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.
- BSB Now please let your servant stay here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy. Let him return with his brothers.
- 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 love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
- Rom 5:7–10For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die.
- Heb 7:22By so much, Jesus has become the collateral of a better covenant.
- Exod 32:32Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin — and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written.”
- Rom 9:3For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh,
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.