42:10 But they exclaimed, 3 “No, my lord! Your servants have come to buy grain for food! 42:11 We are all the sons of one man; we are honest men! Your servants are not spies.”
42:12 “No,” he insisted, “but you have come to see if our land is vulnerable.” 4
42:14 But Joseph told them, “It is just as I said to you: 5 You are spies! 42:15 You will be tested in this way: As surely as Pharaoh lives, 6 you will not depart from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. 42:16 One of you must go and get 7 your brother, while 8 the rest of you remain in prison. 9 In this way your words may be tested to see if 10 you are telling the truth. 11 If not, then, as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!” 42:17 He imprisoned 12 them all for three days.
1 sn You are spies. Joseph wanted to see how his brothers would react if they were accused of spying.
2 tn Heb “to see the nakedness of the land you have come.”
3 tn Heb “and they said to him.” In context this is best understood as an exclamation.
4 tn Heb “and he said, ‘No, for the nakedness of the land you have come to see.’” The order of the introductory clause and the direct discourse has been rearranged in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “to you, saying.”
6 tn Heb “[By] the life of Pharaoh.”
sn As surely as Pharaoh lives. Joseph uses an oath formula to let the brothers know the certainty of what he said. There is some discussion in the commentaries on swearing by the life of Pharaoh, but since the formulation here reflects the Hebrew practice, it would be hard to connect the ideas exactly to Egyptian practices. Joseph did this to make the point in a way that his Hebrew brothers would understand. See M. R. Lehmann, “Biblical Oaths,” ZAW 81 (1969): 74-92.
7 tn Heb “send from you one and let him take.” After the imperative, the prefixed verbal form with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose.
8 tn The disjunctive clause is here circumstantial-temporal.
9 tn Heb “bound.”
10 tn The words “to see” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
11 tn Heb “the truth [is] with you.”
12 sn The same Hebrew word is used for Joseph’s imprisonment in 40:3, 4, 7. There is some mirroring going on in the narrative. The Hebrew word used here (אָסַף, ’asaf, “to gather”) is not normally used in a context like this (for placing someone in prison), but it forms a wordplay on the name Joseph (יוֹסֵף, yosoef) and keeps the comparison working.
13 tn Heb “bound in the house of your prison.”
14 tn The disjunctive clause is circumstantial-temporal.
15 tn Heb “[for] the hunger of your households.”
16 tn The imperfect here has an injunctive force.
17 tn After the injunctive imperfect, this imperfect with vav indicates purpose or result.
18 tn The Niphal form of the verb has the sense of “to be faithful; to be sure; to be reliable.” Joseph will test his brothers to see if their words are true.
19 tn Heb “and they did so.”