Genesis 42:4-6

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Genesis 42:4 tn Heb “But Benjamin, the brother of Joseph, Jacob did not send with his brothers.” The disjunctive clause highlights the contrast between Benjamin and the other ten.
2. Genesis 42:4 tn The Hebrew verb אָמַר (ʾamar, “to say”) could also be translated “thought” (i.e., “he said to himself”) here, giving Jacob’s reasoning rather than spoken words.
3. Genesis 42:4 tn The Hebrew noun אָסוֹן (ʾason) is a rare word meaning “accident, harm.” Apart from its use in these passages it occurs in Exodus 21:22-23 of an accident to a pregnant woman. The term is a rather general one, but Jacob was no doubt thinking of his loss of Joseph.
4. Genesis 42:4 tn Heb “encounters.”
5. Genesis 42:5 tn Heb “in the midst of the coming ones.”
6. Genesis 42:6 tn The disjunctive clause either introduces a new episode in the unfolding drama or provides the reader with supplemental information necessary to understanding the story.
7. Genesis 42:6 sn Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down before him. Here is the beginning of the fulfillment of Joseph’s dreams (see Gen 37). But it is not the complete fulfillment, since all his brothers and his parents must come. The point of the dream, of course, was not simply to get the family to bow to Joseph, but that Joseph would be placed in a position of rule and authority to save the family and the world (41:57).
8. Genesis 42:6 tn The word “faces” is an adverbial accusative, so the preposition has been supplied in the translation.