42:21 They said to one other, 1 “Surely we’re being punished 2 because of our brother, because we saw how distressed he was 3 when he cried to us for mercy, but we refused to listen. That is why this distress 4 has come on us!”
43:8 Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me and we will go immediately. 5 Then we will live 6 and not die – we and you and our little ones.
43:18 But the men were afraid when they were brought to Joseph’s house. They said, “We are being brought in because of 7 the money that was returned in our sacks last time. 8 He wants to capture us, 9 make us slaves, and take 10 our donkeys!”
44:16 Judah replied, “What can we say 11 to my lord? What can we speak? How can we clear ourselves? 12 God has exposed the sin of your servants! 13 We are now my lord’s slaves, we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.”
1 tn Heb “a man to his neighbor.”
2 tn Or “we are guilty”; the Hebrew word can also refer to the effect of being guilty, i.e., “we are being punished for guilt.”
3 tn Heb “the distress of his soul.”
4 sn The repetition of the Hebrew noun translated distress draws attention to the fact that they regard their present distress as appropriate punishment for their refusal to ignore their brother when he was in distress.
5 tn Heb “and we will rise up and we will go.” The first verb is adverbial and gives the expression the sense of “we will go immediately.”
6 tn After the preceding cohortatives, the prefixed verbal form (either imperfect or cohortative) with the prefixed conjunction here indicates purpose or result.
9 tn Heb “over the matter of.”
10 tn Heb “in the beginning,” that is, at the end of their first visit.
11 tn Heb “to roll himself upon us and to cause himself to fall upon us.” The infinitives here indicate the purpose (as viewed by the brothers) for their being brought to Joseph’s house.
12 tn The word “take” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
13 tn The imperfect verbal form here indicates the subject’s potential.
14 tn The Hitpael form of the verb צָדֵק (tsadeq) here means “to prove ourselves just, to declare ourselves righteous, to prove our innocence.”
15 sn God has exposed the sin of your servants. The first three questions are rhetorical; Judah is stating that there is nothing they can say to clear themselves. He therefore must conclude that they have been found guilty.
17 tn Heb “your servants are men of cattle.”
18 sn So that you may live in the land of Goshen. Joseph is apparently trying to stress to Pharaoh that his family is self-sufficient, that they will not be a drain on the economy of Egypt. But they will need land for their animals and so Goshen, located on the edge of Egypt, would be a suitable place for them to live. The settled Egyptians were uneasy with nomadic people, but if Jacob and his family settled in Goshen they would represent no threat.
19 tn Heb “is an abomination.” The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abomination”) describes something that is loathsome or off-limits. For other practices the Egyptians considered disgusting, see Gen 43:32 and Exod 8:22.