a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relation… · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
come
בְּב֛וֹאbe.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Samuel 17:55 And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Ab…
Genesis 42:7 And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whenc…
Genesis 42:12 And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.
Genesis 42:16 Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth i…
Genesis 42:20 But bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so.
Genesis 42:30 The man, who is the lord of the land, spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country.
Genesis 42:34 And bring your youngest brother unto me: then shall I know that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men: so will I deliver you your brothe…
Genesis 43:3 And Judah spake unto him, saying, The man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with you.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Genesis 42:7-20
We may well wonder that Joseph, during the twenty years that he had now been in Egypt, especially during the last seven years that he had been in power there, never sent to his father to acquaint him with his circumstances; nay, it is strange that he who so often went throughout all the land of Egypt (Gen 41:45, Gen 41:46) never made an excursion to Canaan, to visit his aged father, when he was in the borders of Egypt, that lay next to Canaan. Perhaps it would not have been above three or four days' journey for him in his chariot. It is a probable conjecture that his whole management of himself in this affair was by special direction from Heaven, that the purpose of God concerning Jacob and…
By the life of Pharaoh--It is a very common practice in Western Asia to swear by the life of the king. Joseph spoke in the style of an Egyptian and perhaps did not think there was any evil in it. But we are taught to regard all such expressions in the light of an oath (Mat 5:34; Jam 5:12).
Adam Clarke on Genesis 42:15
By the life of Pharaoh - חי פרעה chey Pharaoh, Pharaoh liveth. As if he had said, As surely as the king of Egypt lives, so surely shall ye not go hence unless your brother come hither. Here therefore is no oath; it is just what they themselves make it in their report to their father, Gen 43:3 : the man did solemnly protest unto us; and our translators should not have put it in the form of an oath, especially as the original not only will bear another version, but is absolutely repugnant to this in our sense of the word.
John Gill on Genesis 42:15
Hereby ye shall be proved,.... Whether spies, or not, namely, by producing their youngest brother, said to be at home with his father:
by the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither: the phrase, "by the life of Pharaoh", seems to be the form of an oath, as it was common with many nations, especially with the Scythians, who used to swear by the royal throne (a), and the Romans, in later times, by the life, health, and genius of their emperor; and this custom of swearing by the life of their king, or by his head, continued with the Egyptians, as Aben Ezra says, unto his times; though some take this to be a wish or prayer for the life of Pharaoh, a…
The Church Fathers
ON JOSEPH'S OATH: "BY THE SALVATION OF PHARAOH." — How could Joseph, a man so prudent and so praised, not only by the testimony of the men among whom he lived, but by the affirmation of his own Scripture, so swear by the salvation of Pharaoh that his brothers would not depart from Egypt if their younger brother did not come with them? Is it true that even for a good and faithful man the salvation of Pharaoh was despicable, to whom was he faithful as before, in everything, as his master? And how much more should he keep to him who had placed him in such an important post, if he kept it to him who owned him as a servant who had bought! And if he did not care for Pharaoh's salvation, should he not have avoided perjury for the salvation of any man? Is it not perjury? He kept one of his brothers until Benjamin came and fulfilled what he had said: You will not leave here, unless your brother comes (Gen. 42:15). For these words of his could not refer to all his brothers, for how could Benjamin come if some had not come to bring him? But the words that come next pose an even greater problem, when he swears again, saying, Send one of you and bring your brother. In the meantime, the rest of you will remain here prisoners until your words are checked, to see if you speak the truth or not. If not, for the salvation of Pharaoh! that you are spies (Gen. 42:16), that is, if you do not tell the truth, you are spies. He ratified these words with an oath, for if they had not told the truth, they would be spies, that is, they would be liable to the punishment of the spies, those men who, in spite of everything, knew that they were telling the truth. In reality, one is not a perjurer if he says to someone, who knows that he is an absolutely chaste person; "If you have committed this adultery of which you are accused, God condemns you," adding an oath to these words. This individual swears a totally true thing, because there is given the condition that he used, saying: if you have done it, when you know perfectly well that he has not done it. But someone can say: it is true, because if he committed adultery, God condemns him. But how can this be true: if you do not tell the truth, you are spies, when, even if they lie, they would not be spies? Well, this is what it said in the Scripture: you are spies, as if you had said: you are worthy of the punishment of the spies, that is,…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Joseph — Remover or increaser. (1.) The elder of the two sons of Jacob by Rachel (Gen. 30:23, 24), who, on the occasion of his birth, said, “God hath taken away [Heb. ‘asaph] my reproach.” “The Lord shall add…
Oath — A solemn appeal to God, permitted on fitting occasions (Deut. 6:13; Jer. 4:2), in various forms (Gen. 16:5; 2 Sam. 12:5; Ruth 1:17; Hos. 4:15; Rom. 1:9), and taken in different ways (Gen. 14:22;…
Commerce · Egyptians — Egyptians
Dissembling · .Joseph — .Joseph
Oaths · Custom of swearing by the life of the king — Custom of swearing by the life of the king
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
By the life of Pharaoh. From this formula of swearing a new question is raised; for that which is commanded in the law, that we should swear only by the name of God, had already been engraven on the hearts of the pious; since nature dictates that this honor is to be given to God alone, that men should defer to his judgment, and should make him the supreme arbiter and vindicator of faith and truth. If we should say that this was not simply an oath, but a kind of obtestation, the holy man will be, in some degree, excusable. He who swears by God wishes him to interpose in order to inflict punishment on perjury. They who swear by their life or by their hand, deposit, as it were, what they deem m…
As the sight of his brethren bowing before him with the deepest reverence reminded Joseph of his early dreams of the sheaves and stars, which had so increased the hatred of his brethren towards him as to lead to a proposal to kill him, and an actual sale, he said to them, "Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land (i.e., the unfortified parts of the kingdom which would be easily accessible to a foe) ye are come;" and persisted in this charge notwithstanding their reply, "nay, my lord, but (ו see Ges. 155, 1b) to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons (נחנוּ for אנחנוּ, only in Exo 16:7-8; Num 32:32; Sa2 17:12; Lam 3:42): honest (כּנים) are we; thy servants are no spie…
Joseph put the brothers in jail for three days to see if they had a conscience functioning about what they had done (42:21-23). The brothers had similarly thrown Joseph into a cistern-prison while they decided what to do with him (37:24).
Rashi on Genesis 42:15
חי פרעה BY THE LIFE OF PHARAOH — If Pharaoh lives! Whenever he swore for the sake of appearance (literally, falsely) he swore by Pharaoh’s life (Genesis Rabbah 91:7).
אם תצאו מזה YE SHALL NOT GO FORTH FROM THIS i.e. from this place.
