Matthew Henry on Genesis 42:1-6
Though Jacob's sons were all married, and had families of their own, yet, it should seem, they were still incorporated in one society, under the conduct and presidency of their father Jacob. We have here,
I. The orders he gave them to go and buy corn in Egypt, Gen 42:1, Gen 42:2. Observe, 1. The famine was grievous in the land of Canaan. It is observable that all the three patriarches, to whom Canaan was the land of promise, met with famine in that land, which was not only to try their faith, whether they could trust God though he should slay them, though he should starve them, but to teach them to seek the better country, that is, the heavenly, Heb 11:14-16. We have need of something to wea…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 42:5
the famine was in the land of Canaan--The tropical rains, which annually falling swell the Nile, are those of Palestine also; and their failure would produce the same disastrous effects in Canaan as in Egypt. Numerous caravans of its people, therefore, poured over the sandy desert of Suez, with their beasts of burden, for the purchase of corn; and among others, "the sons of Israel" were compelled to undertake a journey from which painful associations made them strongly averse.
Adam Clarke on Genesis 42:1
Jacob saw that there was corn - That is, Jacob heard from the report of others that there was plenty in Egypt. The operations of one sense, in Hebrew, are often put for those of another. Before agriculture was properly known and practiced, famines were frequent; Canaan seems to have been peculiarly vexed by them. There was one in this land in the time of Abraham, Gen 12:10; another in the days of Isaac, Gen 26:1; and now a third in the time of Jacob. To this St. Stephen alludes, Act 7:11 : there was great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance.
John Gill on Genesis 42:5
And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came,.... Either among the Egyptians that came to buy, or among those who came from different countries, or rather particularly among the Canaanites, as the Targum of Jonathan; with these they might join upon the road, and go together in a body where the market for corn was:
for the famine was in the land of Canaan: which obliged the inhabitants of it as well as Jacob's family to seek for corn elsewhere, and confirms the sense of the preceding clause: this, though a very fruitful land, yet when God withheld a blessing from it, it became barren, as it had been before, Genesis 12:10, and was to try the faith of those good men to whom Go…
