Genesis 44-46

New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 44

Final Test.^{[a] 1} Then Joseph commanded his steward: “Fill the men’s bags with as much food as they can carry, and put each man’s money in the mouth of his bag. ² In the mouth of the youngest one’s bag put also my silver goblet, together with the money for his grain.” The steward did as Joseph said. ³ At daybreak the men and their donkeys were sent off. ⁴ They had not gone far out of the city when Joseph said to his steward: “Go at once after the men! When you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why did you repay good with evil? Why did you steal my silver goblet? ⁵ Is it not the very one from which my master drinks and which he uses for divination?^[b] What you have done is wrong.’”

⁶ When the steward overtook them and repeated these words to them, ⁷ they said to him: “Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing! ⁸ We even brought back to you from the land of Canaan the money that we found in the mouths of our bags. How could we steal silver or gold from your master’s house? ⁹ If any of your servants is found to have the goblet, he shall die, and as for the rest of us, we shall become my lord’s slaves.” ¹⁰ But he replied, “Now what you propose is fair enough, but only the one who is found to have it shall become my slave, and the rest of you can go free.” ¹¹ Then each of them quickly lowered his bag to the ground and opened it; ¹² and when a search was made, starting with the oldest and ending with the youngest, the goblet turned up in Benjamin’s bag. ¹³ At this, they tore their garments. Then, when each man had loaded his donkey again, they returned to the city.

¹⁴ When Judah and his brothers entered Joseph’s house, he was still there; so they flung themselves on the ground before him. ¹⁵ “How could you do such a thing?” Joseph asked them. “Did you not know that such a man as I could discern by divination what happened?” ¹⁶ Judah replied: “What can we say to my lord? How can we plead or how try to prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants’ guilt.^[c] Here we are, then, the slaves of my lord—the rest of us no less than the one in whose possession the goblet was found.” ¹⁷ Joseph said, “Far be it from me to act thus! Only the one in whose possession the goblet was found shall become my slave; the rest of you may go back unharmed to your father.”

¹⁸ Judah then stepped up to him and said: “I beg you, my lord, let your servant appeal to my lord, and do not become angry with your servant, for you are the equal of Pharaoh. ¹⁹ My lord asked his servants,^[d] ‘Have you a father, or another brother?’ ²⁰ So we said to my lord, ‘We have an aged father, and a younger brother, the child of his old age. This one’s full brother is dead, and since he is the only one by his mother who is left, his father is devoted to him.’^{(A) 21} Then you told your servants, ‘Bring him down to me that I might see him.’ ²² We replied to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; his father would die if he left him.’ ²³ But you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see me again.’^{(B) 24} When we returned to your servant my father, we reported to him the words of my lord.

²⁵ “Later, our father said, ‘Go back and buy some food for us.’ ²⁶ So we reminded him, ‘We cannot go down there; only if our youngest brother is with us can we go, for we may not see the man if our youngest brother is not with us.’ ²⁷ Then your servant my father said to us, ‘As you know, my wife bore me two sons. ²⁸ One of them, however, has gone away from me, and I said, “He must have been torn to pieces by wild beasts!” I have not seen him since.^{(C) 29} If you take this one away from me too, and a disaster befalls him, you will send my white head down to Sheol in grief.’

³⁰ “So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, whose very life is bound up with his, he will die as soon as he sees that the boy is missing; ³¹ and your servants will thus send the white head of your servant our father down to Sheol in grief. ³² Besides, I, your servant, have guaranteed the boy’s safety for my father by saying, ‘If I fail to bring him back to you, father, I will bear the blame before you forever.’^{(D) 33} So now let me, your servant, remain in place of the boy as the slave of my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. ³⁴ How could I go back to my father if the boy were not with me? I could not bear to see the anguish that would overcome my father.”

Chapter 45

The Truth Revealed.^{[e] 1} Joseph could no longer restrain himself in the presence of all his attendants, so he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So no one attended him when he made himself known to his brothers. ² But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s house. ^3 (E)“I am Joseph,” he said to his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could give him no answer, so dumbfounded were they at him.

⁴ “Come closer to me,” Joseph told his brothers. When they had done so, he said: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. ⁵ But now do not be distressed, and do not be angry with yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.^{(F) 6} The famine has been in the land for two years now, and for five more years cultivation will yield no harvest. ⁷ God, therefore, sent me on ahead of you to ensure for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance. ⁸ So it was not really you but God who had me come here; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh,^[f] lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.

^9 [g]“Hurry back, then, to my father and tell him: ‘Thus says your son Joseph: God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me without delay.^{(G) 10} You can settle in the region of Goshen,^[h] where you will be near me—you and your children and children’s children, your flocks and herds, and everything that you own. ¹¹ I will provide for you there in the five years of famine that lie ahead, so that you and your household and all that are yours will not suffer want.’ ¹² Surely, you can see for yourselves, and Benjamin can see for himself, that it is I who am speaking to you. ¹³ Tell my father all about my high position in Egypt and all that you have seen. But hurry and bring my father down here.” ¹⁴ Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept on his shoulder. ¹⁵ Joseph then kissed all his brothers and wept over them; and only then were his brothers able to talk with him.

¹⁶ The news reached Pharaoh’s house: “Joseph’s brothers have come.” Pharaoh and his officials were pleased. ¹⁷ So Pharaoh told Joseph: “Say to your brothers: ‘This is what you shall do: Load up your animals and go without delay to the land of Canaan. ¹⁸ There get your father and your households, and then come to me; I will assign you the best land in Egypt, where you will live off the fat of the land.’^{(H) 19} Instruct them further: ‘Do this. Take wagons from the land of Egypt for your children and your wives and bring your father back here. ²⁰ Do not be concerned about your belongings, for the best in the whole land of Egypt shall be yours.’”

²¹ The sons of Israel acted accordingly. Joseph gave them the wagons, as Pharaoh had ordered, and he supplied them with provisions for the journey. ²² He also gave to each of them a set of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five sets of clothes. ²³ Moreover, what he sent to his father was ten donkeys loaded with the finest products of Egypt and another ten loaded with grain and bread and provisions for his father’s journey. ²⁴ As he sent his brothers on their way, he told them, “Do not quarrel on the way.”

²⁵ So they went up from Egypt and came to the land of Canaan, to their father Jacob. ²⁶ When they told him, “Joseph is still alive—in fact, it is he who is governing all the land of Egypt,” he was unmoved, for he did not believe them. ²⁷ But when they recounted to him all that Joseph had told them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to transport him, the spirit of their father Jacob came to life. ²⁸ “Enough,” said Israel. “My son Joseph is still alive! I must go and see him before I die.”

Chapter 46

Migration to Egypt. ^1 [i]Israel set out with all that was his. When he arrived at Beer-sheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. ² There God, speaking to Israel in a vision by night, called: Jacob! Jacob! He answered, “Here I am.” ³ Then he said: I am God,^[j] the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation. ⁴ I will go down to Egypt with you and I will also bring you back here, after Joseph has closed your eyes.

⁵ So Jacob departed from Beer-sheba, and the sons of Israel put their father and their wives and children on the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to transport him. ⁶ They took with them their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan. So Jacob and all his descendants came to Egypt.^{(I) 7} His sons and his grandsons, his daughters and his granddaughters—all his descendants—he took with him to Egypt.

⁸ These are the names of the Israelites, Jacob and his children, who came to Egypt.

Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn,^{(J) 9 [k]}and the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.^{(K) 10} The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, son of a Canaanite woman.^{(L) 11} The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.^{(M) 12} The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah—but Er and Onan had died in the land of Canaan; and the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.^{(N) 13} The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron.^{(O) 14} The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.^{(P) 15} These were the sons whom Leah bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, along with his daughter Dinah—thirty-three persons in all, sons and daughters.

¹⁶ The sons of Gad: Zephon, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arod, and Areli.^{(Q) 17} The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Beriah, with their sister Serah; and the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.^{(R) 18} These are the children of Zilpah, whom Laban had given to his daughter Leah; these she bore to Jacob—sixteen persons in all.

¹⁹ The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁰ In the land of Egypt Joseph became the father of Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis, bore to him.^{(S) 21} The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ahiram, Shupham, Hupham, and Ard.^{(T) 22} These are the sons whom Rachel bore to Jacob—fourteen persons in all.

²³ The sons of Dan: Hushim.^{(U) 24} The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.^{(V) 25} These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban had given to his daughter Rachel; these she bore to Jacob—seven persons in all.

²⁶ Jacob’s people who came to Egypt—his direct descendants, not counting the wives of Jacob’s sons—numbered sixty-six persons in all.^{(W) 27} Together with Joseph’s sons who were born to him in Egypt—two persons—all the people comprising the household of Jacob who had come to Egypt amounted to seventy persons^[l] in all.^(X)

²⁸ Israel had sent Judah ahead to Joseph, so that he might meet him in Goshen. On his arrival in the region of Goshen, ²⁹ Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. As soon as Israel made his appearance, Joseph threw his arms around him and wept a long time on his shoulder. ³⁰ And Israel said to Joseph, “At last I can die, now that I have seen for myself that you are still alive.”

³¹ Joseph then said to his brothers and his father’s household: “I will go up and inform Pharaoh, telling him: ‘My brothers and my father’s household, whose home is in the land of Canaan, have come to me. ³² The men are shepherds, having been owners of livestock;^[m] and they have brought with them their flocks and herds, as well as everything else they own.’ ³³ So when Pharaoh summons you and asks what your occupation is, ³⁴ you must answer, ‘We your servants, like our ancestors, have been owners of livestock from our youth until now,’ in order that you may stay in the region of Goshen, since all shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians.”