Genesis 45

God Sent Me Before You to Preserve Life

Joseph can hold back no longer and tells his brothers who he is. He asks them not to grieve over what they did, because God sent him ahead to keep the family alive; Pharaoh invites them all to Egypt, and Jacob, hearing that Joseph lives, says, “It is enough.”

Genesis chaptersChapter 45 of 50

The second year of the famine (Gen. 45:6), about twenty-two years after Joseph was sold. The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

In Genesis 45 Joseph, after two visits from his brothers, tells them who he is.

In Genesis 45 Joseph, after two visits from his brothers, tells them who he is. He was seventeen when his brothers sold him (Gen. 37:2) and thirty when he stood before Pharaoh (Gen. 41:46). Now, in the second year of a seven-year famine (Gen. 41:27), he rules Egypt, and his brothers have come to him for grain a second time. Over their two visits (Gen. 42; Gen. 43) Joseph seems to have been testing his brothers, mostly through Benjamin, who “had become Jacob’s favored son after Joseph was sold into slavery.” There are signs that they had changed: Reuben’s remorse, and above all Judah, who had once proposed selling Joseph and now offers to stay as a bondman in Benjamin’s place (Gen. 44:33–34). The chapter opens as Judah stops speaking.

It has five parts: Joseph makes himself known (verses 1–3); he tells his brothers that God sent him (4–8); he sends for his father and embraces them (9–15); Pharaoh adds an invitation and Joseph sends them off with gifts (16–24); and Jacob hears the news (25–28). Later scripture returns to the scene. Stephen retells it to the council (Acts 7:9–14), a psalm recalls it (Ps. 105:16–23), and Lehi finds Joseph’s line on the brass plates (1 Ne. 5:14). Chapter 46 takes Jacob down to Egypt.

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 45 sets what the brothers did beside what God did with it, in two verbs, and then follows one word through the chapter.

The brothers “sold” Joseph (verses 4–5; Hebrew makhar). God “sent” him (shalach, verses 5 and 7), and in verse 8 the same verb is taken from the brothers: “it was not you that sent me hither, but God.” Joseph never says that the sale did not happen; he names it twice before he mentions God. What he refuses is that the sale was the last word.

What God sent him to do is “to preserve life” (verse 5), and the root behind that phrase, chayah, “live,” is the thread of the chapter. Joseph asks, “doth my father yet live?” (verse 3); God sent him “to save your lives” (verse 7); the brothers tell Jacob that “Joseph is yet alive” (verse 26); Jacob’s spirit “revived” (literally, “lived,” verse 27); and Jacob answers, “Joseph my son is yet alive” (verse 28). A family that had counted one son dead for more than twenty years, and still faced five years of famine, hears in the chapter’s last verse that he is alive.

The third strand is speech. In chapter 37 the brothers hated Joseph and “could not speak peaceably unto him” (Gen. 37:4). Here they first “could not answer him” (verse 3), and only after the embraces “his brethren talked with him” (verse 15).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–3

Joseph makes himself known

In plain words

Joseph could not hold back any longer in front of all his attendants. He shouted, “Everyone out!” and no one stayed with him when he told his brothers who he was. He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard, and Pharaoh’s household heard. Then he said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” They could not answer him, because they were too shaken to speak.

1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.

Context #

Why Joseph clears the room

Joseph sends his Egyptian attendants out because he can no longer hold in what he has held in through two visits.

Joseph sends his Egyptian attendants out because he can no longer hold in what he has held in through two visits. He “could not refrain himself” (Hebrew hit’appeq, “restrain oneself,” a verb that in Genesis is used only of Joseph, here and at Gen. 43:31). The first time he heard his brothers confess, he “turned himself about from them, and wept” (Gen. 42:24). The second time, at the sight of Benjamin, he “sought where to weep,” went into his chamber and wept there, then “washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself” (Gen. 43:30–31). Both times he hid it.

What breaks the restraint is Judah’s plea. Judah’s offer to stay in Benjamin’s place is one of several “indications that Joseph’s brothers had indeed changed”: his “response indicates that he has changed. Only then does Joseph reveal who he is to his brothers.” Sending the attendants out says something as well. “The first sign that Joseph had forgiven his brothers is by dismissing his staff and leaving himself alone with ten men who had previously tried to kill him.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 42–50, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). John Gee, “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 425–46.

2 And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.

Context #

Weeping that is heard

Joseph’s weeping, hidden twice before, is now heard. “He wept aloud” is, in Hebrew, “he gave his voice in weeping” (vayyitten ’et-qolo bivkhi), and “the Egyptians and the house of…

Joseph’s weeping, hidden twice before, is now heard. “He wept aloud” is, in Hebrew, “he gave his voice in weeping” (vayyitten ’et-qolo bivkhi), and “the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.” The verse need not mean that the sound itself carried to the palace. One reading is that he wept so loudly “that the Egyptians outside could hear it; and the house of Pharaoh, i.e., the royal family, was told of it.”

Verse 16 tells that second step in full, and with the same noun. “The fame thereof” is in Hebrew haqqol, “the sound,” the word that is “his voice” (qolo) in verse 2: it “was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren are come.” Pharaoh answers with the invitation of verses 17–20.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence.

Witness of Christ #

The second time Joseph is made known

Stephen, retelling the story to the council, says that “at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren” (Acts 7:13).

Stephen, retelling the story to the council, says that “at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren” (Acts 7:13). It matches Genesis: on the first visit “Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him” (Gen. 42:8), and only now, on the second, does he make himself known (verse 1).

The Church’s seminary course treats that second revealing as a type, one of the ways Joseph’s life is “a type and shadow of Christ.” It sets “Joseph reveals himself to his brothers when they came the second time” beside the Savior’s coming “in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30–31). This is a devotional likeness, not something Genesis or Stephen states. Stephen’s “second time” shows only that the detail was noticed within the New Testament itself.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 42–45: “I am Joseph Your Brother”, Old Testament Seminary Teacher Manual (2026).

Language #

Why Joseph asks about his father

Joseph asks about a father he has twice been told is alive because his father is what he cares about most, not because he doubts it.

Joseph asks about a father he has twice been told is alive because his father is what he cares about most, not because he doubts it. On the earlier visit he had asked, “Is he yet alive?” (Gen. 43:27), and the brothers answered, “he is yet alive” (Gen. 43:28). Judah’s plea in chapter 44 circled around the father and ended on him: “lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father” (Gen. 44:34). Joseph’s first question takes up where Judah stopped. It is the question of a son: “the thought of his father is uppermost in his mind,” and since “he does not wait for an answer, or expect one,” it is not a request for information.

The brothers cannot answer: “they were troubled at his presence” (Hebrew nivhalu mippanav; the verb means “be disturbed, dismayed, terrified”). Their silence is picked up again at verse 15.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

Verses 4–8

“It was not you that sent me hither, but God”

In plain words

“Come close to me,” Joseph said, and they came close. “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be upset, and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to save lives. There has been famine in the land for two years, and for five more years there will be no plowing and no harvest. God sent me ahead of you to preserve a remnant for you on the earth and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his whole household, and ruler of all Egypt.”

4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.

5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.

Latter-day Prophets #

Sold by his brothers, sent by God

Joseph holds two things together: his brothers did sell him, and God sent him.

Joseph holds two things together: his brothers did sell him, and God sent him. He names the first plainly, “whom ye sold into Egypt” (verse 4), repeats it in verse 5, and only then says, “God did send me before you.” Hebrew uses a different verb for each act: makhar, “sell,” for what the brothers did, and shalach, “send,” for what God did (verses 5 and 7). Verse 8 then takes the second verb away from them: “it was not you that sent [shelachtem] me hither, but God.” At the end of the book one verb covers both intentions: “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20), where “thought” and “meant” are the same Hebrew verb, chashav, “intend.”

Does this mean God made the brothers do it? The Church’s answer is no. Joseph’s words “should not be misunderstood to mean that God caused Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery. Rather, Joseph was recognizing God’s omniscience and His ability to bring good out of difficult situations.” Elder Neal A. Maxwell said it this way: “The evil intent of Joseph’s brothers was folded into the plans of God, who knows the beginning from the end and all that is in between.” The whole story of Joseph is “an illustration of the way in which God works in history, preserving his people.”

Psalm 105 keeps both halves in two verses: God “called for a famine upon the land” and “sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant” (Ps. 105:16–17).

Language #

“Alive”: the word the chapter turns on

“To preserve life” is Joseph’s own summary of why he was sent, and its Hebrew root runs through the whole chapter.

“To preserve life” is Joseph’s own summary of why he was sent, and its Hebrew root runs through the whole chapter. Lemichyah comes from chayah, “live”; its noun michyah means “preservation of life, sustenance.” The same root is in verse 7, “to save your lives” (lehachayot, “to give life”; the lexicon files it under “preserve alive, let live”). It also frames the news about Jacob. Joseph asks, “doth my father yet live?” (verse 3, chay). The brothers announce, “Joseph is yet alive” (verse 26, chay). “The spirit of Jacob their father revived” (verse 27) is literally that his spirit “lived” (vattechi), which the lexicon files under “revive… from discouragement of the spirit.” And Jacob answers, “Joseph my son is yet alive” (verse 28). Joseph uses the same causative verb at the end of the book, when God meant it “to save much people alive” (Gen. 50:20).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890): Hebrew dictionary entries, Read on Bible Hub (the “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance” line of each entry). Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.

Language #

“Earing” means plowing

“Earing” is an old English word for plowing, so verse 6 says that for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

“Earing” is an old English word for plowing, so verse 6 says that for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvest. In 1828 the word was still defined as “A plowing of land. Genesis 45:6.” The Hebrew word, charish, is “ploughing, ploughing-time,” and the same pair returns in “in earing time and in harvest” (Ex. 34:21). The verse also gives the time left: two years of famine are past and five remain, which makes the seven that Joseph had read in Pharaoh’s dreams (Gen. 41:27; Gen. 41:30).

Sources: Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Language #

A remnant and a great deliverance

The KJV’s “posterity” and “deliverance” are two nouns from the Bible’s vocabulary of the remnant.

The KJV’s “posterity” and “deliverance” are two nouns from the Bible’s vocabulary of the remnant. Hebrew she’erit means “rest, residue, remnant,” and in this verse the lexicon glosses it “remainder = descendants”; elsewhere it becomes “faithful remnant of Israel or Judah (technical term of prophets).” Peletah is “escape, deliverance” here and “elsewhere probably always escaped remnant,” specifically that of “those of Judah escaped from Assyrians.” The two nouns stand side by side again in Isaiah’s word to Hezekiah: “out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion” (2 Kgs. 19:31). The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, renders both as “remnant”: “that there might be left to you a remnant upon the earth, even to nourish a great remnant of you.”

The Book of Mormon remembers the preservation. Lehi finds on the brass plates that he descends from “that Joseph who was the son of Jacob, who was sold into Egypt, and who was preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he might preserve his father, Jacob, and all his household from perishing with famine” (1 Ne. 5:14), and that “that same God who had preserved them” led them out of Egypt (1 Ne. 5:15). Lehi then tells his son Joseph what the ancient Joseph was promised: “the Lord hath said unto me, I will preserve thy seed forever” (2 Ne. 3:16).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Context #

A father to Pharaoh

“A father to Pharaoh” is not a claim of kinship. It is probably “an honorific title of the chief minister.”

“A father to Pharaoh” is not a claim of kinship. It is probably “an honorific title of the chief minister.” Whether an Egyptian court title lies behind the Hebrew is disputed: the Egyptian titles that have been compared with it have been called “identical in form but altogether different in meaning.”

Pharaoh’s own appointment of Joseph is told in Gen. 41:40–44. Joseph’s point here is that it was God who “hath made” him father to Pharaoh, lord of his house, and ruler of Egypt.

Sources: John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910); read on archive.org. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 9–15

“Go up to my father”

In plain words

“Hurry back to my father and tell him, ‘Your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me without delay. You will live in the land of Goshen, near me, with your children, your grandchildren, your flocks, and everything you have. I will provide for you there, since five years of famine remain, so that you and your household do not lose everything.’ You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is I who am speaking to you. Tell my father about all my honor in Egypt and everything you have seen, and bring him here quickly.” Then he threw his arms around Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. He kissed all his brothers and wept over them, and after that his brothers talked with him.

9 Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not:

10 And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast:

Context #

Why Goshen

Goshen, the district Joseph names for the family’s home, was probably in the eastern part of the Nile delta.

Goshen, the district Joseph names for the family’s home, was probably in the eastern part of the Nile delta. It was “the part of Egypt in which the Israelites dwelt,” it “contained pasture land,” and it “lay somewhere between Palestine and the capital of Egypt.” One identification is the Wadi Tumilat, “a stretch of low ground extending from the eastern arm of the Delta to the Valley of Suez and the Salt Lakes.”

Joseph gives two reasons here: “thou shalt be near unto me,” and there is room for “thy flocks, and thy herds.” Later he ties the choice to the family’s trade, telling his brothers to say that they keep cattle “that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians” (Gen. 46:33–34).

Sources: “Goshen”, Bible Dictionary. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

11 And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.

12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you.

13 And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither.

14 And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.

15 Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him.

Literary Structure #

From “could not speak peaceably” to “talked with him”

The brothers who once could not speak peaceably to Joseph speak with him at last.

The brothers who once could not speak peaceably to Joseph speak with him at last. In chapter 37 they hated him and “could not speak peaceably unto him” (Gen. 37:4); the Hebrew is lo yakhlu dabbero leshalom, “they were not able to speak to him in peace.” In this chapter the same words come back in two steps. When Joseph says “I am Joseph,” “his brethren could not answer him” (verse 3; lo yakhlu, “they were not able,” again). Only “after that,” after the embraces and the tears, “his brethren talked with him” (dibberu ’itto, from dbr, “speak,” the verb of 37:4).

Genesis records nothing of what they said. The verse marks the moment itself: “It was now that the brothers first ventured to approach him, the string of their tongues is now loosened, and they are able to talk with him.” The echo of chapter 37 is an observation from the Hebrew wording; the text does not remark on it.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Franz Delitzsch, A New Commentary on Genesis, Trans. Sophia Taylor, vol. 2 (New York: Scribner & Welford, 1889); read on archive.org.

Verses 16–24

Pharaoh’s invitation and Joseph’s gifts

In plain words

The news that Joseph’s brothers had come reached Pharaoh’s house, and it pleased Pharaoh and his servants. Pharaoh told Joseph to tell his brothers: load your animals, go to Canaan, bring your father and your households, and come to me. “I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the fat of the land.” Joseph was also to tell them to take wagons from Egypt for their children and wives and to bring their father, and not to worry about their belongings, since the best of Egypt was theirs. The sons of Israel did so. Joseph gave them wagons as Pharaoh had said, and food for the journey. He gave each of them a set of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five sets of clothes. To his father he sent ten donkeys loaded with Egypt’s finest goods and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and food for the trip. As he sent his brothers off he told them, “Do not quarrel on the way.”

16 And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren are come: and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants.

Context #

Pharaoh makes the family his guests

Pharaoh adds an invitation of his own to Joseph’s, and what pleases him is the brothers’ coming.

Pharaoh adds an invitation of his own to Joseph’s, and what pleases him is the brothers’ coming. “It pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants” is the idiom used when Pharaoh first approved Joseph’s plan against the famine: “the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants” (Gen. 41:37). The Hebrew idiom is the same here: vayyitav be‘eynei Par‘oh uve‘eynei ‘avadav, “it was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants.”

Pharaoh promises “the good of the land of Egypt” and “the fat of the land” (verse 18). “The good” means “the best produce,” and “the fat of the land” “repeats the same thought, in different imagery.” He tells them to “regard not your stuff,” which is, literally, “let not your eye be sparing” over “your vessels,” that is, “have no compunction at leaving things behind” (verse 20).

Why does the chapter report Pharaoh’s invitation at such length? One reading is that it mattered for Israel’s later standing in Egypt that the family should go there “not as men who had forced themselves on the country… but as invited guests.” The text itself does not say so.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.

17 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan;

18 And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.

19 Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come.

20 Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.

21 And the children of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way.

22 To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment.

Context #

Changes of raiment, and five for Benjamin

Joseph’s parting gifts honor all the brothers and single out Benjamin.

Joseph’s parting gifts honor all the brothers and single out Benjamin. “Changes of raiment” (Hebrew chalifot semalot, “changes of garments”) are clothes to change into, and “gifts of clothing were marks of special favour in the East.” Each brother receives one set. Benjamin receives five, and three hundred pieces of silver. The “five” repeats the meal in chapter 43, where “Benjamin’s mess was five times so much as any of theirs” (Gen. 43:34).

Genesis gives no reason for the larger gift. Benjamin is the brother on whom Joseph’s tests had turned: he “had become Jacob’s favored son after Joseph was sold into slavery,” and “most of these tests focused on young Benjamin.” Nor does the text say how the other brothers took it.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 42–50, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).

23 And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by the way.

24 So he sent his brethren away, and they departed: and he said unto them, See that ye fall not out by the way.

Language #

“See that ye fall not out by the way”

Joseph’s parting words rest on one verb, tirgezu, from ragaz, “be agitated, quiver, quake, be excited, perturbed,” and the question is what kind of agitation he means.

Joseph’s parting words rest on one verb, tirgezu, from ragaz, “be agitated, quiver, quake, be excited, perturbed,” and the question is what kind of agitation he means. The KJV takes it as quarreling, as the ancient versions did: the Septuagint has “Be not angry by the way,” and “this is the meaning given to the passage in all the versions.” On that reading Joseph “feared that they might reproach one another for their treatment of him, and try to throw the blame on the one or two chiefly guilty.” Reuben had already reproached the others once (Gen. 42:22).

The other reading is “be not afraid.” The lexicon lists this verse among uses of the verb for a person “in fear, awe,” and the brothers’ fear that Joseph might still take revenge does surface after Jacob’s death (Gen. 50:15). But this rendering has also been judged to rest “on insufficient grounds,” and the KJV follows the ancient versions.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 25–28

Jacob hears the news

In plain words

They went up out of Egypt to their father Jacob in Canaan and told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all Egypt.” Jacob’s heart went numb, because he did not believe them. But when they told him everything Joseph had said, and he saw the wagons Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. Israel said, “It is enough! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”

25 And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father,

26 And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob’s heart fainted, for he believed them not.

Language #

Too good to believe

Jacob’s heart goes numb at the news because it is too good to be true.

Jacob’s heart goes numb at the news because it is too good to be true. The Hebrew vayyafag libbo is “his heart went numb”; the lexicon’s gloss for the verb is “grow numb,” or, as English would put it, “his heart stood still.”

The brothers “told him all the words of Joseph” (verse 27), and words were not enough. What revived him was seeing “the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him.” The Hebrew word, ‘agalot, means “cart, used for transporting persons and things,” and these had come “out of the land of Egypt” at Pharaoh’s command (verse 19). “He did not believe, until he had some ocular proof of the truth of the statement.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

27 And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived:

28 And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.

Context #

“It is enough”: Israel’s answer

Jacob’s answer turns on the word “enough” (Hebrew rav). What is enough is the news itself.

Jacob’s answer turns on the word “enough” (Hebrew rav). What is enough is the news itself. In one reading the father’s heart is “indifferent to Joseph’s grandeur” and his gifts: “the fact that his son lives is sufficient consolation for all he has endured.” When Joseph was lost, Jacob had said he would “go down into the grave unto my son mourning” (Gen. 37:35). Now he says, “I will go and see him before I die.”

The name changes, too. The narrator calls him “Jacob” in verses 25–27 and “Israel” in verse 28. Israel, the name given to Jacob at Penuel and again at Bethel (Gen. 32:28; Gen. 35:10), means “One who prevails with God or Let God prevail.” One reading takes the change as deliberate: when his “crushed spirit… was revived by the certainty that his son Joseph was still alive, Jacob was changed into Israel.” Against it stands the caution that “we must not lay too much stress upon this change of name,” since both names “were long both in use” for the patriarch. The text itself does not say. Before Israel goes down, God speaks to him at Beer-sheba (Gen. 46:1–4).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910); read on archive.org. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub. “Israel”, Bible Dictionary.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 45

Latter-day Saint teaching reads Joseph as a type of Christ, a life that foreshadows His: “the life and mission of Joseph typifies the life and mission of Jesus.” The likenesses reach back through the whole story: a favored son rejected by his brothers; sold into the hands of the Gentiles; a Judah who proposed the sale and a Judas who made it. In Genesis 45 they turn to deliverance and forgiveness. By selling Joseph, his brothers “actually set up the conditions that would bring about their eventual temporal salvation,” as Jesus, given into the hands of the Gentiles, became “the Deliverer for all mankind”; and Joseph “provided bread for Israel and saved them from death, all without cost.” The one who was sold greets the ones who sold him with “I am Joseph your brother” and says, “be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves.” The Church’s seminary course sets beside that forgiveness the Lord’s own promise: “as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me” (Mosiah 26:30).

Worth exploring next

The tests that lead here. Read Gen. 42, Gen. 43, and Judah’s plea in Gen. 44:18–34.
What follows. Gen. 46:1–7 gives God’s word to Israel before he goes down; Gen. 50:15–21 gives the brothers’ fear after Jacob’s death and Joseph’s reply.
The story retold. Acts 7:9–16; Ps. 105:16–23; 1 Ne. 5:14–16; 2 Ne. 3:4–16.
The remnant in Isaiah. Isa. 37:31–32, where the two nouns of verse 7 stand together again, and Isa. 10:20–22.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890): Hebrew dictionary entries, Read on Bible Hub (the “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance” line of each entry).
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
Genesis 42–50, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 37–50: Joseph: The Power of Preparation, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
Genesis 42–45: “I am Joseph Your Brother”, Old Testament Seminary Teacher Manual (2026).
“Joseph”, Bible Dictionary.
“Goshen”, Bible Dictionary.
“Israel”, Bible Dictionary.
John Gee, “Clothes and Cups: The Tangible World of Joseph”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 425–46.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Franz Delitzsch, A New Commentary on Genesis, Trans. Sophia Taylor, vol. 2 (New York: Scribner & Welford, 1889); read on archive.org.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Genesis, Read on Bible Hub.
John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910); read on archive.org.

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