Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 42:38
And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
38. he only is left ] i.e. of the sons of Rachel.
mischief ] Cf. Gen 42:4; Exo 21:22-23.
bring down my gray hairs, &c.] See note on Gen 37:35; cf. Gen 44:31. Jacob’s prediction in these passages is probably intended to heighten the contrast presented by the dignity and happiness of his end as recorded in chaps. 48 50.
the grave ] Heb. Sheol. See ch. Gen 37:35.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gen 42:38
Bring down my gray hairs with sorrow
Graceless children
Some graceless children despise their fathers and their mothers when they are old, and when their grey hairs claim reverence or compassion.
If we must bow before the man of hoary hairs, although he is a stranger, what reverence do we owe to our own parents, when the respect due to age is added to the claims of parental relation! Those children that load the grey heads of their parents with crushing sorrows, are worse than common murderers. Yet, let not parents, by their own frowardness, kill themselves with grief, and load their children with the blame due to themselves. The aged ought to remember that their infirmities may dispose them to make their burdens heavier than God or men have made them. And when we torment ourselves we are too ready to transfer our own folly to the account of others. (G. Lawson, D. D.)
A faithless exclamation
Why should Jacob die with grief, if Benjamin should be lost? Is Benjamin his God, his life, his exceeding joy? The Lord liveth, and blessed be the Rock of Israel. He is the Rock of ages. God had made desolate all Jobs company, and his hope had He removed like a tree; but Job knew that his Redeemer lived. All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; but the Word of the Lord shall stand for ever. And whilst the Word stands, those whose trust is placed on it are safe. They may, through the prevalence of unbelief, and of earthly affections, speak unadvisedly with their lips; hut the Lord will make them sensible of their folly, and enable them to commit their affairs into His hand, and to east all their cares upon Him who cares for all His people. We shall soon hear Jacob saying, If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved; and on his death-bed he says, I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord! (G. Lawson, D. D.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 38. He is left alone] That is, Benjamin is the only remaining son of Rachel; for he supposed Joseph, who was the other son, to be dead.
Shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow] Here he keeps up the idea of the oppressive burden mentioned Ge 42:36, to which every occurrence was adding an additional weight, so that he felt it impossible to support it any longer.
The following observations of Dr. Dodd on this verse are very appropriate and judicious: “Nothing can be more tender and picturesque than the words of the venerable patriarch. Full of affection for his beloved Rachel, he cannot think of parting with Benjamin, the only remaining pledge of that love, now Joseph, as he supposes, is no more. We seem to behold the gray-headed, venerable father pleading with his sons, the beloved Benjamin standing by his side, impatient sorrow in their countenances, and in his all the bleeding anxiety of paternal love. It will be difficult to find in any author, ancient or modern, a more exquisite picture.”
1. THERE is one doctrine relative to the economy of Divine Providence little heeded among men; I mean the doctrine of restitution. When a man has done wrong to his neighbour, though, on his repentance, and faith in our Lord Jesus, God forgives him his sin, yet he requires him to make restitution to the person injured, if it lie in the compass of his power. If he do not, God will take care to exact it in the course of his providence. Such respect has he for the dictates of infinite justice that nothing of this kind shall pass unnoticed. Several instances of this have already occurred in this history, and we shall see several more. No man should expect mercy at the hand of God who, having wronged his neighbour, refuses, when he has it in his power, to make restitution. Were he to weep tears of blood, both the justice and mercy of God would shut out his prayer, if he made not his neighbour amends for the injury he may have done him. The mercy of God, through the blood of the cross, can alone pardon his guilt; but no dishonest man can expect this; and he is a dishonest man who illegally holds the property of another in his hand. The unnatural brethren who sold their brother are now about to be captivated themselves; and the binder himself is bound in his turn: and though a kind Providence permits not the evil to fall upon them, yet, while apprehending it, they feel all its reality, conscience supplying the lack of prison, jailer, and bonds.
2. The ways of Providence are often to us dark and perplexed, so that we are ready to imagine that good can never result from what appears to us to be directly contrary to our interest; and we are often tempted to think that those very providential dealings of God, which have for their object our present and eternal welfare, are rather proofs of his displeasure, or evidences of his vindictive judgment. All these things are against me, said poor desponding Jacob; whereas, instead of being against him, all these things were for him; and by all these means was the merciful God working for the preservation of himself and his family, and the fulfillment of his ancient promise, that the posterity of Abraham should be as the stars of heaven for multitude. How strange is it that our faith, after so many evidences of his goodness, should still be so weak; and that our opinion of him should be so imperfect, that we can never trust in him but while he is under our own eye! If we see him producing good, we can believe that he is doing so, and this is all. If we believe not, he abides faithful; but our unbelief must make our own way extremely perplexing and difficult.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He is left alone, to wit of his mother, my dear Rachel.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And he said, my son shall not go down with you,…. He gives a peremptory denial; this was his then present resolution and determination:
for his brother is dead; meaning Joseph, Benjamin’s own brother by father and mother’s side; him he supposed to be dead, such circumstances being related and produced, which made it highly probable, and he had not heard anything of him for twenty two years:
and he is left alone; Benjamin being the only surviving child of his dearly beloved Rachel, as he thought:
if mischief befall him by the way in which ye go; that is, to Egypt, whether by thieves and robbers, or by the fatigue of the journey, or by any means whatever, so that he loses his life. All the Targums interpret this mischief of death:
then shall ye bring down my gray heirs with sorrow to the grave; the sense is, should this be the case he should never lift up his head, or have any more comfort in this world, but should pass his time with continual sorrow until his gray head was laid in the grave, or till he came to the state of the dead.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
38. My son shall not go down with you. Again we see, as in a lively picture, with what sorrow holy Jacob had been oppressed. He sees his whole family famishing: he would rather be torn away from life than from his son: whence we gather that he was not iron-hearted: but his patience is the more deserving of praise, because he contended with the infirmity of the flesh, and did not sink under it. And although Moses does not give a rhetorical amplification to his language, we nevertheless easily perceive that he was overcome with excessive grief, when he thus complained to his sons, You are too cruel to your father, in taking away from me a third son, after I have been plundered of first one and then another.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(38) Then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.Heb., to Sheol (See Note on Gen. 37:35). Jacob, both here and in Gen. 47:9, speaks as one on whom sorrow had pressed very heavily. Always of a timid and affection Ate disposition, he looks onward now without hope, and sees in the future only dangers and ill-fortune. Probably by this time he had lost Leah as well as Rachel, but the blow that had struck him utterly down had evidently been the loss of Joseph, in whom Rachel had still seemed to live on for him. And therefore now he clung the more warmly to Benjamin, and it is plain that the fathers deep sorrow for the loss of the petted son had softened the hearts of his brethren. They have no grudge against Benjamin because he has taken Josephs place, but rather seem to share in their fathers feelings, and their hearts were in accordance with what Judah says in Gen. 44:18-34, that any personal suffering would be cheerfully borne by them, rather than to have to undergo the sight of the repetition of such grief as they previously had themselves inflicted.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
38. Sorrow to the grave Comp . Gen 37:35.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. If mischief befalls him in the way in which you go, then you will bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave,” ’
His father refuses the offer. His words reveal how much Rachel had meant to him. She had had only two natural born sons. One is dead. He cannot bear to lose the other. Under no circumstances will he let Benjamin go. Benjamin is all of Rachel he has left. Thus is Simeon left to his fate. But if we think of blaming Jacob we must remember that he has every cause for thinking that Simeon’s fate has already been sealed as is witnessed by the return of the silver. It is clear the Egyptian lord had evil intent towards them and so as far as he is concerned Simeon is now dead as well. And this is how things would have remained had it not been that the famine went on and on and forced the issue.
“My grey hairs in sorrow to Sheol.” Men desired to have a full life and die content. To die in this way was seen as a tragedy, they would surely not want him to die in unrest?
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Gen 42:38. My son shall not Nothing can be more tender and picturesque than these words of the venerable old patriarch. Full of affection for his beloved Rachel, he cannot think of parting with Benjamin, the only remaining pledge of their love, now that Joseph, as he supposes, is no more. We seem to behold the grey-headed venerable father pleading with his sons; the beloved Benjamin standing by his side; impatient sorrow in their countenances, and in his all the bleeding anxiety of paternal love. It will be difficult, I believe, to find in any author, ancient or modern, a more exquisite picture.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
REFLECTIONS
Learn, my soul, that gracious lesson to live above ordinances while favoured in the use of them; that when the means fail, the LORD of the means, who never faileth, may be thy portion forever. And if at any time thy JESUS should seem to make himself strange to thee, and by his dispensations to speak roughly unto thee, never doubt but that faithful are the wounds of thy friend: he is still a brother born for adversity.
Hail thou spiritual Joseph! thou almighty governor, and no less our brother, in whose hands are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. To thee we come for food. Before thy sacred presence would we bow the knee. We are indeed verily guilty before thee; for, like the unnatural brethren, we have sold thee by our sins, and hid our faces from the anguish of thy soul by our iniquities. But GOD hath sent thee before us to preserve us a posterity in the earth, and to save our lives by a great deliverance. Nourish us, dearest LORD, how unworthy soever thy favor; and feed us with that living bread which came down from heaven; so will we praise thy mercy, and adore thy name.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Gen 42:38 And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Ver. 38. Then shall ye bring down my gray hairs, &c. ] To the state of the dead; not to hell, or Limbus Patrum. Many of the ancients erroneously held that men’s souls were not judged till the last day; nor rewarded or punished, but reserved in some secret receptacles unto the general judgment. Bellarmine would hence prove Purgatory. a Luther also seems to approve of that figment of the fathers; for in his notes upon this text, he will have “Sheol” here translated “the grave,” to be an underground receptacle of all souls, where they rest and sleep till the coming of Christ. But gray hairs descend not farther than the grave. And Luther somewhere entreats his readers, that if they find anything in his books that smelleth of the old cask, they should consider he was not only a man, but some time had been a poor monk, &c.
a Bell., De Purg., lib. i.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
then, &c. Figure of speech Euphemismos (App-6), for “then shall ye kill me”.
bring down. Figure of speech Metonymy (of Effect), i.e. ye will be the cause of it.
my gray hairs. Figure of speech Metonymy (of the Adjunct). i.e. “me in my old age”.
the grave. Hebrew. Sheol. See note on Gen 37:35 and App-35.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
grave
Heb. “Sheol,” (See Scofield “Hab 2:5”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
his brother: Gen 42:13, Gen 30:22-24, Gen 35:16-18, Gen 37:33, Gen 37:35, Gen 44:20, Gen 44:27-34
if mischief: Gen 42:4, Gen 44:29
bring: Gen 37:35, Gen 44:29, Gen 44:31, 1Ki 2:6, Psa 71:18, Psa 90:10, Ecc 1:14, Ecc 2:26, Isa 38:10, Isa 46:4
Reciprocal: Gen 35:18 – Benjamin Gen 43:5 – will not Gen 43:8 – lad with me Gen 43:13 – General Gen 44:22 – his father would die Gen 44:28 – Surely Gen 45:26 – And Jacob’s 1Sa 15:26 – I will not 1Ki 2:9 – his Job 41:32 – hoary Ecc 12:5 – the almond Joh 13:8 – Thou shalt
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Gen 42:38. My son shall not go down with you Nothing can be more tender than this verse: it melts us while we read it, and is so expressive that it sets the venerable old patriarch full before our eyes. His brother is dead, and he is left alone He plainly intimates a distrust of them, remembering that he never saw Joseph since he had been with them; therefore Benjamin should not go with them.