Genesis Chapter 43

Pressed by famine, Jacob releases Benjamin on Judah’s pledge; the brothers find peace instead of punishment in Joseph’s house, and Joseph weeps unseen before feasting them.

Genesis 43:1-10

Judah Pledges Himself for Benjamin

Genesis 43:11-15

Jacob Releases His Son to God Almighty

Genesis 43:16-25

Fear Answered with Peace

Genesis 43:26-31

Joseph Sees Benjamin

Genesis 43:32-34

The Feast in Joseph’s House

Genesis 43:1

“And the famine was sore in the land.” Five Hebrew words carry the whole narrative forward. Jacob had closed the previous chapter with a flat refusal: Benjamin would not go down (42:38). No argument from his sons could move him. The famine does what their words could not, and the reader is meant to sense that hunger is serving a larger purpose.

The phrase echoes the famine that drove Abram into Egypt (12:10) and the one that sent Isaac toward Gerar (26:1). In each case scarcity in the land of promise forced the patriarch into a decision, and in each case God kept his hand on the family. Here the famine is the very one God had announced through Pharaoh’s dreams, so it is no blind force. Psalm 105:16 says the Lord “called for a famine upon the land,” and the next verse adds that he had already sent a man before them. The pressure on Jacob’s household and the preparation in Egypt belong to one design.

Study Links

Cross References

Genesis 12:10Genesis 41:56-57Genesis 42:38

Word / Phrase Notes

וְהָרָעָב כָּבֵד (vehara‘av kaved) — and the famine was sore

Kaved means “heavy” or “weighty.” Used of a famine it describes something that presses down on a land and its people. The same adjective marks the famine of Abram’s day as “grievous” (12:10) and Joseph’s warning that the coming dearth would be “very grievous” (41:31). Elsewhere it describes a hand of judgment laid heavily on a people (1 Samuel 5:6). The word suggests a burden that will not lift of its own accord.

Genesis 12:10Genesis 41:31