Genesis Chapter 45 verse 4 Holy Bible

ASV Genesis 45:4

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.
read chapter 45 in ASV

BBE Genesis 45:4

Then Joseph said to his brothers, Come near to me. And they came near, And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sent into Egypt.
read chapter 45 in BBE

DARBY Genesis 45:4

And Joseph said to 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.
read chapter 45 in DARBY

KJV Genesis 45:4

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.
read chapter 45 in KJV

WBT Genesis 45:4

And Joseph said to 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.
read chapter 45 in WBT

WEB Genesis 45:4

Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me, please." They came near. "He said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.
read chapter 45 in WEB

YLT Genesis 45:4

And Joseph saith unto his brethren, `Come nigh unto me, I pray you,' and they come nigh; and he saith, `I `am' Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt;
read chapter 45 in YLT

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 4-13. - And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. It is probable they had instinctively shrunk from his presence on learning the astounding fact that he was Joseph, but felt reassured by the kindly tone of Joseph's words. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. It was impossible to evade allusion to their early wickedness, and this Joseph does in a spirit not of angry upbraiding, but of elevated piety and tender charity. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves (literally, let it not burn in your eyes, as in Genesis 31:35), that ye sold me hither (their self-recriminations and heart upbraidings for their former wickedness Joseph in all probability saw depicted in their faces): for God (Elohim) did send me before you to preserve life (literally, for the preservation of life). For these two years hath the famine been in the land (literally, in the midst of the land): and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earning nor harvest - literally, neither ploughing nor reaping, the term ploughing, or earing, charish (cf. ἄροσις, aratio, Anglo-Saxon, origin), being derived from a root signifying to cut. And God (Elohim, the use of which here and in Ver. 5 instead of Jehovah is sufficiently explained by remembering that Joseph simply desires to point out the overruling providence of God in his early transportation to Egypt) sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth (literally, to keep for you a remnant on the earth, i.e. to preserve the family from extinction through the famine), and to save your lives by a great deliverance - literally, to preserve life to you to a great deliverance, i.e. by a providential rescue (Rosenmüller, Kalisch, Murphy, 'Speaker's Commentary'), which is better than to a great nation or posterity, פְלֵיטָה being understood, as in 2 Samuel 15:14; 2 Kings 19:30, 31, to mean a remnant escaped from slaughter (Bohlen), an interpretation which Rosenmüller thinks admissible, but Kalisch disputes. So now (literally, and now) it was not you that sent me hither, but God - literally, for the Elohim (sent me). Joseph's brethren sent him to be a slave; God sent him to be a savior (Hughes). And he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, - i.e. a wise and confidential friend and counselor (Keil, Kalisch, 'Speaker's Commentary;' cf. 1 Macc. 11:32). Murphy explains the term as signifying "a second author of life," with obvious reference to the interpretation of his dreams and the measures adopted to provide against the famine - and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land Egypt (vide Genesis 41:40, 41). Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God (Elohim) hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen. Goshen, Γεσὲμ Αραβίας (LXX.), was a region on the east of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, extending as far as the wilderness of Arabia, a land of pastures (Genesis 46:34), exceedingly fertile (Genesis 47:6), styled also the land of Rameses (Genesis 47:11), and including the cities Pithon and Rameses (Exodus 1:11), and probably also On, or Heliopolis (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 2:07, 6; Hengstenberg's 'Egypt and the Books of Moses,' p. 42; Gesenius, 'Lexicon,' p. 183). 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: and there will I nourish thee (the verb is the Pilpel of כּול, to hold up, hence to sustain); for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty - liter-ally, be robbed, from יָרַשׁ, to take possession (Keil), or fall into slavery, i.e. through poverty (Knobel, Lange). And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of (literally, ye shall relate to my father) all my glory (cf. Genesis 31:1) in Egypt, and of all (literally, ail) that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. Calvin thinks that Joseph would not have made such liberal promises to his brethren without having previously obtained Pharaoh's consent, nisi regis permissu; but this does not appear from the narrative.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) I am Joseph your brother.--There is much force in the assurance that he was still their brother. For they stood speechless in terrified surprise at finding that the hated dreamer, upon the anguish of whose soul they had looked unmoved, was now the ruler of a mighty empire. But with magnanimous gentleness he bids them neither to grieve nor be angry with themselves; for behind their acts there had been a watchful Providence guiding all things for good.