The Famine and Jacob's Descent to Egypt

Famine spreads through the region and Jacob sends his sons to Egypt for grain. They stand before a ruler they do not recognize, though he knows them at once. Joseph speaks harshly, accuses them of spying, demands their youngest brother, and plants his silver goblet in Benjamin's sack. When Benjamin is about to be kept as a slave, Judah steps forward and speaks of an old father whose soul is bound up with the boy's. Joseph can bear no more: he clears the room and says in Hebrew, "I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?" He weeps so loudly that Pharaoh's household hears. And he adds words that lift the guilt without erasing it: "It was not you who sent me here, but God… to preserve life." When Jacob hears, "the spirit of Jacob their father revived." At Beersheba he offers sacrifices and hears at night: "Fear not to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation; I will go down with you and I will surely bring you up." Seventy souls descend and settle in Goshen.