Genesis 42:36

And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(36) All these things are against me.—Heb., are upon me, are burdens which I have to bear.

Benson Commentary

Genesis 42:36. Me have ye bereaved of my children — Who can read Jacob’s lamentation here without being moved by it? He considers Simeon as already dead, being in the power of so rough a man as they described the lord of the country to be: he reflects on his former loss of Joseph, and he looks on Benjamin, the only remaining pledge of his beloved Rachel, as already taken from him. And what makes it the more moving is, that by his expressions it seems as if he thought his sons did not sympathize with him, and were little affected with these calamities. Nay, the unhappy father seems to have suspected that it was a plot of his sons to bereave him of Benjamin. All these things are against me — How ready have we all been to think and say the same amid disappointments, and afflictive dispensations of Providence, even at a time when all things, although in a mysterious way, were working together for our good!

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

42:29-38 Here is the report Jacob's sons made to their father. It troubled the good man. Even the bundles of money Joseph returned, in kindness, to his father, frightened him. He laid the fault upon his sons; knowing them, he feared they had provoked the Egyptians, and wrongfully brought home their money. Jacob plainly distrusted his sons, remembering that he never saw Joseph since he had been with them. It is bad with a family, when children behave so ill that their parents know not how to trust them. Jacob gives up Joseph for gone, and Simeon and Benjamin as in danger; and concludes, All these things are against me. It proved otherwise, that all these things were for him, were working together for his good, and the good of his family. We often think that to be against us, which is really for us. We are afflicted in body, estate, name, and in our relations; and think all these things are against us, whereas they are really working for us a weight of glory. Thus does the Lord Jesus conceal himself and his favour, thus he rebukes and chastens those for whom he has purposes of love. By sharp corrections and humbling convictions he will break the stoutness and mar the pride of the heart, and bring to true repentance. Yet before sinners fully know him, or taste that he is gracious, he consults their good, and sustains their souls, to wait for him. May we do thus, never yielding to discouragement, determining to seek no other refuge, and humbling ourselves more and more under his mighty hand. In due time he will answer our petitions, and do for us more than we can expect.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Upon emptying the other sacks all the silver turns up, to their great amazement and consternation. Jacob laments the loss of his son. Reuben offers two of his sons to Jacob as pledges for Benjamin, to be slain if he did not bring him back in safety. The sorrowing parent cannot yet bring himself to consent to Benjamin's departure on this hazardous journey. "And ye shall bring down." Jacob either speaks here in the querulous tone of afflicted old age, or he had come to know or suspect that his brothers had some hand in the disappearance of Joseph.

- Joseph and His Eleven Brethren

11. דבשׁ debash, "honey," from the bee, or sirup from the juice of the grape. בטנים bôṭen, "pistachio nuts." שׁקד shâqêd, "almond tree;" related: "awake." The tree is also called לוּז lûz. Some refer the former to the fruit, the latter to the tree.

The eleven brothers are now to bow down before Joseph.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

36. Me have ye bereaved—This exclamation indicates a painfully excited state of feeling, and it shows how difficult it is for even a good man to yield implicit submission to the course of Providence. The language does not imply that his missing sons had got foul play from the hands of the rest, but he looks upon Simeon as lost, as well as Joseph, and he insinuates it was by some imprudent statements of theirs that he was exposed to the risk of losing Benjamin also.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Simeon is not; he gave him up for lost, as being, as he thought, in the power of a cruel enemy.

All these things are against me; I am the great sufferer in all these things: you carry yourselves as if you were neither concerned nor affected with them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Jacob their father said unto them, me have ye bereaved of my children,.... Which looks as if Jacob suspected that they had either sold or slain Joseph, and had done one or the other by Simeon:

Joseph is not, and Simeon is not: neither of them were with him, and both were given up by him as dead, or, as the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it,"of Joseph ye have said an evil beast hath devoured him; and Simeon, ye say, the king of the country hath bound him;''as for Joseph he knew not but he was dead, he feared he was; and as for Simeon, he being in the hands of so rough a man as they had represented the lord of the land to be, and especially as his release depended upon sending Benjamin, which he was determined at present not to do; he was reckoned by him as a lost or dead man:

and ye will take Benjamin away; they were desirous of it, and what their design was he could not tell; he seems to have a strong suspicion that it was not good:

all these things are against me; against his will, his peace, and comfort, and happiness, though they were all working and would work as they did for his good, and for the good of his family, for the preservation of it during the seven years of famine; or are "upon me" (f), as heavy burdens, too heavy for him to bear, ready to sink him down to the earth.

(f) "super me", Montanus, Schmidt; "vel. in me", V. L. Vatablus.

Geneva Study Bible

And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against {k} me.

(k) For they did not seem to be concerned or have any love for their brother which increased his sorrow: and partly as it appears he suspected them for Joseph.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

36. have ye bereaved] Jacob, in his distress of mind, accuses his sons of being the cause of the loss, first of Joseph, and then of Simeon. Unwittingly he enforces the reproaches of their own conscience.

against me] or, as R.V. marg., upon. Cf. Genesis 16:5, Genesis 27:12. Jacob is the sufferer. The Heb. preposition admits of either rendering. Cf. Lat. in me haec omnia mala reciderunt; LXX ἐπʼ ἐμὲ ἐγένετο ταῦτα πάντα.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 36. - And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved (or are ye bereaving) of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not (Jacob appears to suspect that in some way or another his sons had been responsible for Joseph's disappearance as well as Simeon's), and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me - literally, upon me, as an heavy burden, which I must bear alone. Genesis 42:36

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

But when they emptied their sacks, and, to their own and their father's terror, found their bundles of money in their separate sacks, Jacob burst out with the complaint, "Ye are making me childless! Joseph is gone, and Simeon is gone, and will ye take Benjamin! All this falls upon me" (כּלּנה for כּלּן as in Proverbs 31:29).