Bible Strands
Genesis 44:20
And we answered, ‘We have an elderly father and a younger brother, the child of his old age. The boy’s brother is dead. He is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.’
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Judah and his brothers speak to Joseph, responding to his direct inquiry about a father and brother in the preceding verse. They deliver this explanation at the moment Joseph demands the youngest brother be brought down to Egypt.
The words — זָקֵ֔ן (za.Ken) = old/elderly and זְקֻנִ֖ים (ze.ku.Nim) = old age/senility. The brothers use these terms to emphasize the father’s advanced years and the younger brother’s unique status as the last surviving son of his mother.
The thread — The narrative echoes Genesis 37:3, Genesis 42:38, and Genesis 35:18. These passages track the family's history regarding the youngest son, his mother’s death, and the father’s specific attachment to him.
Why it lands — The text states a factual explanation of the brothers' fear and the father's vulnerability before any emotional appeal. It requires the reader to note how the brothers frame their request around the father's physical decline and the irreversible loss of another brother.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him.
Cross-references
- Genesis 37:3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons, because Joseph had been born to him in his old age; so he made him a robe of many colors.
- Genesis 42:38 But Jacob replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left. If any harm comes to him on your journey, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.”
- Genesis 35:18 And with her last breath—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni. But his father called him Benjamin.
- Genesis 37:19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to one another.
- Genesis 37:33 His father recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! A vicious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”
- Genesis 42:13 But they answered, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.”
- Genesis 42:36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is no more. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is going against me!”
- Genesis 43:7 They replied, “The man questioned us in detail about ourselves and our family: ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ And we answered him accordingly. How could we possibly know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother here’?”
- Genesis 44:27 And your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.
- Genesis 46:21 The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard.