Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis Reader

And we told my lord, We have an aged father, and a son of his old age, a little one, whose brother is dead, and he only remains of his mother; and his father on that account loveth him.

But we told him, We cannot go down if our youngest brother be not with us when we go down, for we shall not be able to see the man's face, unless our youngest brother be with us.

Therefore thy servant became surety for the youth with my father, saying, If I restore him not to thee, let me be guilty before my father all the days.

And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph! Is my father yet alive? But his brothers could not answer him a word; for they were troubled before him.

And Joseph said to his brothers, Come near, I pray, and examine me. And they came near. And he said to them, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Mizraim.

And now, it was not you who sent me hither, but it was from before the Lord that the thing was occasioned, that He might set me for a prince unto Pharoh, a chief over his house, and a ruler in all the land of Mizraim.

Make haste, and go up to my father, and say to him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, The Lord hath set me for a chief over all the Mizraee; come down to me, delay not,

And he bowed himself upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; because it would be that the house of holiness should be builded in the portion of Benjamin, and be twice destroyed: and Benjamin wept upon Joseph's neck, because he saw that the tabernacle of Shiloh would be in the portion of Joseph and be destroyed.

And he kissed all his brethren, and wept over them, because he saw that the sons of his people would be brought into bondage. And afterward his brethren discoursed with him.

And a voice was heard in the royal house of Pharoh, saying, The brothers of Joseph are come. And the thing was pleasing in the eyes of Pharoh, and in the eyes of his servants.

and take your father and the men of your house, and come to me, and I will give you the best of what is desirable in the land of Mizraim, and you shall eat the fat of the land.

And thou Joseph shalt appoint for the honour of thy father: therefore tell thy brethren, Do this. Take with you from the land of Mizraim waggons drawn by oxen, in which to carry your children and your wives, and bring your father, and come.

And these presents he sent to his father; ten asses laden with wine and the good things of Mizraim, and ten she asses laden with corn and bread, and provisions for his father's journey.

And they declared to him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and is ruler over all the land of Mizraim. But his heart was divided, because he did not believe them.

And they told him all the words of Joseph which he had spoken to them. And when he saw the waggons which Joseph had sent to bring him, the Spirit of Prophecy which had gone up from him at the time that Joseph was sold, returning, rested upon Jakob their father.

And Israel said, Many benefits hath the Lord wrought for me; He delivered me from the hand of Esau and from the hand of Laban, and from the hands of the Kenaanites who pursued me; and many consolations have I seen and have expected to see; but this I had not expected, that Joseph my son should yet be alive. I will go now, and behold him before I die.

And He said, I am God, the God of thy father; fear not to go down into Mizraim on account of the servitude I have decreed with Abraham: for a great people will I make thee there.

I am He who in My Word will go down with thee into Mizraim; I will regard the affliction of thy children, and My Word shall bring thee up from thence, and cause thy children to come up; but Joseph shall lay his hand upon thine eyes.

And Jakob arose from Beer de Sheba; and the sons of Israel journeyed, with Jakob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the waggons which Pharoh had sent to carry him.

The children of Asher, Yimna, Yishvah, Yishvi, Beriah and Serach their sister, who was carried away while alive into the Garden (of Eden), because she had announced to Jakob that Joseph still lived. It was she who saved the inhabitants of (the city) Abel from the judgment of death, in the days of Joab. The sons of Beriah who went down into Mizraim were Heber and Malkiel.

And to Joseph were born two sons in the land of Mizraim, whom Asenath the daughter of Dinah, educated in the house of Potiphera prince of Tanis, bare, Menasheh and Ephraim.

The sons of Benjamin, ten; and their names, according to the interpretation of Joseph his brother: Bela, who was swallowed up from him; Beker, who was the chosen of his mother; Eshbal, who went into captivity; Gera, who became a sojourner in a foreign land; Naaman, who was pleasant and honourable; Achi, who had a (twin) brother, the son of his mother; Rosh, who was a chief in his father's house; Muppim, who was sold into Muph; Chuppim, because at the time that he was separated from him he was the son of eighteen years and was eligible for marriage (Chupha, thalamus nuptialis); and Ared, who descended into Mizraim.

But the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Mizraim were two souls; and Joseph who was in Mizraim, and Jokebed the daughter of Levi, who was born among the hills in their journey to Mizraim, the sum of all the souls of the house of Jakob who came into Mizraim, seventy.

And he sent Jehuda before him to Joseph to indicate the way before him, to subdue the pillars of the earth, and to provide him a house of dwelling in Goshena. And they came to the land of Goshen.

And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father in Goshen; and his father, before he recognised him, worshipped him, and thus became liable to be shortened (or cut off) in his years. And he wondered, and beheld him, and fell upon his neck, and wept still upon his neck, because he had worshipped him.

And Israel said to Joseph, If at this time I die, I am Comforted: for with the death that the righteous die shall I die, after seeing thy face, because thou art yet alive.

you must say, Thy servants have been masters of flocks from our youth until now: that you may dwell in the land of Goshen; because the Mizraee reject all shepherds.

The land of Mizraim is before thee. In the fairest part of the land make thy father and thy brethren to dwell: let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if thou know any among them men of ability, appoint them masters over my flocks.

And Joseph brought Jakob his father, and presented him before Pharoh. And Jakob blessed Pharoh, and said, May it please the Almighty that the waters of Nilos may be replenished, and may the famine pass away from the world in thy days!

And Jakob answered Pharoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life; for in my youth I fled before Esau my brother, and sojourned in a land not my own; and now in the time of my old age have I come down to sojourn here. And my days have not reached the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

And the people of a province he removed to a city, and the people of the city he removed to a province, for the sake of the brethren of Joseph, that they might not be called wanderers: therefore he made them migrate from one end of Mizraim to the other.

Only the land of the priests he bought not because they had considered him innocent at the time when his master was seeking to put him to death, and they had delivered him from the judgment of death: and besides he had said that a portion should be given them from Pharoh. So they ate the portion which Pharoh gave them, and sold not their land.

And Israel dwelt in the land of Mizraim, and they built there schools and mansions in the land of Goshen, and inherited therein fields and vineyards; and they increased and multiplied greatly.

And the days of Israel drew near to die. And he called to his son, to Joseph, and said to him, If now I have found favour before thee, put thy hand on the place of my circumcision, and deal with me in goodness and truth, That thou wilt not bury me in Mizraim,

that I may sleep with my fathers, and thou mayest carry me from Mizraim, and bury me in their sepulchre. But because he was his son he did not (so) put his hand; but said, I will do according to thy word.

And he said, Swear tome: and he sware to him. And immediately the Glory of the Shekina of the Lord was revealed to him, and Israel worshipped upon the pillow of the bed.

And now, thy two sons who have been born to thee in the land of Mizraim before I came to thee into Mizraim are mine; Ephraim and Menasheh as Reuben and Shimeon shall be reckoned unto me.

And I beseech thee to bury me with my fathers. Rahel died by me suddenly in the land of Kenaan, while there was yet much ground to come to Ephrath; nor could I carry her to bury her in the Double Cave, but I buried her there, in the way of Ephrath which is Bethlechem.

And Joseph answered his father, They are my sons which the Word of the Lord gave me according to this writing, according to which I took Asenath the daughter of Dinah thy daughter to be my wife. And he said, Bring them now near to me, and I will bless them.

And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it upon the head of Ephraim, though he was the younger; and his left hand upon the head of Menasheh, altering his hands, for Menasheh was the firstborn.