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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comTreasury Of Scripture Knowledge - Genesis 42:23 - 42:23
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
he spake unto them by an interpreter: Heb. an interpreter was between them, The mailitz does not seem to have been an interpreter in our sense of the term; as we have many evidences in this book that the Egyptians, Hebrews, Canaanites, and Syrians, could understand each other in a general way; and it appears from several passages in this very chapter (particularly Gen 42:24), that Joseph and his brethren understood each others' language, as his brethren and Joseph's steward also did (Gen 43:19, etc; compare Gen 39:1 and Gen 49:1). It seems to denote an officer who is called in Abyssinia, according to Mr. Bruce, Kal Hatze, "the voice or word of the king," who always stands at the side of a lattice window of a balcony, within which the king sits; who is never seen, but who speaks through a hole in the side of it, covered in the inside with a curtain, to this officer, by whom he speaks to the persons present. Joh 16:13-14; 2Co 5:20