Genesis 42:23
They did not realize that Joseph understood them, since there was an interpreter between them.
And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for he spake unto them by an interpreter.
Note he spake…: Heb. an interpreter was between them
They didn’t know that Joseph understood them; for there was an interpreter between them.
And they knew not that Joseph understood them; for there was an interpreter between them.
Related passages
From the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, grouped by the word they explain.
- he spake unto them by a interpreter
- Heb. an interpreter wasbetween 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 ver. 24,) that Joseph and his brethren understood each others' language, as his brethren and Joseph's steward also did (ch. 43:19, etc; compare ch. 39; 49.) It seems to denote an officer who is called in Abyssinia, according to Mr. Bruce, {Kal Hatzé,} "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.
- John 16:13, 14; 2 Corinthians 5:20