8 Judah said to Israel, his father, "Send the boy with me, and we'll get up and go, so that we may live, and not die, both we, and you, and also our little ones.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Send the lad with me - As the original is not ילד yeled, from which we have derived our word lad, but נער naar, it would have been better had our translators rendered it by some other term, such as the youth, or the young man, and thus the distinction in the Hebrew would have been better kept up. Benjamin was at this time at least twenty-four years of age, some think thirty, and had a family of his own. See Genesis 46:21.
That we may live, and not die - An argument drawn from self-preservation, what some have termed the first law of nature. By your keeping Benjamin we are prevented from going to Egypt; if we go not to Egypt we shall get no corn; if we get no corn we shall all perish by famine; and Benjamin himself, who otherwise might live, must, with thee and the whole family, infallibly die.
And Judah said unto Israel his father, send the lad with me,
and we will arise and go,.... Directly to Egypt for corn; Judah calls Benjamin a lad, because the youngest brother, and tenderly brought up by his father, who had an affectionate fondness for him as if he had been a child; otherwise he must be thirty two years of age, for he was seven years younger than Joseph, who was now thirty nine years of age; yea, Benjamin must have children of his own, who went with him and his father into Egypt, Genesis 46:21; for the computation of Benjamin's age, see Genesis 30:22,
that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones; he argues, that if they with Benjamin went down to Egypt for corn, there was a possibility, yea, a probability that they would all live, even Benjamin also; but if not, they must all in course die, and Benjamin likewise; and therefore it was most prudent and advisable, for the sake of all their lives, of them and theirs, and for the sake of Benjamin among the rest, for whom Jacob was so particularly concerned, to let him go with them to Egypt for corn, since he must die if they did not go, and he could but die if he did go; and there was great likelihood, if not a certainty, he would not; at least Judah was confident he would not, as appears by what follows.
He then repeated the only condition on which they would go to Egypt again, referring to the death by famine which threatened them, their father, and their children, and promising that he would himself be surety for the youth (הנּער, Benjamin was twenty-three years old), and saying, that if he did not restore him, he would bear the blame (חטא to be guilty of a sin and stone for it, as in 1-Kings 1:21) his whole life long. He then concluded with the deciding words, "for if we had not delayed, surely we should already have returned a second time."
*More commentary available at chapter level.