What Does Genesis 43:25 Mean?

They prepared the present for Joseph's coming at noon, for they heard that they would eat bread there. The brothers prepare Jacob's gifts: the balm, honey, gum, Myrrh, Pistachio nuts, almonds: for presentation when the official arrives for the meal. They have had time to settle in, wash, have their animals fed, and arrange the gifts. The information that they would eat bread there (given presumably by the steward) has replaced the fear of assault with the more specific anxiety of a formal meal with the powerful official. They know the meal is coming; they prepare what they have brought to present at it.

The preparation of the gifts is the brothers putting forward their best diplomatic effort. Jacob sent the gifts precisely for this purpose: to approach "the man" with honor and offering rather than as desperate supplicants. The Canaanite luxury goods (rare in Egypt) are the family's best available form of diplomatic currency. Laying them out for presentation is the brothers following their father's careful instructions and fulfilling his strategy for the encounter.

"They heard that they would eat bread there": the information about the meal has changed the emotional register of the situation. The fear of slavery and assault expressed in verse 18 is being replaced by something different: the reality is a meal at the official's home. A meal is not an arrest; a meal is hospitality. The fear has not fully resolved: they do not understand why the official is hosting them: but the concrete reality of bread at noon is different from the feared reality of assault. The brothers are being prepared for an encounter that will be very different from what they feared, though not yet in ways they understand.