And he said mildly to them: Come nearer to me. And when they were come near him, he said: I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.

And Joseph saith unto his brethren, 'Come nigh unto me, I pray you,' and they come nigh; and he saith, 'I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt;

Then Joseph said to his brothers, Come near to me. And they came near, And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sent into Egypt.

And he said to them mildly, "Approach toward me." And when they had approached close by, he said: "I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.

Et dixit Joseph fratribus suis, Accedite quaeso ad me. Et accesserunt. Et dixit, Ego sum Joseph frater vester, quem vendidistis in Aegyptum.

Come near to me, I pray you. This is more efficacious than any mere words, that he kindly invites them to his embrace. Yet he also tries to remove their care and fear by the most courteous language he can use. He so attempers his speech, indeed, that he mildly accuses, and again consoles them; nevertheless, the consolation greatly predominates, because he sees that they are on the point of desperation, unless he affords them timely relief. Moreover, in relating that he had been sold, he does not renew the memory of their guilt, with the intention of expostulating with them; but only because it is always profitable that the sense of sin should remain, provided that immoderate terror does not absorb the unhappy man, after he has acknowledged his fault. And whereas the brethren of Joseph were more than sufficiently terrified, he insists the more fully on the second part of his purpose; namely, that he may heal the wound. This is the reason why he repeats, that God had sent him for their preservation; that by the counsel of God himself he had been sent beforehand into Egypt to preserve them alive; and that, in short, he had not been sent into Egypt by them, but had been led thither by the hand of God. [1]

Footnotes

1 - Only two years of the famine had now elapsed, and there were yet five years in which there should be "neither earing nor harvest," so that this was indeed but the commencement of the grievous suffering to which Jacob's family would have been exposed, but for the extraordinary interposition of Divine providence in their favor. The word earing is an obsolete Saxon term by which our translators have rendered the Hebrew word chrys, (charish,) which means ploughing, or preparing the ground for seed. -- Ed

And Joseph said unto his brethren, come near to me, I pray you,.... Very probably Joseph sat in a chair of state while they were under examination, and through reverence of him they kept at a proper distance; or being frightened at what he had said, he might observe them drawing back, as Jarchi remarks, and so encourages them in a kind and tender manner to return and come nearer to him, and the rather, that they might more privately converse together without being overheard; as also that they might, by approaching him discern and call to mind some of his features still remaining, by which they might be assured he was Joseph indeed:
and they came near, and he said, I am Joseph your brother; not only his name was Joseph, but he was that Joseph that was their brother; he claims and owns the relation between them, which must be very affecting to them, who had used him so unkindly:
whom ye sold into Egypt: which is added, not so much to put them in mind of and upbraid them with their sin, but to assure them that he was really their brother Joseph; which he could not have related had he not been he, as well as to lead on to what he had further to say to them for their comfort.