כי נבהלו מפניו, “for they were frightened of him.” They were afraid of what he might do to them as reprisals for what they had done to him.

גשו נא אלי “please come closer to me.” He told them about the subject of how he had been sold, in a whisper, so that bystanders could not hear him. A different exegesis of these words: they were asked to approach him as they could do so; he, Joseph, being only one, could not come closer to some of them without at the same time distancing himself from some others. Besides, he was not concerned about his dignity but more about theirs. According to Rashi, he asked them to come near, so that he could show them, and them only, that he had been circumcised. There was no chance that this could have been misinterpreted as causing the brothers to believe that he was a Yishmaelite, who also perform the rite of circumcision on themselves, as they only performed this rite at the age of 13, as had their forefather Yishmael, and who leave a membrane around the glans untouched as distinct from the Hebrews who through being circumcised at an early age remove it when the fact that it has been removed remains clearly visible. Even though, according to Rashi, the Egyptians at that time also had been circumcised by a decree from Joseph, but this was done primarily by the poor who needed to purchase grain from him, but since Joseph was wealthy, the only reason why he was circumcised would be because he was a Hebrew. Another exegesis, since the brothers did not know that the Egyptians had been circumcised by Joseph, this mark would identify him as a Hebrew beyond doubt.

רדה אלי, “come down to me!” he did not say: רד “come down”, which has the the numerical value of 204, but said רדה is the numerical value of 209, to indicate that the 210 years decreed for the Israelites stay in Egypt had already started i.e. we are already within the 210 years decreed for the Israelites stay in Egypt so that the exile would not be lengthened by Yaakov and family resettling in Egypt without delay. There are only 209 of these years left.

ועיני אחי בנימין, “and the eyes of my brother Binyamin;” if you do not wish to reveal the fact that I had been sold on account of the oath to that effect that you have sworn, my brother Binyamin was not present at that time, nor has had any knowledge of it, he can reveal the details to my father. Another explanation for the relevance of what Binyamin saw at that time: Binyamin had much more reason to have assumed that I must be dead, seeing that he was not present and had not subsequently become aware of my having been sold, and he therefore needs convincing more than you do. Besides up until now when I only communicated with you through an interpreter, you could have doubted this. Now that you hear me speak in Hebrew, you should no longer doubt that I am who I claim to be.

את כל כבודי, “all the honour I enjoy;” he assured Yaakov that he had the wish and the power to make life comfortable for him in Egypt.

על צוארי (he embraced him) around his neck; both sides of his neck. Seeing he embraced him from both sides, the word for “neck” appears in the plural mode.

לכלם נתן לאיש “to all of them he gave,” i.e. to each: the letter ל preceding the word: איש is vocalised with the vowel patach.” [Not so in all our editions. Ed.]

חליפות שמלות, “changes of clothes;” shirts, pants, the undergarments people change frequently. In other words: garments that are worn directly on the skin. Alternate explanation: outer garments. The reason why Joseph gave them these garments as presents was that he had been the cause that made them tear up their clothing when they found out that the goblet had been found in Binyamin’s bag. They had been deeply embarrassed to be walking around in torn garments. ולבנימין, “and to Binyamin;” seeing that he had not participated in his sale, he gave him three hundred silver pieces. As a result of this each of the other ten brothers had been treated as worth a slave, (according to the Torah, 30 pieces of silver. Compare Talmud Gittin 44, where it is stated that if someone sells his slave to a gentile he is penalised ten times his value.) Three hundred silver pieces are ten times the value of an ablebodied slave.

וחמש חליפות שמלות, “and five sets of garments.” One on account of the garments that he had caused him to tear, the second one because he was his full brother, son of his mother. The third set as compensation for having made him, appear like a thief. The last two sets as the penalty a thief has to pay, i.e. twice the value of the goods he has stolen. An alternate explanation: The gift Binyamin received was worth five times as much as that given to his brothers.

שלח כזאת “he sent a corresponding amount;” he sent his father ten sets of garments of the best quality available in Egypt ten donkeys, ten sheasses, for his ten brothers. Each one was to lead two animals. Even though Binyamin would also travel with them, he did not want to burden him with this.

וישלח את אחיו, “he sent off his brothers;” [the following refers to the difference between vayishlach and vayeshalach. Ed] the former means “to send something along,” whereas the latter means simply: “to send someone, or something.” In order to identify which is which, the former has a dot, dagesh in the letter ל. (based on Rash’bam)

אל תרגזו בדרך, “do not worry of dangers on the way;” Joseph reassured the brothers that although they would migrate with great herds and flocks, something that would draw attention to them all over, his status in the region was such that no one would dare to attack them as they were his brothers. We have encountered the meaning of “nervousness” as being רגז, also in Deuteronomy, 28,65, לב רגז. An alternate exegesis: even though I have loaded you with great wealth in a time of famine when everyone else suffers from possessing very little, you have no reason to be nervous about its implications.

ויפג לבו, “Yaakov’s heart was standing still, stopped beating; (as in Lamentations 2,18, פוגת לך) he could not even react as he refused to believe the brothers. He only reacted after seeing the carriages that Joseph had sent along. An alternate exegesis: the words: ויפג לבו, mean that he reacted joyfully, seeing that in the Talmud we see it used in this sense in tractate Yuma, folio 19, אישי כהן גדול עמוד והפג אחת על הרצפה, “my lord the High Priest, arise and demonstrate joy,” (according to Rashi there). [According to this the High Priest rejected the implication that he was going to sleep as ridiculous; Ed.] In our case, Yaakov considered the claims by his sons as ridiculous, not worth even thinking about. The latter explanation is supported by Onkelos, who writes: פיגו.

את כל דברי יוסף, “all that Joseph had said.” According to Rash,i the reference is to Joseph having sent the carriages, not to Pharaoh having sent them. Only before the arrival of the family in Egypt, were these carriages attributed to the generosity of Pharaoh. (46,5.)

.אשר שלח יוסף, “that Joseph had sent.” Yaakov reasoned that if the sender had not been my son, no one else would have gone to the trouble to send me carriages to be riding in on my journey . Rashi adds that the consonants in the word עגלה have a dual meaning; they can mean eglah, “a heifer,” or they can mean agalah, “carriage.” Joseph wished to remind his father that the last subject that they had discussed together were the laws pertaining to the heifer that is thrown off a cliff to atone for a murder committed by persons unknown. (Deuteronomy chapter 21) If you were to ask how these carriages were a memorable symbol of their discussion? When the Torah reports Yaakov as having accompanied Joseph part of the descent from the mountain on which Chevron is situated, Joseph is reported to have said to him that he should go back. In other words, there could not have been a connection to the subject of the eglah arufah, where our sages assume that the murdered person had not been accompanied, or he would have become the object of murder. His father had then told him that the subject of accompanying a departing guest would rank highly in the Torah in the future. The reason that Joseph reminded him of that was that it was something to which no one else could have been privy. The almost unbelievable text in Deuteronomy has the Supreme Court members proclaiming that it was not they who had murdered the unknown victim. Who could have dared to accuse them of having done so? No one could have dreamt up such a paragraph in the Torah! Joseph made use of the play on words: eglah/agalah. A different explanation: Joseph had placed heifers on the carriages, which would remind his father of their last conversation in case he had forgotten. Concerning the carriages being once described as Pharaoh’s, and once as Joseph’s: it was forbidden to export cows unless their wombs had been removed so that they could not multiply in other countries. (Talmud, Bechorot, 28). In this instance, an exception was made and express permission from Pharaoh was granted. When the carriages were described as having been sent by Pharaoh, the meaning is that Pharaoh had given his permission, but the animals were owned by Joseph.

ותחי רוח יעקב, “the holy spirit which had departed from Yaakov since Joseph’s disappearance now returned to him.” (Compare Midrash Hagadol 47,47.) As a result, although Joseph was only four or five days’ journey away from them they had no clue where he was for 22 years.

רב, עוד יוסף בני חי, “it is plenty;” Yaakov meant that when the brothers told him that Joseph was alive, and that he was a ruler in Egypt, the second part of the sentence was unnecessary, as long as he knew that Joseph was alive. He was totally unconcerned with Joseph’s standing politically.