ולא יכלו אחיו לענות אותו, “and his brothers were unable to answer him;” Rabbi Joseph Kara, explains this line as follows: the brothers on the one hand believed him when he said that his name was Joseph; however they could not believe that he was the Joseph whom they had sold into slavery, and that in the interval he had risen to such an exalted position, ruler over mighty Egypt. (Compare how Joseph is described in Psalms 105,17-18)

גשו נא אלי, ויגשו, “please come physically closer to me; they did so.” Seeing that prior to this Joseph had ordered everybody in the hall with them to leave the hall, (45,1) and the Egyptians outside now trying very hard to listen to what went on inside, Joseph now tried to put more physical distance between them and himself and the brothers. He did not mind them to hear him ask the brothers: “is my father still alive?” He did not want them to hear the words: “you have sold me,” however, in order not to embarrass them publicly, and because he intended to settle Yaakov’s whole family in Egypt. If his employees had heard him refer to this, they would have objected to such wicked people settling in Egypt. They would conclude that if these people had been capable of selling their own brother, how much worse would they deal with Egyptian neighbours that were not related to them by blood? This is why he asked them to step closer so that the balance of the conversation could be conducted in whispers. An alternate interpretation: first Joseph told his brothers that he was their brother; next he asked if his father was still alive; He did not want to raise the subject of their having sold him in the presence of his brother Binyamin who had been unaware of that. He knew that this would greatly embarrass his brothers, and that Binyamin upon hearing of this would surely report it to their father. He therefore motioned the brothers to move over so that he could continue the conversation where Binyamin could not overhear it. [This editor cannot believe that Binyamin was in the same hall, as surely he had been taken into custody after the goblet had been found in his sack. He only released him in verse 13 when he instructed the brothers to return forthwith to the land of Canaan. Ed.]

קחו לכם מארץ מצרים עגלות, “take along for yourselves carriages from the land of Egypt;” these were meant to transport their wives and children, ונשאתם את אביכם, “and carry your father on your shoulders, and proceed to come here.” The fact that they did so is attested to by what we read in Genesis 46,3: וישאו בני ישראל את יעקב אביהם, ואת טפם ונשיהם בעגלות, “the Children of Israel carried their father; and their children and wives they transported in carriages.”

ועיניכם אל תחוס על כליכם, “and do not concern yourselves with your chattels;” Joseph knew that his father had been reluctant to abandon any chattels, from the time he crossed the river Yabok at night to retrieve anything he had left behind. (Genesis 32,23-25) Attributed to Rabbi Yaakov.

אל תרגזו בדרך, “do not fear any danger on the way,” as I have complete control of the region. The root רגז is used here in the same sense as in Psalms 4,5: רגזו ואל תחטאו, “tremble and do not sin anymore.” We also encounter it in this sense in Deuteronomy 28,65: לב רגז which the Targum renders as “a fearful heart.”

וידברו אליו את כל דברי יוסף, “they said to him all the words Joseph had spoken. According to Rashi, Joseph conveyed to his father a code word that would convince him that only he could have known this. It concerned the subject matter that his father and he had been discussing when he accompanied him part of the way on his fateful journey. It dealt with someone being found dead on the road, someone whom no one knew and who had nothing on him that could identify him. This subject is discussed in chapter 21.of the Book of Deuteronomy. The hint was contained in the translation of the word וישלחהו, “he sent him off,” which the Targum renders in Genesis 12,20 when Pharaoh sent Avraham home as ואלויאו, “he gave him safe conduct.” Joseph had at the time told his father to go home, to which Yaakov had replied that it was a virtuous act to accompany someone departing some distance. He acquainted him at the time with the paragraph quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 21. He even pointed out the fact that failing to accompany a departing guest some distance, could make such a person liable to have to swear a sacred oath that he had not been negligent in this respect. The subject is discussed in the Talmud tractate Sotah chapter nine at length, where it is presumed that the word עגלות was supposed to refer to the heifer that would be the animal offered as atonement for this sin of negligence by the townspeople closest to the murdered person. Other commentators believe that what Yaakov and Joseph had been discussing was the subject of a carriage being pulled by a heifer (compare Sotah, folio 46.) In either event, it seems very forced to see in the carriages Joseph had sent to carry Yaakov’s family a reference to the word עגלה, heifer. It is more plausible that the hint had to do with the carriages used by the Jewish people to transport the parts of the Tabernacle that could not be carried on the shoulders of the Levites. (Compare Numbers 7,3)

וירא את העגלות....ותחי רוח יעקב אביהם, “when he saw the carriages, their father Yaakov’s spirits revived.” He was aware that previously the Egyptian ruler had absolutely forbidden that any carriages leave the boundaries of Egypt [in order not to enable horses to be exported from Egypt. Ed.] Now Pharaoh had relented and instructed Joseph to bring his family to Egypt by means of carriages. This turnaround convinced Yaakov that he and his family would be welcome in Egypt. He realised that such a command could only have been given by Pharaoh himself. [He had attributed antisemitic feeling in Egypt as dating back to when his grandmother had almost been raped there, had G–d not interfered. (Compare Genesis chapter 12 and the derogatory term used by Potiphar’s wife about the ‘Hebrew’ slave in Genesis 39,18. Ed.]

רב, עוד יוסף בני חי, he addressed the driver of the carriages asking if his son Joseph is indeed still alive? (The word רב meaning “captain, driver” appears in this sense in Jonah, 1,6.) An alternate interpretation: Yaakov’s children kept on telling their father about Joseph’s position in Egypt, until their father got tired of listening to this and tried to stop them by saying: רב, “enough,” I now know that my son Joseph is still alive. He added that if this was really true, he would make the journey to Egypt in order to see him once more before he would die.