והרעב, Yehudah said to his brothers not to argue with their aged father until there would be no more bread in the house at which time he would agree to send his son Binyamin with the brothers.

העד העיד, when a caution is issued to people in the presence of witnesses, the caution is not called התראה, “warning,” but עדות, “testimony.”

גם אנחנו גן אתה גם טפנו, each one in addition to the one already mentioned. What Yehudah meant was it was better that one Binyamin should come along with them although his safe return was subject to some doubt, than they should all die, something which would be a certainty.

וחטאתי לך, Yehudah did not really man that if he did not bring Binyamin back this would automatically be a sin in the objective meaning of the word. He meant that he would consider himself as a sinner against his father forever in the unlikely event that this would happen. He would guarantee his brother’s return under such conditions. These considerations prompted our sages in Makkot 11 to characterise Yehudah as placing himself in the position of a conditional outcast, מנודה, they derive the halachah that someone who places himself in such a state requires the court to annul his conditional vow, status. Needless to say that ostracising oneself from the Jewish community even conditionally is forbidden, and we have a tradition that the bones inside Yehudah’s coffin were rattling for the entire 40 years the Jewish people carried the coffins of the 12 founding leaders of the tribes with them through the desert. This stopped only at the request of Moses who asked mercy for Yehudah in his final blessing in Deuteronomy 33,7, וזאת 'ליהודה וגו

אם כן אפוא, if the situation is such that I cannot detain Binyamin here,

זאת עשו, in order to curry favour with the ruler of the land;

מזמרת הארץ, of the produce which this land is especially famous for;

מעט צרי ומעט דבש, both of these products were known as exports from the land of Canaan. as is spelled out specifically in Ezekiel 27,17 יהודה וארץ ישראל המה רוכליך בחטי מנית ופגג ודבש ושמן וצרי, Yehudah and the Land of Israel, they were your peddlers. With wheat from Minis, balsam oil, honey, oil and balm, etc.” צרי is known as “balsam” nowadays.

נכאת, according to Bereshit Rabbah 91,11 this is wax. In the same paragraph there דבש is understood as “hard as stone.” Rabbi Saadyah Gaon explains the word צרי, as Triaki, and נכאת as some kind of cabbage (cauliflower), and לוט as lotononis, something better known today as armon, chestnut.

בטנים, which are known in Arabic as piniulash. Apparently this nut was known in Spain as tzenuvar.

ושקדים, almonds, something familiar to all of us. In Bereshit Rabbah 91,11 both the words בטנים and שקדים are understood as referring to an ointment based on the oil of these nuts. [why would Yaakov send something as common as peanuts and almonds? Ed.]

וכסף משנה, and a second amount of money. The word משנה occurs in the same sense as here in Jeremiah 17,18 ומשנה שברון, “and shatter them with double destruction.” The vowel segol instead of tzeyreh in שני, indicates that the word is not in a construct mode.

אולי משגה הוא, perhaps one of the people selling the grain and filling the sacks of the buyers had mistakenly and temporarily put a bag of coins in the bag of the brothers forgetting about it and had not retrieved it. At the time when they counted the money to tally it with the quantity of grain sold, it had already been mixed up in the grain and there was no knowing where it had disappeared to. When you now bring it back, you will establish your reputation as being trustworthy by doing this.

ושלח, he will release Shimon to you from his imprisonment.

כאשר שכלתי שכלתי, seeing the subject matter is being repeated, Yaakov changed the wording he used, something that is standard procedure in Scriptures, as we pointed out previously. (21,1) The first word shakolti is from a passive mode, whereas the second word shakalti is an active mode. What he meant was: “what can I do if some mishap will befall one of you, just as I have already had to endure the bereavement of Joseph having been lost. I may have to make peace with the idea of losing anyone of you due to whatever mishap will befall him. [The first word refers to the past, when it had never occurred to Yaakov that something might happen to Joseph; hence it is described as something in which Yaakov views himself as having been totally passive. If something were to happen now, he could not view himself as a totally passive bystander, seeing he had agonised about the very fact that it might happen. Therefore, according to the author, the active mode is justified here. Ed.]

ויעמדו לפני יוסף, they encountered Joseph in the public square while on their way to the hotel. When Joseph saw them he did not offer any kind of greeting in public until they would be in his house. However, as soon as he saw them he instructed his servant, the one in charge of his household, to bring them to his private residence.

בצהרים. At midday, the hour of day at which princes, judges, the nobility, all people who look after public affairs consume their main meal, as we know from Kohelet 10,17 ושריך בעת יאכלו, “and your ministers eat at a proper time.” Joseph belonged to this category of people, seeing that all public affairs were under his control.

להתגולל עלינו, the reason he brought us to his private palace was in order to subject us to accusations concerning the money we were supposed to have stolen, something which he will use as a pretext להתנפל עלנו, to attack us seeing that he had been ill disposed against us from the beginning, when he had treated us as suspected spies. Now he will use the trumped up charges in order to keep us as slaves, a traditional punishment for thieves. He probably also wants to confiscate our donkeys What other reason could possibly account for his taking us to his private residence!

פתח הבית, in order that the people of Joseph’s household should not overhear them.

ויאמרו בי אדוני, we have a request; they then proceeded to explain to him what they had experienced with the money, and why they had brought this extra amount with them now.

מטמון, if you found this money in your sacks it was a gift from heaven, comparable to if a human being had given you a treasure. But as far as the money you owed for your purchases is concerned, כספכם בא אלי, “I did receive your money.”

Immediately after saying this, ויוצא, he gave instructions to have Shimon brought out to join them. He did this so promptly in order to allay their fears and suspicions and to comfort them.

ויבא, he escorted them inside from the entrance where they had been having the conversation.

ויכינו, they arranged the gifts they had brought in a manner that would look appropriately impressive by the time Joseph would come home.

כי שמעו, from the official in charge of Joseph’s palace that they were preparing the meal.

לחם, a term which is inclusive, meaning the entire meal.

ויבא...ויביאו, the letter א in the word ויביאו has a dagesh.

הביתה, to the house where they were being dined, for although they were also in the same “house,” they were not in the same compound. In the house or palace of an important personage there are many smaller separate buildings. The brothers at this time had been in one of the outer buildings, whereas Joseph occupied the inner palace, so that the line “they brought the gift they carried with them to the inner palace to him,” is quite justified.

ויקדו וישתחוו, when they prostrated themselves this was with the intention of making an obeisance to their father after whom Joseph had inquired (although outwardly, this was not noticeable).

וישא עיניו, seeing that they all surrounded him without any specific order of seniority, Joseph looked up in order to recognise his brother Binyamin, [who had only been about 10 years old at the time he had last seen him. Ed.]

יחנך בני; the word יחנך has the same meaning as if the Torah had written yechancha with a dagesh in the letter נ avoiding the doubling of the letter נ. The word has been written in the conjugation kal, something that occurs quite frequently when the root contains a dual consonant, i.e. חנן. We find exactly the same construction with our root in Isaiah 30,19 חנון יחנך.

נכמרו, as translated by Onkelos “his feelings of mercy had been aroused.”

וירחץ...ויתאפק; he managed to gain control of himself and to stop himself from weeping anymore.

וישימו לו לבדו, they served him separately as a symbol of his exalted position.

ולהם לבדם, ולמצרים לבדם, and the brothers separately, and the Egyptians separately again, כי לא יוכלון, for the Hebrews were eating meat, as we know from the instructions to slaughter meat which had been issued in verse 15. Egyptians did not eat sheep or goats, and the only reason they raised these animals was for their wool and their milk. [According to Rashi and evidence cited in Torah Shleymah 92,5, the reason why the Egyptians did not eat sheep was that they considered sheep a deity, and it was inconceivable for them to consume their deities.]

וישבו לפניו, in the order in which Joseph had given instructions to seat them.

הבכור כבכורתו ויתמהו, the oldest in accordance with his seniority etc. They were amazed. They could not explain to themselves how Joseph had known their respective ages seeing that only seven years separated all of them from the oldest except for Binyamin, whom they had described as the youngest so that Joseph knew about him. According to Bereshit Rabbah 92,5 Joseph had made a great pretense of consulting the goblet he used to drink from to determine the seating arrangement to correspond with their importance. He would claim that seeing that Yehudah was destined to become a king, he should sit at the head of the brothers. Reuven who was the biological senior of the brothers should sit next to Yehudah. He would continue in this fashion, explaining the reason why he had chosen to seat the brothers in the sequence he assigned to them. When he came to Binyamin, he said: “seeing that I have no mother and he has no mother let him sit closest to me.” No wonder that the brothers were utterly confused by this.

וישא, the person who handed out the gifts. We find a similar construction where the subject is presumed without being named or being specifically referred to in 48,2 when Yaakov is informed that Joseph is about to visit him. The Torah there also uses the impersonal ויגד, “someone told,” without bothering to inform the reader who it was that informed Yaakov. All this friendliness which Joseph displayed during the meal was intended to contrast with the manner in which they, the brothers would do everything in their power to cause him anguish and discomfort prior to the time when they had sold him. He displayed especial fondness for Binyamin because he had been forced to come to Egypt on account of what must have seemed like his caprice, and to compensate him for having been separated from his father for no apparent reason. At least, these were some of the thoughts which the brothers thought of to explain Joseph’s strange behaviour.