למה תתראו?, the use of the conjugation hitpael, the reflexive conjugation here, is similar to its use in Kings II 14,8 לכה ונתראה, “come let us confront one another!” At that time King Amatziah wanted to show off his power to Yoash, King of Israel (10 tribes). Here too, Yaakov’s question למה תתראו, meant: “why are you (my sons) conducting yourselves in front of the other people in this land as if you had all the food in the world, whereas only they have to travel to Egypt to buy rations from there?

מאין באתם?; he pretended not to know who they were.

והם לא הכירוהו. Joseph had grown a beard, something, which at 17, when they had last seen him, he had not yet had. Furthermore, the Royal garments were something they would not have associated with their brother. They did not recognise his voice either, as they had never heard him speak Egyptian. Joseph made sure that there was always an interpreter between him and his brothers as we know from verse 23.

ערות, places where the walls were breached, areas from which it would be relatively easy to invade the country. The word ערוה is used in this sense in Chabakuk 3,13 ערות יסוד, “revealing its very foundations.” Another verse in which the word ערוה appears in a similar sense as here is Psalms 137,7 ערו ערו עד היסוד, as well as Isaiah 19,7 ערות על היאור”whatever is by the side of the Nile will be blown away, will vanish.” The fact that all the brothers were of exceptional build, always went everywhere together, made them distinctly different from other travelers so that Joseph pointed to that fact as being suspicious and accused them of being spies.

כולנו בני איש אחד נחנו, this is why we always keep together, not because we are spies.

ויאמר אליהם לא, כי ערות הארץ באתם לראות, if it were as you said, how could you not even leave one of you at home to attend to the needs of your father? Joseph said all this in order to find out if his full brother Binyamin was alive. As a result of his probing they elaborated that in fact they were a total of twelve brothers, one, the youngest having remained at home and one having been lost. They did not know his whereabouts or if he was even alive. We know that there were several questions and answers as when the brothers returned home and their father was reprimanding them for volunteering uncalled for information about their family status, they replied that the “man” had kept asking more and more questions. (compare 43,7)

הצרה הזאת, tit for tat. We threw Joseph into a pit, now we have been thrown into jail.

כי שומע יוסף, he understands, [not only hears. Ed.]

(2) WHEN ["KI"]. Up until now.

כי המליץ בינותם, as if Joseph could not understand otherwise what they had been saying.

את שמעון. In order to separate him from Levi, so that the two between them would not hatch a plot to cause major damage as they had done in Shechem at the time.

מה זאת עשה, how can this be a retribution by G’d in the nature of “tit for tat,” that He has added money for us!? How could we profit by our sin to become enriched by it?

כספיהם, seeing that the letter ס in the word כספיהם “swallows” the otherwise necessary chataf patach under it, the letter פ, normally weak, without the dagesh, has been given a dagesh in this instance. A similar example of this construction is found in the relationship of נסך, nessech, and נסכיהם, nisskeyhem.