שובו שברו לנו, for he thought that their intent in wanting to take Binyamin with them was in order to lose him as they had lost Joseph. He had previously accused them of bereaving him (deliberately) when he had said (42,36) אותי שכלתם, “you have bereaved me,” (transitive active conjugation). He meant to deny that what they had told him at the time had been the truth.

ונחיה, a reference to the food.

ולא נמות, as a result of actions taken by the ruler of Egypt who had told us “so that the truth of your words can be established and you will not die.” (42,20)

כי לולא התמהמנו, the reason I volunteered to consider myself as having sinned against you forever if I fail to bring back Binyamin is only because it is absolutely clear to me that if we had not procrastinated ever since we told you what the man had said to us, or since we ran out of food,

כי עתה שבנו זה פעמים, we could have been back already twice for the man would not have detained us at all, seeing that he described himself as G’d-fearing. He would not continue to harass us once he realised that we had told him the truth.

אם כן, if the matter is indeed as you have said that although the man harassed you he is a G’d-fearing individual,

איפוא, then it is quite clear what you have to do;

קחו מזמרת הארץ מעט צרי, although when one presents a gift to an ordinary person it is important to impress him with the quantity of the gift so that he can feast his eyes on it, this man who has everything will only be impressed with the quality of the gift instead of the quantity; therefore take rare items but only in appropriately small quantities to emphasise their rareness. All the items sent to Joseph were of this nature, as opposed to the gift Yaakov had sent to his brother Esau on a previous occasion.

הורידוהו לאיש מנחה, before you will actually meet him face to face again. This will enable you to judge if he receives your gift with goodwill. If he does, you will have reason to be confident that he will receive you also with goodwill. This thought has also been expressed in Judges 13,23 when the wife of Manoach, in trying to calm her husband’s fears, said to him: “if G’d had wanted to kill us He would not have accepted our burnt-offering and our gift-offering first.” After this conversation,

וקומו שובו אל האיש, you will have to face the man on the strength of the gift which has preceded you. The matter is as stated in Proverbs 17,8 אבן חן השחד בעיני בעליו אל כל אשר יפנה ישכיל, “a bribe seems like charm to its owner. Wherever he turns he seems to prosper

ויעמדו לפני יוסף. This was before the gift had been presented to Joseph. Therefore they were afraid when they were being brought into his palace.

ויאמר לאשר על ביתו, he himself did not want to speak to his brothers until all the other people present had left the room, in order for him to have more time to speak to them.

הבא את האנשים הביתה, into the living quarters as opposed to the offices reserved for official functions. Up until now Joseph had been in a location where he conducted state business.

כי אתי יאכלו, he invited them to a meal in order to observe how they related to Binyamin, and to test them how they would react when he would shower gifts of so much greater value on Binyamin

כספנו במשקלו, not only the same amount of money, but the identical coins which we had brought here. This is why we did not think that there had been a mix up with other people’s money.

השלום? is he well (healthy) in body? Physical health consists of opposite forces in the body being in perfect balance with one another. [hence the word שלום, “being at peace, being in perfect harmony,” is an acceptable word for describing physical health. Ed.]

אביכם הזקן אשר אמרתם, I am asking, seeing that it is not frequent that aged people are in physically good health. Our sages already stated that “the lips of the aged have a tendency to become worn out and their ears to become hard of hearing.”

שלום לעבדך לאבינו עודנו חי, also your servant our father is well. He does not enjoy the serenity of the dead but he is still very much alive.

ויקדו וישתחוו, in acknowledgement of the kind inquiry after their father’s well being.

Elokim be gracious. Since you are the only remaining son of your mother, as the brother’s had told him (see 44:20), may Hashem give you grace so that your brothers will feel affection towards you.

ויבך שמה, while he was thinking of the anguish his father and his brothers had experienced all these years

וישימו לו לבדו, in order that his brothers should not notice that he too was a Hebrew.

כי לא יוכלון המצרים, this is why he did not eat together with his brothers, and neither he nor his brothers ate with the Egyptians.

ותרב משאת בנימין, to see if the brothers would display signs of jealousy.

חמש ידות, five fold; the brothers would be served one serving each for every two of them, whereas Binyamin was given a portion equal in size to the portions served to each set of two brothers. This was Joseph’s way of showing that he considered Binyamin as equal to all of them combined. [the author was at pains to justify why Joseph gave Binyamin five times as much, not 4 times or 6 times, for instance. Ed.]

וישכרו עמו, they were being served the kind of wines drunk by Royalty, something they were not used to, so that it made them drunk. They were careless in not leaving over some of the first kind of wine served them as was the custom for anyone invited to dine with Royalty. Compare Proverbs 23,1 כי תשב ללחום את מושל בין תבין את אשר לפניך, “when you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider well who is before you.”