ושים כסף איש בפי אמתחתו, and inform them about it, so that they will realise that I am trying to compensate them for the anguish to which I have subjected them.

תשים בפי אמתחת הקטן, in order to test how the brothers would react to Binyamin becoming involved as the victim of a potentially life-threatening accusation, and what the brothers would do in order to save him.

הלא זה אשר ישתה אדוני בו?, He spoke to them as if they all knew that the goblet in question was Joseph’s special goblet.

למה ידבר אדוני כדברים האלה?, as if he were suspecting all of us?

גם עתה כדבריכם כן הוא. Even though now, in this instance the argument you cite is logical, correct, but in this special circumstance, the goblet in question belonging to the king, a man who has treated you well by giving back all your money in your sacks, the fact is that האיש אש אתו ימצא הגביע הוא יהיה לי עבד, and not all of you. Even this individual will not be sentenced to death as would be required if we applied the law in all its strictness.

ואתם תהיו נקיים. You will both be free from becoming slaves or any other form of punishment.

What is this deed. It was not only wicked but foolish as well, because I am an expert diviner.

What shall we say. What can we say in response?

מה נדבר? What can we possibly say in justification? How could we prove that we did not do what you accuse us of?

How can we justify ourselves. How can we prove that we have been framed?

God has found the iniquity. Hashem is punishing us not for this deed, of which we are innocent, but for a much earlier crime

It would be degrading for me. I do not wish to be the instrument of chastisement for your earlier crimes because Hashem uses the wicked for that purpose; see I Shemuel 24:14.

ויגש אליו. ידבר נא עבדך דבר. After you yourself have said (verse 17) that you do not want to do anything which would pervert justice,

ידבר נא עבדך, let me explain to you what unfairness and perversion of justice would result from the course of action you plan.

ואל יחר אפך, and do not become angry when I tell you that you will be guilty of this perversion of justice unwittingly.

כי כמוך כפרעה, the fact that I address my words to you is not to be considered personally, as I address them to you in your capacity of representing Pharaoh himself.

ואביו אהבו, more than he loves all (any) of us combined. Therefore he did not allow him to come to Egypt the first time we came here in order to buy food for our families. The reason was not that we came on a spying mission, as you appear to have thought

ואשימה עיני עליו. There was therefore no reason why his father should be concerned that he would not be allowed to return home.

לא יוכל הנער לעזוב את אביו, from the moment he will have left his father, he will pine for his father and become sick or die. Furthermore,

ועזב את אביו ומת, also his father will die without question if the lad leaves him.

אם לא ירד, even though you have heard our true arguments against our bringing him here, you insisted as a form of punishment that we bring him with us on penalty of not getting food.

ונגד לו את דברי אדוני, even after haring that you insisted that we bring him here, our father still refused to let him go with us

שובו שברו לנו; due to the severity of the famine we forced our father to send the lad. In spite of the duress he was under he warned us that if we would not bring him back this would be the death of him and he would go to his grave in deep sorrow

ועתה כבואי....והורידו עבדיך, after he had warned us, if anything were to happen to him it would no longer be considered an accident but we would be given the blame having been warned not to take him along. A similar consideration is mentioned in Isaiah 48,5 under the heading of בטרם תבא השמעתיך פן תאמר עצבי עשם, “therefore I told you long beforehand, announced things before they happened, that you might not say: “my idol caused them.”

כי עבדך ערב, the reason why he would die as soon as the lad did not return without even asking what happened to him is because I have guaranteed the safe return of the lad. As soon as he would notice that that I did not bring him back, he would automatically assume that something fatal had happened to him, and that I had been unable to make good on my vow on account of that.

ועתה ישב נא עבדך תחת הנער, therefore I beg you to let me be the slave in lieu of the lad so that I will not have to remain a sinner against my father for the rest of my life.

כי איך אעלה, even though I know he will be pained by my failing to return it is better for me not to have to watch him in his anguish