נרדה ונשברה, “let us go down and buy grain, etc.” The extra letters ה at the end of נרדה and נשברה respectively, are meant to indicate that the brothers were willing to travel to Egypt repeatedly in order to buy supplies, but that they would not even go a single time unless Yaakov now sent Binyamin with them.

מעט צרי ומעט דבש, “a little balsam and a little honey.” In order that you should not give the impression that you are wealthy.

ושלח לכם את אחיכם אחר, “so that he will release your other brother to you.” According to Bereshit Rabbah, 82 the word אחיכם in our verse refers to Joseph, whereas the word אחר refers to Shimon, seeing that while praying, Yaakov had avoided concentrating on a specific one of the brothers, thus leaving open the possibility that Joseph might still be alive. Nachmanides, approaching the verse by concentrating on the plain text, פשט, writes that the words are all meant to apply to Shimon. The reason that Yaakov did not refer to him by name was that he was out of favour on account of his having initiated the killing of the male population of the city of Shechem and the plundering of it. It seems clear that if Shimon’s family had not needed bread desperately, Yaakov would not have allowed Binyamin to travel to Egypt and he would have made no attempt to obtain his release at this time. Bereshit Rabbah 82 also sees allusions to the eventual exile in this verse, and when Yaakov speaks about the “G’d Shaddai invoking the attribute of mercy when the brothers would face the האיש,” this is a veiled reference to the Almighty. After all, one of the attributes of G’d is that He is איש מלחמה, “a Man of war.” The words ושלח לכם את אחיכם would refer to the return from exile of the lost Ten Tribes, whereas the words אחר ואת בנימיןrefer to the tribes of Binyamin and Yehudah. The words ואני כאשר שכולתי שכלתיrefer to the destruction of the first and the second Temple, respectively. The thrust of the whole episode, according to the Midrash, is that what is being narrated here is a preview of the Jewish historical experience in years to come, i.e. מעשה אבות סימן לבנים, the experiences of our forefathers, the patriarchs and their families, foreshadow the course of Jewish history, and their exile, especially by the descendants of the Edomites.

אני כאשר שכולתי שכלתי, “and as for me, as I have been bereaved, I shall be bereaved.” Rashi comments that what Yaakov meant was that he would feel conditionally bereaved of Binyamin until the brothers’ safe return from Egypt just as he was feeling bereaved concerning Joseph and Shimon. Nachmanides writes that Yaakov, resignedly, said that the brothers could not make him feel any more bereaved than the feelings of bereavement he had already experienced and suffered. If fate were to cause him further bereavement, he would not have to come to terms with it as a novel experience.

ולקחת אותנו לעבדים ואת חמורינו, “and you may take us and our donkeys as servants.” They were worried- apparently disproportionately so, about their donkeys, as without their donkeys they had no means of transporting the grain they had bought to the land of Canaan.

בי אדוני, “please Sir;” Rashi understands the word בי as introducing a plea, an entreaty. Nachmanides disagrees, and considers the word as an outcry at being dealt with unjustly. He therefore understands the words as repeating the brother’s viewing the man in charge of Joseph’s residence as his master both in his personal estimation as well as in the estimation of that official himself vis-à-vis others. He describes his own station as well as that of the official; just as the official’s status is after all the king’s servant, so are they.. Ibn Ezra claims that the Torah chose to record an abbreviated version of the conversation, similar to Samuel ! 25,24 בי אני אדוני העון ותדבר נא, “let the blame be mine, my lord, but let me speak, etc.” Here too, the brothers said: ‘you may do with what you like, etc., but please hear us out.”

נתן לכם מטמון, “has given you a treasure;” possibly someone had hidden a treasure in the cushion of his sack, and he kept this in the cellar of his house with other sacks. When he left the house he forgot it so that you have become the beneficiaries. Nachmanides writes that Joseph’s official’s words, were intended only to reconcile the brothers to the fact that they had found their original money. Nobody in his right mind could ascribe the fact that all ten brothers had found precisely the same amount of money in each of their sacks to fate. Clearly, someone had deliberately placed those sums of money there. The truth is that anything hidden, concealed, unaccounted for, is called מטמון, the root of the word deriving from טמן, hide, secrete. All the grain buyers kept their money at the bottom of their sacks, and when the seller filled the sacks with grain he would first empty these sacks of the money at the bottom. This was an everyday occurrence at all the markets. Since the grain was sold in units of so many bushels per sack, every sack contained an equal amount of money at the bottom. The seller did not pour the grain into the sacks in the presence of the purchaser, every transaction being based on mutual trust. The queues of purchasers were long, the confusion and pressure considerable, so that the fastest most efficient way had to be devised to serve as many customers per day as was possible. Keeping all this in mind, what the official said to the brothers did not sound quite so implausible. When there were so many people to whom this money could have belonged, and there were no identifying marks on the money, the rule was: “finders keepers.”

השלום אביכם?, “is your father well?” Joseph referred to Yaakov.

הזקן, “the old man?” This was a reference to Yitzchok [who had been alive when Joseph had been abducted. Ed.]

שלום לעבדך לאבינו, “your servant, our father, is well.” They spoke only about Yaakov seeing that “הזקן” Yitzchok had died during the many years Joseph had been away from home. One does not answer a question dealing with something distressing.

וירא את בנימין אחיו בן אמו, “when he saw Binyamin, brother by his mother, etc.” Binyamin’s features reminded him of the looks of his mother sufficiently to recognise him by the resemblance. [Binyamin had only been 6-7 years old when Joseph had been sold. Ed.].

וישתו וישכרו עמו, “they drank with him and became drunk.” Joseph had planned to make them drunk so that they would not examine their sacks and bags before leaving, as they would be bound to do so as not have anything planted on them as had happened the first time. When they awoke late in the morning, he urged them to make haste and leave.