Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Forty-four
Synopsis of the Chapter
Joseph orders his cup to be secretly put in Benjamin’s sack. Hence he demands Benjamin as a thief to be his slave; in his place Judah, verse 18, offers himself into slavery.
1. And Joseph commanded the steward of his house, saying: Fill their sacks with corn, as much as they can hold; and put the money of each in the top of his sack. 2. And in the youngest’s sack put my silver cup, and the price which he gave for the wheat. And it was so done. 3. And when the morning arose, they were sent away with their asses. 4. And when they were now departed out of the city, and had gone a little way, Joseph sending for the steward of his house, said: Arise, and follow after the men; and when you have overtaken them, say to them: Why have you returned evil for good? 5. The cup which you have stolen is that in which my lord drinks, and in which he is wont to divine: you have done a very evil thing. 6. He did as he had commanded. And having overtaken them, he spoke to them in order. 7. And they answered: Why does our lord speak so, as if your servants had committed so heinous a fault? 8. The money that we found in the top of our sacks, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan: how then should it follow that we have stolen out of your lord’s house gold or silver? 9. With whomsoever of your servants that which you seek shall be found, let him die, and we will be the bondmen of our lord. 10. And he said to them: Let it be according to your sentence: with whomsoever it shall be found, let him be my servant, and you shall be blameless.
11. Then they made haste to take down their sacks to the ground, and they opened them every man. 12. And when he had searched, beginning at the eldest and ending at the youngest, he found the cup in Benjamin’s sack. 13. But they, rending their garments, and loading their asses again, returned into the town. 14. And Judah at the head of his brethren went in to Joseph (for he was not yet gone out of the place), and they all together fell down before him on the ground. 15. And he said to them: Why would you do so? Do you not know that there is no one like me in the knowledge of divining? 16. And Judah said to him: What shall we answer my lord? or what shall we say, or be able justly to allege? God has found out the iniquity of your servants: behold, we are all bondmen to my lord, both we, and he with whom the cup was found. 17. Joseph answered: God forbid that I should do so; he that stole the cup, let him be my bondman: and you go away free to your father. 18. Then Judah coming nearer, said boldly: I beseech you, my lord, let your servant speak a word in your ears, and be not angry with your servant: for you are next to Pharaoh, 19. my lord. You asked your servants before: Have you a father, or a brother? 20. And we answered you, my lord: We have a father, an old man, and a young boy, who was born in his old age: whose brother by the same mother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him tenderly. 21. And you said to your servants: Bring him to me, and I will set my eyes upon him. 22. We suggested to my lord: The boy cannot leave his father: for if he leave him, he will die. 23. And you said to your servants: Unless your youngest brother come with you, you shall see my face no more. 24. When therefore we had gone up to your servant our father, we told him all that my lord had said. 25. And our father said: Go again, and buy us a little wheat. 26. And we said to him: We cannot go; if our youngest brother go down with us, we will set out together: otherwise, without him, we dare not see the face of the man. 27. To which he answered: You know that my wife bore me two. 28. One went out, and you said: A beast has devoured him; and he has not appeared hitherto. 29. If you take this one also, and anything befall him in the way, you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to hell. 30. If therefore I go to your servant our father, and the boy be wanting (seeing that his life depends upon the life of this one), 31. and he see that he is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down his grey hairs with sorrow to hell. 32. Let me be your servant in particular, who took him upon my trust, and promised, saying: If I bring him not again, I will be guilty of sin against my father for ever. 33. So I, your servant, will stay instead of the boy in the service of my lord, and let the boy go up with his brethren. 34. For I cannot return to my father without the boy, lest I be a witness of the calamity that will oppress my father.
2. THE CUP, etc., PUT IN THE MOUTH OF THE YOUNGEST’S SACK—Benjamin’s. Joseph did this in order to test thereby the minds of his brothers, whether they envied Benjamin as the son of Rachel, and as one who at the banquet had received portions five times greater; so that, if he should perceive this envy through the brothers’ silence and neglect of Benjamin, he might keep him with himself, lest the brothers should contrive something against him on the road, as they had once done against himself. But if they should show brotherly love by their anxiety and care to free him, he would send him away with them. So Philo, Josephus, St. Chrysostom and Theodoret.
5. THE CUP WHICH YOU HAVE STOLEN.—Note: Joseph could justly punish his brothers by striking this fear and terror into them, on account of the crime committed against himself, so that, being brought back to themselves by this affliction, they might acknowledge their sin, as in fact they did, says St. Augustine. But he could not thus afflict Benjamin. Hence this accusation of the theft of the cup, laid against him, was slight and venial; but it was contrived for Benjamin’s good, as I said at verse 2, and it lasted but a short time, which he soon made up for, by revealing himself, with the greatest joy and the greatest kindnesses. It was also a lie here; for Joseph did not say this by way of testing and questioning, as he said that other in chapter 42, verse 9, but by asserting it outright. Yet it was a jocular lie, not a harmful one.
As for what St. Augustine, Question 125, tries to do in excusing Joseph from lying, understand it of a serious and harmful lie.
Symbolically, as Joseph played with Benjamin, whom at the beginning he pretended he wished to press and bind as a thief, but afterwards showed that it was all done in jest, and embracing him preferred him to the rest of his brothers; so God deals with the humble: he suffers them to be despised, afflicted and vexed; but if they bear it humbly and patiently, he will caress them and raise them up, that they may become the more glorious the more abject they were.
The humility of God is therefore a game.
AND IN WHICH HE IS WONT TO DIVINE.—The Septuagint: in which he divines by augury.
Rabbi Kimchi therefore wrongly translates: for which he consulted soothsayers. Julius Firmicus, book 9, On Fate, chapter 7, relates that the Egyptians and Assyrians used to fill basins (and cups too, as it seems) with water, then call up a demon with certain words, and then the demon, like a hiss, gave out answers from the waters to the things about which he was consulted. Again, the demon would then form in the water the likeness or image of the thing, or of the author of the thing, which was sought, just as our diviners now represent and reveal in water, by their incantations, the author of a theft. You will say: does Joseph then here profess himself such a magician and diviner? Calvin affirms it, and therefore asserts that Joseph here sinned by grave dissimulation against religion. But who would believe this of Joseph, who was a most pious and holy prophet? St. Augustine therefore answers that Joseph speaks here not seriously but in jest; for he seems to speak so in verse 15. Second, Theodoret holds that Joseph speaks by way of question, not assertion. Third, St. Thomas holds that Joseph speaks not from his own opinion but from that of the Egyptians, who really thought Joseph to be a diviner. But these do not satisfy this verse and its context.
I say therefore that for “to divine” the Hebrew is nachas, which signifies to foretell and to divine, either by augury or by natural sagacity, that is, to conjecture, to search into and to track out. Hence the Chaldee and Aben-Ezra translate: to prove. Joseph therefore, by this cup, when offering wine to his guests, divined naturally and explored the temperance, prudence and secrets of the heart of his guests (for in wine is truth), and here he was exploring what the disposition of the brothers was towards Benjamin, as I said at verse 2. Yet he let his brothers be deceived, so that they might think him truly and properly a diviner, and therefore he used an ambiguous word.
Thus Pliny takes augury for conjecture, book 7, in the letter to Cornelius Tacitus, when he says:
“I divine, and my augury does not deceive me, that your histories will be immortal.”
Thus Aristotle, Problems, section 33, calls sneezing a sacred augury of the health of the head, because it is a sign that the head
15. THAT THERE IS NO ONE LIKE ME IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF DIVINING.—“Of divining,” that is, of divining and conjecturing; for the Hebrew is nachas, as I said at verse 5; as if to say: Since Pharaoh and all Egypt acknowledge and honour me as a diviner, that is, a prophet and soothsayer, how did you alone think that in this theft you could escape the notice of me and my divination?
16. GOD HAS FOUND OUT OUR SIN.—Some, with St. Augustine, understand the sin of the sale of Joseph; as if to say: Because we sold Joseph into slavery, therefore we are now justly subjected to slavery. Judah may have felt this in his heart, but outwardly he does not speak to Joseph himself of this sin, but of the sin of the theft of the cup; for of that Joseph was accusing them; hence Judah answered concerning the same, acknowledging it. Judah seems therefore to have supposed and suspected that Benjamin had truly stolen the cup, especially since Benjamin, when found out, was silent and did not defend himself. Or at any rate, in a doubtful and uncertain matter Judah preferred to ascribe the sin to his brother, and humbly to beg pardon, and so to soften Joseph’s anger, rather than to stir it up the more by excusing Benjamin, and by throwing the blame, expressly or tacitly, back upon Joseph and his servants, charging them with fraud, deceit and false accusation. For from the fact that the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack there was a presumption of theft against Benjamin. So Abulensis. Truly says St. Augustine, Sentence 118: “Better is confession in evils than proud boasting in good things.”
Why, when asked what a man should above all accuse himself of, the Anchorite answered, “Always,” is attested by Blessed Dorotheus, teaching 7. So St. Catherine of Siena and other humble and illustrious Saints, at all the evils that befell themselves, their neighbours or the commonwealth, were wont to say: “This evil has happened by my fault.”
20. HIS MOTHER HAS HIM ALONE—he alone survives of his mother; the Hebrew is, he remained alone of his mother, which can also be said of a dead mother: for Rachel, the mother of Benjamin, was already dead.
21. I WILL SET MY EYES UPON HIM—I will look kindly upon him, I will be kindly to him, I will favour and cherish him; hence the Septuagint translate: I will take care of him.
30. SOUL—the father’s life depends on the son’s life; for if the son die or be taken away, the father will die of grief.
32. I, PARTICULARLY—I am your own servant, who, both in strength and in experience of affairs, shall be more useful to you than the boy Benjamin.