John Gill Commentary Genesis 44

And he commanded the steward of his house Whom the Targum of Jonathan again calls Manasseh, the eldest son of Joseph:

saying, fill the men's sacks [with] food, as much as they can carry; this he ordered out of his great affection for them, and that his father and his family might have sufficient supply in this time of famine:

and put every man's money in his sack's mouth; not that which had been put into their sacks the first time, for the steward acknowledged his receipt of it, but what they had paid for their present corn, they were about to carry away.

And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the
youngest Benjamin; this he ordered to be done, partly to put him in apparent danger, and try how his brethren would behave towards him in such circumstances, and thereby know how they stood affected to him; and partly that he might have an excuse for retaining him with him. This cup was valuable both for the matter of it, being of silver, and for the use of it, being what Joseph himself drank out of: and by the word used to express it, it seems to have been a large embossed cup, a kind of goblet, for it has the signification of a little hill. Jarchi says it was a long cup, which they called "mederno". The Septuagint render it by "condy", which is said to be a Persian word, and a kind of an Attalic cup, that held ten cotylae ^F7 , or four or five quarts, and weighed ninety ounces; but a cup so large seems to be too large to drink out of:

and his corn money ;
what he had paid for his corn: and he did according to the word that Joseph had spoke ;
put every man's money in the mouth of his sack, and his silver cup with the corn money into Benjamin's sack.

FOOTNOTES:

• F7: Nicomachus de festis Aegypt. apud Athenaeum, l. 11. c. 7.

As soon as the morning was light
When it was break of day, before the sun rose: the men were sent away, they and their asses ;
the men being refreshed with food, and their asses having provender given them, and saddled and loaded, they were handsomely and honourably dismissed.

[And] when they were gone out of the city, [and] not [yet] far
off
Which perhaps was Tanis, the Zoan of the Scriptures; see (Ezekiel 30:14) , margin; Joseph said unto his steward, up, follow after the men ;
who no doubt was ready provided with men and horses, to go out and pursue when Joseph should give the orders, he being privy to Joseph's intentions, and with whom the scheme was concerted, and the secret was.
Joseph appears to have been up very early this morning, and had observed the exact time of his brethren's departure, and guessed whereabouts they might be when he sent his steward, and others after them; for it can hardly be thought he was sent alone after eleven men, and to charge them with a theft, and bring them back again:

and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, wherefore have you
rewarded evil for good ?
in taking away the silver cup, when they had been so kindly and bountifully entertained.
This he was to represent as base ingratitude, as it would have appeared, had it been fact.
In much such manner was Esop used by the inhabitants of Delphos; they, being displeased with him, put a sacred cup or vial into his bags, which he, being ignorant of, went on his way towards Phocis; and they ran after him, and seized him, and charged him with sacrilege ^F8 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: Scholia ad Vespes Aristophanis, p. 534. Ed. Genev. 1607.

[Is] not this [it], in which my lord drinketh
Which was for his own particular use, and so the more ungrateful in them to take it, and whereby indeed he divines ?
according to our version and others, Joseph is here represented by his steward as a diviner or soothsayer, and so he might be thought to be by the Egyptians, from being such an exact interpreter of dreams, foretelling things to come, and that he made his divinations by the silver cup; and we are told that the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, used to fill basins with water, in which they put plates of silver and precious stones, marked with certain characters, and pronouncing certain words, called to the devil, who uttered a voice in the water like an hissing, and returned answers to the things inquired about ^F9 : a like practice is used by the Africans now ^F11 ; which method Andronicus took to know who would be his successor, but was reckoned among the most infamous and scandalous parts of the magic art ^F12 wherefore, as Joseph never practised any thing of this kind, so neither would he dissemble, or make as if he did; though it must be owned that the Arabs ^F13 in Egypt at this day pretend to consult with the cup and divine by it: but the words will bear another version and sense, for it may signify to tempt, to try, to make an experiment, and by experience to know a thing, as in (Genesis 30:27) ; and so the Arabic version, "and indeed he has tried you by it": so Aben Ezra interprets it of his trying of them by it, whether they were thieves or not, whether they were a parcel of light fingered filching fellows: the cup, he pretends, was set before them, and he turned himself another way, either Joseph or the steward, and they took the opportunity of carrying it off; or else, as others think, he tried them by drinking in it very freely and liberally, what sort of men they were, how they would behave themselves in their cups, when truth is commonly spoke, the wit being out when the wine is in: but of these two senses the former is to be preferred;

though it seems best of all to understand this not of the cup as the instrument by which he tried, searched, and inquired into things, but as the object searched after and inquired of; for the word signifies to inquire, and make a strict observation of things, and thereby make shrewd guesses and conjectures, as in (1 Kings 20:33) ; and so the sense is, either according to R. Jonah ^F14, that his master would diligently inquire of the soothsayers concerning it, in order to find out who took it away, and so Ben Melech; for the words may be rendered, "for which he certainly makes", or has made, or will make "divination", which agrees with (Genesis 44:15) ; for if the cup was gone, how could he make divination with it? it must be for it; or indeed they might well conclude themselves, that as such a thing would soon be missed, diligent inquiry would be made after it, and it would be at once conjectured that it was taken away, not by any of the household, but by those strangers that had dined with Joseph; and a man of his sagacity and penetration would soon find it out, and therefore it was madness and folly to do such an action, and think to get off clear:

you have done evil in so doing :
both a mad and foolish action, and a base, wicked, and ungrateful one, as well as what was infamous and scandalous; for nothing was reckoned more so than for a guest at a prince's table to carry away a cup, or anything of that kind, with him: so Claudius the Roman emperor, a guest of his, the day before, having taken away a golden cup, as was supposed, ordered an earthen one to be put in its place ^F15 , which was a putting him to public shame and reproach: Dioxippus the Athenian, being at table with Alexander the great, a golden cup was taken away privately, by some that envied him; and the hint being given as if he had done it, all eyes were turned on him as the thief, which he could not bear, but went out, and wrote a letter to the king, and then killed himself ^F16 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F9: Julius Serenus de fato, l. 9. c. 18. apud Rivet. Exercit. 165. p. 808.
• F11: R. Leo. African. Descriptio Africae, l. 3. p. 335.
• F12: Nic. Choniates in Andronico, l. 2.
• F13: Norden's Travels in Egypt, vol. 2. p. 150.
• F14: Apud Aben Ezram in loc.
• F15: Suetonius in Vita Claudii, c. 32.
• F16: Curtii Hist. l. 9. c. 7.