Genesis 44:2

2 Put my cup, the silver cup, on top of the youngest brother's sack, together with the silver for his grain." So he did just as Joseph told him to do.

Genesis 44:2 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 44:2

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 spoken;
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.

Genesis 44:2 In-Context

1 Joseph gave commands to his household manager: "Fill the men's sacks with as much food as they'll hold, and put each man's silver at the top of his sack.
2 Put my cup, the silver cup, on top of the youngest brother's sack, together with the silver for his grain." So he did just as Joseph told him to do.
3 At dawn, the men and their donkeys were sent off.
4 They had left the city but hadn't gone far when Joseph said to his household manager, "Get ready, go after the men and catch up with them! Ask them, ‘Why have you repaid hospitality with ingratitude?
5 Isn't this the cup my master drinks from and uses to discover God's plans? What you've done is despicable.'"
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