Genesis 43:20

20 And they said, "Please, my lord, we surely came down once before to buy food,

Genesis 43:20 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 43:20

And said, O sir
Or, "on me, my lord" ^F1, one said in the name of the rest, perhaps Judah, on me let the blame lie, if guilty of rudeness in making our address to thee; or as the Vulgate Latin version, "we pray, sir, that thou wouldest hear us"; and so Jarchi and Aben Ezra say the phrase is expressive of beseeching, entreating, and supplicating: we came indeed down at the first time to buy food;
not to spy the land but to buy corn, and not to get it by fraud or tricking but by paying for it the price that was required.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 (ynda yb) "in me Domine mi", Montanus.

Genesis 43:20 In-Context

18 And the men were afraid when they were brought into the house of Joseph. And they said "We were brought [here] on account of the money that was returned to our sacks the first time, that he might attack us and fall upon us to take us as slaves with our donkeys."

19 So they approached the man who [was] over Joseph's house and spoke to him at the doorway of the house.

20 And they said, "Please, my lord, we surely came down once before to buy food,

21 but when we came to the place of lodging and we opened our sacks, then behold, each one's money [was] in the mouth of his sack--our money in its [full] weight--so we have returned [with] it in our hands.

22 Now, other money we have brought down in our hand to buy food. We do not know who put our money in our sacks."