Genesis 44:2

2 And my cup--the cup of silver--you shall put into the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and the money for his grain. And he did according to the word of Joseph that he had commanded.

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 Then he commanded [the one] who [was] over his household, saying, "Fill the sacks of the men [with] food as much as they are able to carry, and put each one's money in the mouth of his sack.
2 And my cup--the cup of silver--you shall put into the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and the money for his grain. And he did according to the word of Joseph that he had commanded.
3 [When] the morning light [came] the men were sent away, they and their donkeys.
4 They went out of the city, [and] had not gone far when Joseph said to [the one] who [was] over his house, "Arise! Pursue after the men and overtake them. Then you shall say to them, 'Why have you repaid evil for good?
5 Is this not that from which my master drinks? Now he himself certainly practices divination with it. You have done evil [in] what you have done.'"
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