Genesis 44:2

2 Put my silver cup in the sack of the youngest brother, along with his money for the grain." The servant did what Joseph told him.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Genesis 44:2 In-Context

1 Then Joseph gave a command to the servant in charge of his house. He said, "Fill the men's sacks with as much grain as they can carry, and put each man's money into his sack with the grain.

2 Put my silver cup in the sack of the youngest brother, along with his money for the grain." The servant did what Joseph told him.

3 At dawn the brothers were sent away with their donkeys.

4 They were not far from the city when Joseph said to the servant in charge of his house, "Go after the men. When you catch up with them, say, 'Why have you paid back evil for good?

5 The cup you have stolen is the one my master uses for drinking and for explaining dreams. You have done a very wicked thing!'"