Genesis 44:2

2 and put euery mans money in his bagge mouth and put my syluer cuppe in the sackes mouth of the yongest and his corne money also. And he dyd as Ioseph had sayde.

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 And he commaunded the rueler of his house saynge: fyll the mens sackes with food as moch as they can carie

2 and put euery mans money in his bagge mouth and put my syluer cuppe in the sackes mouth of the yongest and his corne money also. And he dyd as Ioseph had sayde.

3 And in ye mornynge as soone as it was lighte the me were let goo with their asses.

4 And when they were out of the cytie and not yet ferre awaye Ioseph sayde vnto the ruelar of his house: vp and folowe after the men and ouertake them and saye vnto them: wherefore haue ye rewarded euell for good?

5 is that not the cuppe of which my lorde drynketh ad doth he not prophesie therin? ye haue euell done that ye haue done.