Genesis 44:2

2 scyphum autem meum argenteum et pretium quod dedit tritici pone in ore sacci iunioris factumque est ita

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 praecepit autem Ioseph dispensatori domus suae dicens imple saccos eorum frumento quantum possunt capere et pone pecuniam singulorum in summitate sacci
2 scyphum autem meum argenteum et pretium quod dedit tritici pone in ore sacci iunioris factumque est ita
3 et orto mane dimissi sunt cum asinis suis
4 iamque urbem exierant et processerant paululum tum Ioseph arcessito dispensatore domus surge inquit persequere viros et adprehensis dicito quare reddidistis malum pro bono
5 scyphum quem furati estis ipse est in quo bibit dominus meus et in quo augurari solet pessimam rem fecistis
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.