Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Genesis 44:12
And he searched, [and] began at the eldest, and left at the youngest: and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.
12. searched ] There is no mention of the money in the sacks’ mouths ( Gen 44:1). The interest centres on the cup. That the search is made in order of age is a dramatic touch adding to the excitement of the scene described, and probably carried out by the directions of Joseph himself, as if it might be assumed that the youngest was the least likely to be the thief. Cf. Gen 43:33.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Began at the eldest, to take off all their suspicion of his fraud.
The cup was found in Benjamins sack. He found doubtless the money there, but he accused them not about that matter, both because they had an answer ready to that charge from his own mouth, Gen 43:23, and because the greater crime, the stealing of the cup which Joseph so much prized and used, might seem to extinguish the less, or at least cause him to neglect it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And he searched,…. To the bottom of them, not content to look into the mouth of them being opened, but rummaged them, and searched deeply into them to find the cup, which was the thing charged upon them he was solicitous to find; as for the money in the sack’s mouth he took no notice of that, nor is there any mention of it:
[and] began at the oldest; at Reuben, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it: the steward might know their different ages in course, by the order in which they were placed at Joseph’s table when they dined with him:
and left off at the youngest; at Benjamin, he ended his scrutiny with him; this method he took partly to hold them in fear as long as he could, and partly to prevent any suspicion of design, which might have been entertained had he went directly to Benjamin’s sack:
and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack; where the steward himself had put it, and as it is usually said, they that hide can find.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Gen 44:12 And he searched, [and] began at the eldest, and left at the youngest: and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.
Ver. 12. And he searched, and began at the eldest. ] The better to avoid suspicion, for he knew well enough where to find the cup. So Jonadab, Amnon’s carnal friend but spiritual enemy, could tell David that not all the king’s sons, as the report ran, but Amnon only was slain by Absalom. The devil also when he hath conveyed his cups into our sacks, his goods into our houses, – as the Russians use to deal by their enemies, and then accuse them of theft, – his a injections into our hearts, if we fancy them never so little, will accuse us to God, and claim both them and us too for his own.
And the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.] Sacco soluto apparuit argentum, saith Ambrose. When God comes to turn the bottom of the bag upward, all will out. Sin not, therefore, in hope of secrecy; on the fair day, at the last day, all packs shall be opened.
a Heyl., Geog., p. 243.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
began: Gen 43:33
and the cup: Gen 44:26-32, Gen 42:36-38, Gen 43:14
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE CUP DISCOVERED
The cup was found in Benjamins sack.
Gen 44:12
The cup was discovered, and now the brethren, with heavy hearts, went back to Joseph. It must have seemed to them like an uneasy dream, though they could not foresee what the awaking would be. And then on their return, and when they stand in Josephs presence, Judah makes his defence of his brethren. It is a pathetic and a powerful speech, for out of the fulness of the heart the mouth is speaking. Its wisdom is shown in its silence about the cup; its earnestness in its unstudied simplicity. Dying Jacob had good reason to say, Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise (Gen 49:8). Should we not remember, too, what the New Testament writer tells us, that our Lord sprang out of Judah (Heb 7:14), for our Lord also, like Judah in this story, made intercession for the transgressors, and became surety for them?
I. First, then, let us note the strategy of love. Had Joseph willed it, nothing would have been easier than to have revealed himself to his brethren at the first. Indeed, we may wonder sometimes that at the very outset he did not speak one word and close the matter. But had he done so, we should have lost an exquisite story, and the loss would have left the world of childhood poorer; and had he done so, he could never have been certain of the tone and temper of his brothers hearts. All this delay and concealment and confusion was not the idle whim of a great potentate; far less was it the dark and cunning artifice that so often distinguishes oriental hate; the beauty of the strategy lay in this, that it was all the strategy of love, and was meant to discipline and to reveal the hearts that had played such a part of treachery at Dothan. In all true love there is strategy like that. There is no passion so ingenious as love. If God is love, and if God hideth Himself (Is. Gen 45:15), we may expect to light on love doing the same. And the reserve of love, and its sweet ingenuity, and its intermediate roughness before disclosure, are all intended (as were the plans of Joseph) to reveal the depths of the beloveds heart.
II. Next note how the brothers associate slavery and death with sin. When the steward overtook the brothers, and told them of the theft of Josephs cup, we can readily picture their utter incredulity that any of their number should be guilty. They protested that it was quite impossiblelet their own past conduct be taken as their witness; but then they added, With whomsoever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, and we also will be my lords bondmen (v. 9). Now that quick response is worthy of attention, for it sprang from the heart, and was ratified by all. And it implies that in these early ages, and when the light of heaven was but dimly shining, men had already grasped this fearful truth that salvery and death are linked with sin. They felt, though they could not have explained their feelings, that these were the penalties that must follow wrong-doing. And we need hardly be reminded that this dawning sense of the connection of slavery and death with sin, is insisted on, with awful emphasis, in the gospel that centres in the death on Calvary. One of the early fathers of the Church spoke of the mind being naturally Christian. He meant that there was that within the heart which responded to the appeal of revelation. And this is true, for the most mysterious doctrines that have been given us in the Gospel of Christ Jesus, come to us, somehow, in familiar garb, and are recognised in the secrets of the soul.
III. Next note how sin committed long ago will rise to trouble us. Amid the palaces of Egypt the memories of Dothan vividly revived. At home, in the quiet days of peace and plenty, it may be that Joseph was seldom thought upon. But famine came, and with the famine trouble, and all the dark experiences of Egypt, and the conscience of the brethren awoke, and they remembered the dark deed of long ago. Let none of us think that we can do that which is wrong, and then forget it absolutely and utterly. The whirligig of time brings its revenges, and the sin we thought to be dead is only sleeping. Sometimes it rises before us in our after days, as it rose before the brethren of Joseph; always it will rise up in that great hour when we shall be judged of the deeds done in the body. How wise it is, then, and what an urgent duty, to look (every day that we live) to Jesus crucified, and not only in song but in deed, to lay our sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God.
IV. Then, lastly, observe that the brothers were changed men. They were tried and tested, and were not found wanting. The stratagems of Joseph were rewarded, for he discovered all that he longed to find. At Dothan they had betrayed their brotherJoseph had been deserted there. Were the men still unchanged, and would they now desert Benjamin? And would they go home once more with some trumped-up story to Jacob? They rent their clothes, we read, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city (v. 13). There must be no deserting of a brother now. They would stand by Benjamin through thick and thin. They were altered men, repentant of their past, alive now to the meaning of true brotherhood. It was this that Joseph was so keen to find, and having found it, he proclaimed himself.
Illustration
It must have required extraordinary tenacity of purpose for Joseph to make his brethren suffer like this, but he dared to enforce the ordeal because he so clearly saw its necessity, the result to which they were coming, and for which they were being prepared. What a revelation this is of the reasons for the sorrows through which we have to pass! Jesus is behind them all, determining each, its duration and character and intensity. He sits as a refiner of silver. He dares to make us suffer to rid us of sin and to prepare us for a solid blessedness which shall last through all the sunny years that await us. But what pain it costs Him to give us pain! Like Joseph, He often turns aside to weep. And like Judah, He pleads for us in the presence of God.