על יוסף כ״חOn Joseph 28
א׳
1[163] In these circumstances, his father, too, as the necessities of life were now growing scarce, little knowing his boy’s good fortune, sent ten of his sons to buy corn, but kept at home the youngest, the uterine brother of the king’s viceroy.
ב׳
2[164] The ten came to Egypt and had an interview with their brother, thinking him to be a stranger, and awestruck at his dignified position bowed to him in the old-fashioned way, and thus at the very outset brought his dreams to fulfilment.
ג׳
3[165] He, seeing those who had sold him, immediately recognized them all, though none of them recognized him. It was not God’s will to reveal the truth as yet, for cogent reasons which were best at the time kept secret, and therefore He either changed and added grandeur to the appearance of the regent or else perverted the understanding of the brothers from properly apprehending what they saw.
ד׳
4[166] Then, though, young as he was, promoted to so high a command, invested with the first office after the king, looked up to by east and west, flushed with the vigour of his prime and the greatness of his power, with the opportunity of revenge in his hands, he might well have shewn vindictiveness, he did not do so. He bore up firmly against his feelings, and, keeping them under the management of his soul, with a carefully considered purpose, he feigned disfavour and with looks and voice and the rest of his demeanour counterfeited indignation. “Sirs,” he said, “your intentions are not peaceful. You have been sent as spies by one of the king’s enemies, to whom you have agreed to render this base service thinking that you would escape detection. But no treacherous action passes undetected, however profound the obscurity in which it is shrouded.”
ה׳
5[167] The brothers attempted to defend themselves, and maintained that the charges had no foundation of fact. They had not been sent, they said, by ill-disposed persons, and they themselves had no hostility to the people of the country and could never have brought themselves to undertake such employment, being men of peaceful nature who had learned almost from infancy to value a steady and quiet life under a father of scrupulous conduct and highly favoured by God. “This father has had twelve sons, the youngest of whom has stayed at home, being not of an age to travel. Ten are we whom you see before you here, and the twelfth has passed away.”