על יוסף ל״אOn Joseph 31
א׳
1[180] One of them, loosing a particular sack, saw at its mouth a purse nearly full of silver, and, counting it, found that the exact price which he had paid for the corn had been restored to him. Filled with astonishment, he told his brothers, who, suspecting that it was not a gift but a trap, were dismayed.
ב׳
2[181] And though they fain would have examined all the sacks, so great was their fear of pursuit that they started off and hurried on with all speed, and racing along with hardly a pause for breath made a short matter of accomplishing a journey of many days.
ג׳
3[182] Then grouped around their father they embraced him, weeping the while, and kissed him as he clung to each and folded them passionately in his arms, though his soul already had a boding of some calamity. For he took note of them as they approached and greeted him, and, thinking that the son who was actually left behind was playing the laggard, he blamed him for his slowness and kept looking to the different approaches in his eagerness to see the number of his children complete.
ד׳
4[183] And, seeing his agitation when no one else appeared from outside, they said: “In calamity, to learn the truth is less painful than to doubt. He who has learned the truth may find the way to safety; the ignorance of doubt produces the perplexity which finds no path. Listen, then, to a story, which, painful though it be, must needs be told.
ה׳
5[184] The brother who was sent with us to buy corn and has not returned is alive—you must cast from your mind the worse fear of his death—but, though alive, he remains in Egypt with the regent of the land, who, either on some accusations laid by others, or on his own suspicions, charged us with being spies. We made all the defence which the occasion called for.
ו׳
6[185] We told him of you, our father, and the brothers who were absent from our company, how one of them was dead and the other was abiding with you, who, as we said, was still quite young and therefore on account of his age kept at home. But when we thus laid bare without concealment all the facts about our family we made no headway in removing his suspicion. He told us that the only proof which he would accept of the truth of our assertions was that the youngest son should be sent to him, and that to ensure this he detained the second son as pledge and security for the other.
ז׳
7[186] This command is painful beyond everything, but is laid upon us less by him who issued it than by the needs of the time, which we must perforce obey to get those provisions which Egypt alone supplies to people who are hard pressed by famine.”