Verse 2. Put my cup in the sack's mouth of the youngest] The stratagem of the cup seems to have been designed to bring Joseph's brethren into the highest state of perplexity and distress, that their deliverance by the discovery that Joseph was their brother might have its highest effect.
Verses 1-17 - Joseph tried how his brethren felt towards Benjamin. Had they envie and hated the other son of Rachel as they had hated him, and if the had the same want of feeling towards their fatherJacob as heretofore they would now have shown it. When the cup was found upon Benjamin they would have a pretext for leaving him to be a slave. But we cannot judge what men are now, by what they have been formerly; nor what the will do, by what they have done. The steward charged them with being ungrateful, rewarding evil for good; with folly, in taking away the cu of daily use, which would soon be missed, and diligent search made for it; for so it may be read, Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, a having a particular fondness for it, and for which he would searc thoroughly? Or, By which, leaving it carelessly at your table, he woul make trial whether you were honest men or not? They throw themselve upon Joseph's mercy, and acknowledge the righteousness of God, perhap thinking of the injury they had formerly done to Joseph, for which the thought God was now reckoning with them. Even in afflictions wherein we believe ourselves wronged by men, we must own that God is righteous and finds out our sin.
