창세기 42:17의 주석

משמר WARD — the prison-house.

AND HE PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER INTO A WARD THREE DAYS. This he did in order to frighten them and to make them believe that it is G-d he fears,¹⁴⁹Verse 18 here. meaning that it is because of his fear of G-d that he is releasing them lest the people of their households perish from hunger. This is the meaning of his words, The rest of you, go and take grain home to your starving households.¹⁵⁰Verse 19 here. Besides, they would not have consented to leave the one [Simeon]¹⁵¹See Verse 24. behind except for the purpose of saving all their families.

ויאסוף, he caused them mental pain without touching their bodies or causing them financial loss.

ויאסוף אותם אל משמר, “he put all of them together in jail.” This was intended to instill fear in them. He also wanted to demonstrate that he was a G’d-fearing individual so that when he eventually released all but one of them it was so that their families should not suffer hunger and deprivation merely because of a suspicion he had that they were spies. He also wanted to see if they would leave one of them as a hostage. Seeing that they would not agree to this voluntarily, he first jailed all of them.

Prison. I.e., משמר does not mean that he merely placed guards (שומרים) over them, for in v. 19 it is written יֵאָסֵר בבית משמרכם (imprisoned in your place of משמר). Rashi did not explain on 41:10 that משמר means prison because there it is clearly written in 40:3 that it was a בית הסוהר (jail).