Comentário sobre Gênesis 44:16

האלהים מצא GOD HATH FOUND OUT — We know that we have done no wrong, but it has been brought about by the Holy One, blessed be He, that this should come upon us. The Creditor has found an opportunity to collect His debt (Genesis Rabbah 92:9).

What shall we say. What can we say in response?

מה נאמר מה נדבר, "What can we say, how can we speak?" The expression אמירה refers to mild talk, whereas the expression דבור refers to aggressive, tough talk. When the brothers added: מה נצתדק, "how can we justify ourselves?," they referred to their defence in a court of law. They considered that all these trumped up charges were retribution by G'd. The time apparently had come to pay for their guilt. Inasmuch as they were all guilty vis-a-vis G'd, they offered themselves as slaves.

ומה נצעק, what good would it do if we loudly proclaim our innocence. In the matter of the goblet we cannot argue that we have already previously proved our honesty, as we could in respect of the money we had brought back.

האלוקים מצא את עון עבדיך, “the Lord has found out the guilt of your servants.” They did not refer to anything they had been guilty of recently, but to their guilt in having sold their brother 22 years ago.

.מה נאמר לאדוני “what can we say to my lord?” this was a reference to the first sums of money which had been returned to them. מה נדבר; “how can we speak?” this was a reference to the goblet. ומה נצטדק “and how can we justify ourselves?” What argument can we possibly use? האלו-הים מצא את עון עבדיך, “G’d has found out the guilt of your servants.” They said: “we know that we are innocent of this charge; but, we are guilty of a different crime and the accuser has now leveled his accusations against us before the throne of G’d.” (based on Bereshit Rabbah 92,9). As a result of these considerations: הננו עבדים לאדוני גם אנחנו גם אשר נמצא הגביע בידו, “we are prepared to be slaves of my lord, both we and the one in whose hand the goblet has been found.”

הננו עבדים לאדוני גם אנחנו גם אשר נמצא הגביע בידו, “here your servants are ready to be your slaves, both we and the one in whose hand the goblet has been found.” These words of Yehudah to Joseph, (his representative, Ed) are puzzling, as he should have said הננו עבדים אשר נמצא הגביע בידו, גם אנחנו הנקיים, “here we are ready to be your slaves, the one in whose hand the goblet has been found, as well as we who are innocent.” [the guilty one should precede the innocent one in the phrasing of Yehudah’s offer.] How could Yehudah refer to the one in whose bag the goblet had been found as “only” גם, “also,” when it was he who had caused the whole disaster? Anyone reading the words of Yehudah must come to the conclusion that the thief had actually refused to shoulder the blame for his deed, not believing that he should be a slave. Because he was aware of this impression given by Yehudah’s words, Rabbeinu Chananel suggests that Yehudah’s words must be understood in conjunction with the previous words מה נאמר לאדוני, “what are we able to say to my lord, etc.” The word נאמר refers to the money found in their bags the first time, whereas the word נדבר, refers to the second money, the money the brothers had brought to Egypt as compensation for what they had found the last time when they came home. The words ומה נצטדק, refers to the goblet.

Alle Formen werden da gebraucht: Was könnten wir sagen, was dein Herz rührte und Eingang bei dir fände: אמר, — worauf pochen: דבר, — oder uns rechtfertigen. Eins können wir sagen: hierin sind wir unschuldig, aber anderweitig müssen wir uns versündigt haben, und das sucht Gott nun heim. — Josef hatte ja alle unter Verdacht gestellt und hatte Benjamin als Rechtlichkeitsbürgen betrachten wollen. Jetzt war nun der Rechtlichkeitsbürge selbst als Dieb erschienen, daher mussten sie glauben, dass sie nun alle wieder in den alten Verdacht zurückfielen und daher alle der Sklaverei verfallen wären. Erst als Josef sich anders, und zwar dahin geäußert hatte, nur Benjamin solle strafbar bleiben, sie aber frei hinausziehen, wagt Juda die Vorstellung in folgendem.

מה נאמר לאדוני, “what can we say to my lord?” This question referred to the return of their money after the first trip. מה נדבר, “what can we speak?” this question referred to the money found in their bags during the search now. מה נצטדק, “how can we justify ourselves?” This referred to the goblet being found in the bag of one of them.

מה נצטדק How shall we justify ourselves? — This is a verbal form of צדק. In the same way every root whose first letter is צ when used in the Hithpael or Nithpael takes a ט instead of the ת of the prefix. This, however, is not placed before the first radical letter, but between the first two letters of the root. For example: נצטדק of the root צדק; (Daniel 4:13) “and let it be wet (ויצטבע)” of the root צבע to steep; Joshua 9:4) “and made as if they had been ambassadors (ויצטירו)”, of the same root as ציר in (Proverbs 13:17), ציר אמונים a faithful ambassador”; (Joshua 9:12) “we took our provision (הצטידנו)” of the same root as צדה in (Genesis 45:21) צדה לדרך “provision for the way”. And in the same way, with a root whose first letter is ס or ש, when it is used in the Hithpael, the ת of the prefix separate (i.e. is placed between) the first two letters of the root. For example: (Ecclesiastes 12:5) “and the grasshopper shall drag itself along heavily (ויסתבל)” from the root סבל “to carry a load”; (Daniel 7:8) “I considered (משתכל הוית) the horns”, from the root שכל to reflect on: (Micah 6:16) “for the statutes of Omri are kept (ישתמרו)” from the root שמר to keep; (Isaiah 59:15) “And he that departeth from evil (משתולל) is regarded as a fool”, from the same root as שולל in (Job 12:17) “He leadeth counsellors away (שולל) as though they were fools”; (Exodus 9:17) “Thou treadest down (מסתולל) my people”, from the same root as סלולה in (Jeremiah 18:15) “a way not trodden down (סלולה).”

מה נדבר? What can we possibly say in justification? How could we prove that we did not do what you accuse us of?

האלוקים מצא, G’d found our guilt and has now devised a way to trap us and to punish us. This corresponds to how the prophet Ezekiel 3,20 describes G’d’s modus operandi, saying ונתתי מכשול לפניו, “I shall place a stumbling block before him” (a penitent who slides back into sin).

It is also possible that when the brothers spoke of "how can we justify ourselves?," they referred to the disastrous discovery of the goblet in Benjamin's pouch. This fact had destroyed their collective defence that they had already proven their honesty by having returned the money they had found in their bags upon their return to Canaan; alas, Benjamin had not been with them at the time.

האלוקים מצא את עון עבדיך, “He, G’d, has found a way for the debtor to collect the debt due him. However, as to the goblet, this is something we are totally innocent of, not only the ten of us in whose sacks the goblet has not been found, but even the one in whose sack it has been found is innocent of this accusation. This is G’d’s way of incriminating us; we did not incriminate ourselves in this way.

גם אנחנו גם אשר נמצא הגביע בידו, “both we and the one in whose hand the goblet has been found etc.;” why did Yehudah use the word גם, “also” twice in this verse? This was to teach us that also those of us against whom there is no evidence or suspicion at all, are prepared to remain as your master’s slaves, not to mention our brother in whose bag the goblet has been found. The difference between what Yehudah says now and what he had said in verse 9 is that in that verse he had accepted the death penalty for the person in whose bag the goblet would be found, as he had been so sure that none of their bags would contain it. When the brothers saw that it had been found in Binyamin’s bag, they offered themselves as slaves also, but backtracked on acknowledging that Binyamin would be sentenced to death. They hoped that their offer would save Binyamin from being convicted of the death penalty.

How can we justify ourselves. How can we prove that we have been framed?

גם אנחנו, both we, etc. The word גם may be understood as הגם, i.e. "even though the goblet has not been found in our pouches." Inasmuch as the sin the brothers had been guilty of did not include Benjamin at all, seeing he had been far too young to participate in the sale of Joseph, they said: "as well as the one in whose pouch the goblet has been found;" they attributed Benjamin's having been found with the goblet in his pouch as a misfortune that had befallen Benjamin only because he had travelled with sinners such as they. We find a similar use of two apparently not only unrelated but completely contradictory phenomena when the Talmud in Sanhedrin 93 compares "two dried out trees and one moist one," saying that when the dry trees go up in flames even the green tree is burnt up together with them.

God has found the iniquity. Hashem is punishing us not for this deed, of which we are innocent, but for a much earlier crime

Alternatively, the brothers shifted gears by no longer speaking about the person in whose pouch the goblet was found as being guilty of death, but גם אנחנו "we too" i.e. Benjamin was to be subject to the same penalty they had declared themselves as guilty of in verse 9, namely slavery. They justified this by citing the fact that there were no witnesses to the actual theft. Benjamin was able to plead that he did not know who placed the goblet in his pouch.