employed; e.g., amongst the Babylonians oil was poured into a vessel of water, and from its movements omens were deduced according to a set of fixed rules of interpretation: see Hunger, Becherwahrsagung bei den Babyloniern nach zwei Keilschriften aus der Hammurabi-zeit (Leipziger Semit. Stud., 1903, i. 1-80).—An interesting modern parallel is quoted by Dri. (3581), and Hunger (4), from the Travels of Norden (c. 1750), where a Nubian sheikh says: 'I have consulted my cup, and I find that you are Franks in disguise, who have come to spy out the land.'
6-9. The brethren appeal to their honesty in the matter
of the money returned in their sacks, and propose the
severest punishment—death to the thief, slavery for the rest—should
the missing article be found with them.—10. The
servant holds them to their pledge, but offers easier terms:
the thief alone shall be Joseph's slave.—11-13. To the dismay
of the brethren the cup is found in Benjamin's sack.—12.
beginning . . . youngest] A calculated strain on the
brethren's suspense, and (on the part of the narrator) an
enhancement of the reader's interest: cf. 1 Sa. 166ff..—13.
Their submissiveness shows that no suspicion of a trick
crossed their minds; their sense of an adverse fate was
quickened by the still unsolved mystery of the money in the
sacks, to which they had so proudly appealed in proof of
their innocence.—14-17. The brethren before Joseph.—14.
he was still there] had not gone out to his place of business
(see 4315. 17), but was waiting for them.—15. that a man in my position (one of the wise men of Egypt) can divine.
It is difficult to say how much is implied in this claim of superhuman
knowledge on Joseph's part. No doubt it links itself on the one hand to
the feeling in the brethren's mind that a divine power was working
against them, and on the other to the proofs they had had of the
governor's marvellous insight. But whether Joseph is conceived as
really practising divination, or only as wishing his brothers to think so,
does not appear. Not improbably, as Gu. surmises, the motive comes
from an older story, in which the prototype of Joseph actually achieved
his ends by means of occult knowledge.
16. God has found out, etc.] The exclamation does not
xiv. 115.—8. (
Hebrew characters)1] [E] (Hebrew characters).—9. (Hebrew characters)] G + (Greek characters).—(Hebrew characters)] [E] (Hebrew characters), equally
good.—12. (Hebrew characters) . . . (Hebrew characters)] Infs. abs. ((Hebrew characters) . . . (Hebrew characters)) would be more idiomatic
than the pf. (so Ball).—16. We. (Comp.2 60) would omit (Hebrew characters) and
read (Hebrew characters); but the text is safeguarded by v.14, and the change is uncalled
for. Judah speaks here in the name of all, in 18ff. for himself.
