I Am Your Brother

So they entered and met with Yūsuf (peace be upon him). When they came in to meet Yūsuf, Yūsuf (peace be upon him) took Binyāmīn aside, without the brothers knowing, and told him: Binyāmīn, do you know who is speaking to you? This is your brother Yūsuf. He embraced his brother and held him.

He said: truly, I am your brother, so do not grieve for what they used to do.

And then Yūsuf made a plan. He provided them with their camel loads — eleven camel loads. And then he took ṣuwāʿ al-malik, the cup of the king, which was made of gold, a very valuable thing that belonged to the king, and put it in the luggage of his brother Binyāmīn. He slipped it in there without anyone knowing. All the brothers loaded their luggage and began to leave — and suddenly they heard an announcement: the cup of the king has been stolen.

They said: we did not come to cause corruption in the land. This is not our habit or our custom; we are not robbers; we are not thieves. They were told: if you are not thieves, we have to look through your luggage — we are going to look through every piece of luggage. But what if we find it in your luggage — what will happen then? They said: if you find it in our luggage, then take the guilty one with you as a slave.

That was the law of Yaʿqūb. The law of Yaʿqūb was that whoever steals is taken captive by the owner of the goods. The law of the king of Egypt, under whom Yūsuf was working, was that the one who steals is punished, with a certain punishment. Yūsuf did not want his brother to be punished; Yūsuf wanted to take his brother. So Yūsuf made this plan, to take his brother according to their own law.

So he had them state the rules. He asked them: what if we find it among your belongings — what will happen? And they told him their law, the law of Yaʿqūb: you take him as a prisoner. He said: very well, we will follow your law — sign this paper; this is the agreement; we are following your rules, not ours. And then they began looking through the camels one by one. They started with the other camels first. They kept uncovering them, looking inside, not finding it, and moving on to the next — and then, when they opened the luggage of Binyāmīn, they found it there.