Parashat Vayigash – The Missing Words
Rabbi Ari Kahn
The drama of Vayigash reaches its climax when Yosef finally sends everyone out of the room and remains alone with his brothers. The Torah describes how he can no longer restrain himself; he clears the chamber, and in that sudden privacy he reveals himself. His voice then breaks into a great cry that carries outward until all Egypt hears, even reaching the house of Paro.
בראשית פרק מה (פרשת ויגש)
(א) וְלֹֽא־יָכֹ֨ל יוֹסֵ֜ף לְהִתְאַפֵּ֗ק לְכֹ֤ל הַנִּצָּבִים֙ עָלָ֔יו וַיִּקְרָ֕א הוֹצִ֥יאוּ כָל־אִ֖ישׁ מֵעָלָ֑י וְלֹא־עָ֤מַד אִישׁ֙ אִתּ֔וֹ בְּהִתְוַדַּ֥ע יוֹסֵ֖ף אֶל־ אֶחָֽיו: (ב) וַיִּתֵּ֥ן אֶת־קֹל֖וֹ בִּבְכִ֑י וַיִּשְׁמְע֣וּ מִצְרַ֔יִם וַיִּשְׁמַ֖ע בֵּ֥ית פַּרְעֹֽה:
Yosef’s first words are stark and simple: “I am Yosef; is my father still alive?” His brothers cannot answer; they stand stunned before his face, unable to assemble words in the presence of the brother whose face they once refused to see.
(ג) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יוֹסֵ֤ף אֶל־אֶחָיו֙ אֲנִ֣י יוֹסֵ֔ף הַע֥וֹד אָבִ֖י חָ֑י וְלֹֽא־יָכְל֤וּ אֶחָיו֙ לַעֲנ֣וֹת אֹת֔וֹ כִּ֥י נִבְהֲל֖וּ מִפָּנָֽיו:
Yosef then speaks again. He invites them to draw near—“come closer to me”—and when they do, he restates his identity with a devastating addition: “I am Yosef your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.” Immediately, however, he begins to reframe their act: “Now do not be distressed and do not let it be anger in your eyes that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.”
(ד) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יוֹסֵ֧ף אֶל־אֶחָ֛יו גְּשׁוּ־נָ֥א אֵלַ֖י וַיִּגָּ֑שׁוּ וַיֹּ֗אמֶר אֲנִי֙ יוֹסֵ֣ף אֲחִיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־מְכַרְתֶּ֥ם אֹתִ֖י מִצְרָֽיְמָה: (ה) וְעַתָּ֣ה׀ אַל־תֵּעָ֣צְב֗וּ וְאַל־יִ֙חַר֙ בְּעֵ֣ינֵיכֶ֔ם כִּֽי־מְכַרְתֶּ֥ם אֹתִ֖י הֵ֑נָּה כִּ֣י לְמִֽחְיָ֔ה שְׁלָחַ֥נִי אֱלֹהִ֖ים לִפְנֵיכֶֽם:
In a few verses Yosef performs two opposing moves. On the one hand, he places responsibility squarely on them—“you sold me”—words heavy enough to crush them under guilt. On the other hand, he insists that “God sent me,” that their deed has been absorbed into a larger story, and that they are only now beginning to glimpse its contours. Yosef seems to understand that his personal history is entangled with the covenant of bein ha‑betarim, in which Avraham was told that his descendants would be strangers and enslaved in a land not their own. This descent into Egypt is not a tragic detour but a stage in that covenantal script.
Yosef also knows Paroh’s dreams from the inside. He tells his brothers that two years of famine have already passed and that five more years remain in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest; the land will not be worked and nothing will grow.
(ו) כִּי־זֶ֛ה שְׁנָתַ֥יִם הָרָעָ֖ב בְּקֶ֣רֶב הָאָ֑רֶץ וְעוֹד֙ חָמֵ֣שׁ שָׁנִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֵין־חָרִ֖ישׁ וְקָצִֽיר:
By revealing this, Yosef is effectively sharing a state secret: how many people truly know that there are to be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, and that five years still lie ahead? To disclose the remaining years is to admit his brothers into information that belongs to the inner circle of the regime.
At this point a side question suggests itself, one that the narrative later raises explicitly. As the famine deepens, Egyptians return again and again with no money and no food until, finally, they sell their land to Paroh. Did Yosef ever sell them seed to plant in those barren years, encouraging economic practices that could not succeed, or was the entire agricultural system effectively suspended by decree? These questions hover in the background, but for the brothers the immediate point is clear: their continued existence, and the survival of their family, are now bound up with Yosef’s position and with the knowledge he possesses.
Yosef repeats his point and intensifies it: “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the land and to sustain you for a great deliverance.”
(ז) וַיִּשְׁלָחֵ֤נִי אֱלֹהִים֙ לִפְנֵיכֶ֔ם לָשׂ֥וּם לָכֶ֛ם שְׁאֵרִ֖ית בָּאָ֑רֶץ וּלְהַחֲי֣וֹת לָכֶ֔ם לִפְלֵיטָ֖ה גְּדֹלָֽה:
Their salvation from famine depends on him, yet he presents his rise in Egypt not as the earned consequence of their betrayal but as a divine act. By this stage of his speech he has already mentioned God twice.
In the next verse he returns to the theme: “Now it was not you who sent me here, but God,” and he describes how God has made him “a father to Paroh, lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.”
(ח) וְעַתָּ֗ה לֹֽא־אַתֶּ֞ם שְׁלַחְתֶּ֤ם אֹתִי֙ הֵ֔נָּה כִּ֖י הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים וַיְשִׂימֵ֨נִֽי לְאָ֜ב לְפַרְעֹ֗ה וּלְאָדוֹן֙ לְכָל־בֵּית֔וֹ וּמֹשֵׁ֖ל בְּכָל־אֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם:
God is mentioned a third time, now explicitly in connection with his political authority.
One could imagine the brothers replying that, in a sense, they deserve thanks: had they not sold him, none of this would have occurred. Yosef does not allow that reading. He insists that what has unfolded was driven by God, not by their ingenuity or cruelty. He then turns to practical instructions: “Hurry and go up to my father and say to him: Thus says your son Yosef, ‘God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay.’” Here the divine Name appears for the fourth time. Yosef wants his father to hear not only that he is alive and powerful, but that “God has placed me” in this role.
(ט) מַהֲרוּ֘ וַעֲל֣וּ אֶל־אָבִי֒ וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֣ם אֵלָ֗יו כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ בִּנְךָ֣ יוֹסֵ֔ף שָׂמַ֧נִי אֱלֹהִ֛ים לְאָד֖וֹן לְכָל־מִצְרָ֑יִם רְדָ֥ה אֵלַ֖י אַֽל־תַּעֲמֹֽד: (י) וְיָשַׁבְתָּ֣ בְאֶֽרֶץ־גֹּ֗שֶׁן וְהָיִ֤יתָ קָרוֹב֙ אֵלַ֔י אַתָּ֕ה וּבָנֶ֖יךָ וּבְנֵ֣י בָנֶ֑יךָ וְצֹאנְךָ֥ וּבְקָרְךָ֖ וְכָל־אֲשֶׁר־לָֽךְ: (יא) וְכִלְכַּלְתִּ֤י אֹֽתְךָ֙ שָׁ֔ם כִּי־ע֛וֹד חָמֵ֥שׁ שָׁנִ֖ים רָעָ֑ב פֶּן־תִּוָּרֵ֛שׁ אַתָּ֥ה וּבֵֽיתְךָ֖ וְכָל־אֲשֶׁר־לָֽךְ: …
He continues: Yaakov is to settle in the land of Goshen, to live close to Yosef with his children and grandchildren, flocks and possessions; Yosef will sustain him there. Once more Yosef discloses the inner chronology of history: five years of famine still lie ahead, and only by relocating to Egypt will the family avoid ruin. These verses close with Yosef’s promise of financial and physical support—a promise rooted both in his unique power within Egypt and in the divine plan he has just articulated.
The narrative then shifts abruptly. After Yosef’s elaborate explanation and instruction, the brothers ascend from Egypt and come to their father, Yaakov, in the land of Canaan. Their initial report is surprisingly short: “Yosef is still alive, and he is the ruler over all the land of Egypt.” Immediately the Torah adds: “His heart failed, for he did not believe them.”
(כה) וַֽיַּעֲל֖וּ מִמִּצְרָ֑יִם וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ אֶ֣רֶץ כְּנַ֔עַן אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֲבִיהֶֽם: (כו) וַיַּגִּ֨דוּ ל֜וֹ לֵאמֹ֗ר ע֚וֹד יוֹסֵ֣ף חַ֔י וְכִֽי־ה֥וּא מֹשֵׁ֖ל בְּכָל־אֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וַיָּ֣פָג לִבּ֔וֹ כִּ֥י לֹא־הֶאֱמִ֖ין לָהֶֽם:
At this point the question sharpens. Yosef had told them exactly what to say. Did they, in fact, repeat his message as instructed? If so, why did Yaakov not believe them? And if they did not, what did they choose to omit? The verse continues: “They told him all the words of Yosef that he had spoken to them, and he saw the wagons that Yosef had sent to carry him, and the spirit of their father Yaakov revived.”
(כז) וַיְדַבְּר֣וּ אֵלָ֗יו אֵ֣ת כָּל־דִּבְרֵ֤י יוֹסֵף֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר דִּבֶּ֣ר אֲלֵהֶ֔ם וַיַּרְא֙ אֶת־הָ֣עֲגָל֔וֹת אֲשֶׁר־שָׁלַ֥ח יוֹסֵ֖ף לָשֵׂ֣את אֹת֑וֹ וַתְּחִ֕י ר֖וּחַ יַעֲקֹ֥ב אֲבִיהֶֽם: (כח) וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל רַ֛ב עוֹד־יוֹסֵ֥ף בְּנִ֖י חָ֑י אֵֽלְכָ֥ה וְאֶרְאֶ֖נּוּ בְּטֶ֥רֶם אָמֽוּת:
Between the first, blunt headline and this fuller, second telling lies a conversation the Torah does not quote—a conversation in which the missing words of Yosef finally begin to reach Yaakov’s heart.
The change is striking. First, Yaakov does not believe. Then something shifts, and his spirit revives. Many commentators, drawing on tradition found in the midrash, focus on the second half of the verse: “he saw the wagons that Yosef had sent.” Yet this alone is complicated. Earlier in the chapter it is Paroh who commands that wagons be sent and Paroh who provides them. If so, what does it mean that Yaakov sees the wagons “that Yosef had sent”? What, precisely, is being attributed to Yosef, and how does this help Yaakov believe?
Moreover, the verse begins with speech: “they told him all the words of Yosef.” The wagons appear only afterwards. If the goal is to understand what revived Yaakov, we must first ask what these “words of Yosef” were, and only then consider how the wagons function alongside them. Hazal and the commentators search for signs in wagons, dreams, and coded hints, yet the verse itself quietly points us elsewhere: to words that are not quoted, as if another kind of -siman- sign were hidden not in objects but in Yosef’s speech itself—a sign so ordinary, so woven into his way of talking, that the solution may in fact be hiding in plain sight.
The next chapter sustains this ambiguity in another way. The text oscillates between calling the patriarch “Yaakov” and “Yisrael,” signaling inner shifts, but it also returns to the wagons: “Yisrael set out with all that was his… and the sons of Yisrael carried Yaakov their father… in the wagons that Parohh had sent.” Here they are explicitly “the wagons that Paroh sent,” in contrast to our verse, which spoke of “the wagons that Yosef sent.” The Torah itself seems to be playing with the attribution, inviting us to ask where Yosef’s agency ends and Paroh’s begins.
Against this background, the phrase “they told him all the words of Yosef” becomes even more intriguing. We have already encountered a similar expression in Yaakov’s life. When he first arrives at the house of Lavan, the Torah tells us that he “told Lavan all these things.”[1] Did he recount only the events at the well? Did he describe the dream of the ladder and God’s promise to accompany him? Did he confess the deception of Esav and the stolen blessing, explaining why he is now running for his life? The text leaves it open, but later, when Lavan justifies his own deceit with the line “it is not done in our place to give the younger before the firstborn,” his words sound like a pointed response to Yaakov’s earlier actions. The intertextual echo suggests that “telling all the things” may include uncomfortable truths.
Returning to Vayigash, the question now cuts deeper. Did the brothers really say “all the words of Yosef”? The first words Yosef addressed to them after the reveal were: “I am Yosef your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.” Could they possibly have repeated that sentence to Yaakov? Did they tell him that they had sold their brother? Or was there, inevitably, a limit to what they could bring themselves to say?
This is precisely the difficulty to which the Ramban gives voice. Before turning to him, however, the Targumim offer an initial perspective. Onkelos renders “all the words of Yosef” as kol pitkamei Yosef—all Yosef’s statements—and notes that “the spirit of holiness rested upon Yaakov their father.” For Onkelos, the decisive result of this moment is the return of ruach ha‑kodesh; prophecy, which had departed, now comes back.
Targum Yonatan goes further. He too speaks of “all the words of Yosef,” but he introduces Mechirat Yosef explicitly: when they told Yaakov these words, “the spirit of prophecy, which had been removed from him at the time when they sold Yosef, now rested upon him again.” In this reading, the very mention of the sale is bound up with the return of prophecy. From the day Yosef was sold, Yaakov’s prophetic capacity had been withdrawn; now, together with the news that Yosef lives, that capacity is restored.[2]
Many commentators explain this in psychological terms: prophecy requires a certain joy, and from the moment Yaakov believed Yosef dead, such joy was absent; only with the good news can ruach ha‑kodesh return. Rashi, commenting on the verse, explicitly links “the spirit of Yaakov revived” with the Shekhinah returning to him after a long absence.
Rashi also introduces the famous midrash about a siman. “All the words of Yosef,” he writes, included a sign Yosef had given his brothers: he reminded them which sugya he and Yaakov had been studying when they last parted—the parashah of eglah arufah. When Yaakov sees the wagons (agalot) that Yosef sent, the visual echo of eglah triggers that shared memory. Rashi notes that the verse attributes the wagons to Yosef and not to Paro in order to hint at this deeper connection. The wagons become not merely transport but a code, a remez to the Torah they had learned together, including the responsibility for a traveler found murdered on the road: the city nearest the corpse must bring an eglah arufah and declare, “Our hands have not spilled this blood.” It is a chilling chapter to have been learning just before Yosef sets out—alone—on his mission. Perhaps Yosef is hinting to his father that Yaakov bears no guilt for what has happened to him.[3]
The Rashbam offers a different emphasis. For him, “all the words of Yosef” refers to everything described earlier in the chapter: the weeping, the embrace, the brothers’ recognition that this is truly Yosef. Yaakov hears the fullness of that encounter. When he sees the wagons, the Rashbam stresses that such wagons could only have left Egypt with the authorization of a ruler. Here he connects back to an earlier verse: “his father kept the matter,” meaning that Yaakov had long been waiting to see whether Yosef’s dreams of authority would be fulfilled. Now, seeing royal wagons dispatched from Egypt, he realizes that only someone in a position of power could have sent them. The dreams have come true; therefore the report is credible, and he can say, “My son Yosef is still alive.” My son the regent—the hope for such an ending to the story, which Yaakov had kept hidden in his heart despite the apparent impossibility of its fulfillment—has finally been realized.[4]
The Ramban, as noted, reads the verse in a more radical way. On the level of pshat, he argues, Yaakov was never told that his sons had sold Yosef. All his life he believed that Yosef had gone astray in the field, been found by strangers, and then kidnapped or sold into Egypt. The brothers had no interest in revealing their sin; they feared his anger and the possibility of being cursed, as some of them would be in Yaakov’s final words to Reuven, Shimon, and Levi.Yosef, for his part, out of mussaro ha‑tov, his refined moral character, also refused to expose them. He would not purchase reconciliation at the price of his brothers’ humiliation.
According to the Ramban, then, “all the words of Yosef” cannot include the sentence “whom you sold into Egypt,” for that is precisely the sentence no one would dare repeat. What they did convey were Yosef’s assurances about the remaining years of famine, his promise to sustain them, and his description of his position in Egypt—everything necessary to move Yaakov and his household, but not the hidden history of Mechirat Yosef.
Seforno focuses on a different aspect. He notes that Yosef’s words about the five remaining years of famine introduce an element of concern into the good news. Yaakov’s revival is not a sudden leap from despair to unshadowed joy; it is a gradual healing in which hope is interwoven with responsibility and anxiety. The very mixture of good tidings and looming danger is part of what stabilizes him, allowing ruach ha‑kodesh to return to a heart that now knows both consolation and task.[5]
The Alshikh, in turn, reads “all the words of Yosef” as dvarim mesuyamim—very specific words that only Yosef could know. Among these he includes the hint to the 210 years of exile encoded in the word “redu,” the urgency of descending willingly before being dragged in chains, the choice of Goshen as a protected enclave, and the assurance that their sustenance will come through the Shekhinah rather than through a merely Egyptian bureaucracy. All these, together with the wagons, serve as layered signals of Yosef’s identity and of the divine plan he is now revealing.
Later commentators continue to develop these themes. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch describes how, when Yaakov hears in detail about Yosef’s conduct and sees the wagons, the mourning of more than twenty years finally begins to lift and the Shekhinah returns, as Onkelos implies. The Ha‘amek Davar emphasizes that Yosef’s invitation to come down to Egypt is delivered be‑harchavat devarim, expansively and persuasively, and that the very effort and expense of sending the wagons constitute evidence of truth: people do not invest such exertion in support of a fiction. Maharil Diskin likewise notes that the wagons themselves reflect royal authority; only a king—or one effectively functioning as king—could permit them to leave Egypt.
Taken together, these readings present a rich spectrum. Some focus on what Yaakov hears: coded Torah learning, fulfilled dreams, detailed plans for the future, carefully edited confessions. Others focus on what he sees: royal wagons, costly exertion, signs of kingship. Still others emphasize what he is never told—the sale itself—and the moral calculus behind that silence. What unites them is the sense that the turning point of Vayigash lies in a conversation the Torah chooses not to quote in full, forcing readers to reconstruct “all the words of Yosef” from the traces left in the text and in the lives it reshapes.
The discussion now turns back from the commentators to the inner dynamics of the verse itself. What, in that unquoted conversation, could have revived Yaakov’s spirit and caused his holy spirit to return? How does this moment fit within Yaakov’s broader history of speech and simanim?
The Torah’s phrase “they told him all the words of Yosef” echoes an earlier moment in Yaakov’s life. When Yaakov first arrives at the house of Lavan, the text reports that “he told Lavan all these things,” without specifying the content. Did Yaakov limit himself to describing the scene at the well—the shepherds, the heavy stone rolled from its mouth—or did he also relate the dream of the ladder and God’s promise to guard him on the journey? Did he go further still and disclose the more uncomfortable pieces: the deception of Esav, the taking of the blessing, and his present status as a fugitive from his brother’s anger?
Later, when Lavan explains his own substitution of Leah for Rachel with the line, “It is not done in our place to give the younger before the firstborn,” his words sound less like neutral etiquette and more like a pointed comment on Yaakov’s past. It is as if Lavan were saying: in this house, we do not repeat what you did in yours. Such an allusion is intelligible only if Yaakov has, at some point, told him “all these things” in a far fuller sense than the verse explicitly records.
This earlier scene prepares us to read Vayigash with greater sensitivity. When the Torah now states that the brothers told Yaakov “all the words of Yosef,” we are entitled to suspect that the phrase again conceals as much as it reveals. The text may be compressing a complex, and perhaps selective, conversation into a single formula. The question is no longer only what they might have said, but also what they could not bring themselves to say.
Here the Ramban’s reading meets the intertextual hint. If, as he argues, Yaakov is never told that his sons sold Yosef, then “all the words of Yosef” in Vayigash, like “all these things” in the house of Lavan, must be understood as a carefully edited totality. Certain elements of the story are indispensable and therefore reported in full; others are simply too dangerous to articulate.[6]
Yet the verse also insists that something in this telling is spiritually decisive. The Targumim describe the return of ruach ha‑kodesh and ruach nevu’ah, the restoration of prophetic capacity that had withdrawn at the time of Mechirat Yosef. Rashi similarly links “the spirit of Yaakov revived” with the Shekhinah once again resting upon him. Whatever the brothers say in this second attempt is not merely more convincing on a factual level; it has the power to reawaken a dormant inner life. The search for “the missing words” must therefore move beyond wagons and codes and attend to the distinctive quality of Yosef’s speech that the brothers may, at last, have managed to transmit.
At this point the Alshikh’s state‑secrets motif reappears. He stresses that “all the words of Yosef” include not only symbolic hints but concrete information that only Yosef could possess: precise predictions about the remaining years of famine, the decision to settle in Goshen, the assurance that divine rather than merely Egyptian care will sustain them. Had Yosef not disclosed these matters, they would have remained unknown; their very specificity testifies to his identity and to the larger plan in which he is situated.
The Ha‘amek Davar adds a Talmudic‑sounding principle: the sheer investment involved in dispatching wagons from Egypt—logistics, cost, diplomatic risk—functions as evidence of sincerity. People do not ordinarily go to such lengths in support of a fabrication. When Yaakov sees the agalot, he grasps both the material effort and the spiritual intent behind them, and the long mourning of the past decades finally begins to lift.[7]
This returns us to Rashi’s siman and to Yaakov’s broader history with signs. Rashi had suggested that the wagons were a code for eglah arufah, the last topic father and son had learned together, and that this is why the verse attributes the wagons to Yosef rather than to Paroh. That in turn evokes another scene in Yaakov’s life where he relies on simanim: the wedding with Rachel and Leah, in which, according to the midrash, Yaakov entrusted signs to Rachel to prevent exactly the switch that Lavan then engineers. Rachel, moved by compassion, passes those simanim to Leah, and Yaakov wakes to discover that his strategy has failed.[8]
Some even detect a further echo in the story of Esav and Yitzchak. The Beit Ha‑Levi famously suggests that Esav, afraid that Yaakov would impersonate him, had developed his own siman with Yitzchak—the distinctive voice of “Ani Esav bechorecha”—which Yaakov then successfully mimics. If so, Yaakov’s life is surrounded by signs that do not quite work: codes that are meant to guarantee clarity but instead enable confusion. Against this backdrop, the idea of yet another secret siman between Yaakov and Yosef becomes more ironic than reassuring.[9]
Perhaps, then, Rashi’s siman need not be read as a technical code known only to the two of them, but as a subjective sign for Yaakov: when he sees the wagons, he chooses to read them as a gesture laden with Torah, as a message that his son still lives not only biologically and politically but spiritually. After a lifetime of fragile simanim, what reaches him in Vayigash is not the success of a clever system but the dawning recognition that Yosef’s words—and the world they describe—are once again aligned with the God of his fathers.
Again and again, Yaakov’s attempts to secure truth through simanim fail. The signs that were meant to guarantee clarity become tools of concealment, in Lavan’s house and perhaps even in Yitzchak’s tent. In Vayigash, by contrast, what finally works is not a new secret code but something far less cryptic and far more familiar—recognition that arises not from an object, but from the way a voice is heard.
There is, however, a possibility that all of this still misses the larger issue. The search for simanim, state secrets, and edited confessions may distract from something more fundamental that Yosef has been doing all along. To see it, the narrative must be viewed as a whole. From the moment he appears in Egypt, Yosef speaks about his life in a distinctive way. He does not merely report events; he interprets them aloud with a steady, almost stubborn God‑consciousness. God is on his lips more than on those of any other figure in Sefer Bereishit when addressing other human beings.
When the wife of Potiphar attempts to seduce him, Yosef explains his refusal first in terms of human loyalty—his master has withheld nothing from him but her—and then in theological terms: “How could I do this great evil and sin against God?”[10] The phrase recalls Avraham’s later explanation to Avimelekh: “I said, there is no fear of God in this place,” as the root of sexual exploitation. Where Avraham describes a society emptied of yirat Elohim,[11] Yosef quietly enacts what it means to live in its presence. Even alone in an Egyptian household, he behaves as if he stands before a third, unseen party whose judgment makes certain acts unthinkable.
The same pattern reappears in the prison. When Paroh’s officials are troubled by their dreams, Yosef has every incentive to present himself as a gifted interpreter who might earn his way out. Instead he answers, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.” Meaning and insight are explicitly attributed to God; Yosef positions himself only as the conduit. In the darkest, most forgotten corner of Egypt, he continues to speak as though the decisive conversation is not between prisoner and official, but between human beings and the One who sends dreams.
When Yosef is finally summoned to stand before Paroh, this habit of speech becomes even more pronounced. Asked whether he can interpret the royal dreams, he replies, “It is not in me; God will answer the welfare of Paroh,” and as he unpacks the imagery he repeats, almost like a refrain, that “God is telling Paroh what He is about to do,” that “this is the matter which God is about to perform,” that the doubling of the dream means “the thing is established by God, and God is hastening to do it.” Yosef is effectively catechizing Paroh into hearing history as divine communication. The message lands: Paroh responds, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the spirit of God?” and later, “Since God has informed you of all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you.”[12]
By the time the brothers arrive in Egypt, then, Yosef’s way of speaking has been thoroughly established. Whether in the intimacy of a house, the anonymity of a prison, or the splendor of a throne room, he narrates his life as a story authored by God. The revelation in Vayigash—with its insistent “God sent me before you,” “God has made me lord of all Egypt”—is not a sudden religious flourish, but the culmination of years in which every significant encounter has been framed in those terms.
This contrast becomes sharper when set against the brothers’ own language. When Yosef, still unrecognized, accuses them of being spies and imprisons them, they finally acknowledge guilt: “We are guilty concerning our brother… we saw his soul’s distress when he pleaded with us, and we did not listen; therefore this trouble has come upon us.” They speak of pain and consequence, almost of karma, but they do not mention God. Reuven reinforces the pattern: he recalls warning them not to sin against the boy and concludes, “Now his blood is being required of us,” again using the language of moral arithmetic without naming the One who keeps the ledger.[13]
Only later, when one brother discovers his money in the sack and their hearts fail, do they exclaim, “What is this that God has done to us?”—and even then Yosef is not within earshot. In Yosef’s presence they never quite manage to speak the way he does. He declares, “I fear God,” presenting himself as a ruler bound by law and justice rather than by whim, an implicit rebuke to the godless power structure Avraham had once described. They, for their part, speak of guilt and fear but hesitate to translate those emotions into explicit God‑language.
Seen in this light, Yosef’s God‑saturated speech in Vayigash is not only a theological statement; it is a pedagogy. He is teaching his brothers how to reread their past and how to name the Presence that has accompanied them even through betrayal and famine. When those “words of Yosef” are finally carried intact to Yaakov—no longer reduced to the headline “Yosef is still alive and rules Egypt,” but including the repeated “God sent me,” “God placed me,” “God is doing this”—they become more than information. They are the language of a son who has learned to live his exile as a dialogue with God. That, more than any code or wagon, is what has the power to revive a broken spirit and to open Yaakov to the next chapter of the covenantal story.
At this stage the story turns from Yosef’s interior language to the brothers’ slow education. After the first encounter in Egypt, Yosef has his steward place each man’s payment back in his sack together with the grain. On the road one brother opens his bag, sees the money, and “their hearts sink”; each turns in fear to his brother and exclaims, “What is this that God has done to us?” For the first time in Yosef’s absence, they explicitly name God as the One pursuing them.
When they later discover that the money has been returned to all of them, the fear deepens. Yet in Yaakov’s presence they offer no theological reflections; they report only the facts and their anxiety about the strange generosity of the Egyptian official. Their language oscillates between guilt and self‑protection, focused obsessively on the money rather than on the larger moral pattern. The sense that “something more is going on here” remains inarticulate.
On the second journey, with Binyamin in tow, the same word vayiru reappears: “they were afraid” when they are brought to Yosef’s house. They interpret their summons through the narrow lens of financial suspicion: this is about the money in their sacks; they fear being accused of theft, enslaved, and stripped even of their donkeys.[14] Ironically, within a short time they will themselves propose slavery as a just outcome, but for now the prospect of being turned into slaves seems the worst imaginable fate.
In their attempt to defend themselves before Yosef’s steward, the brothers again adjust the story. They claim that “as we came to the night‑lodging and opened our sacks, each one’s money was found,” whereas the text had shown only one discovering his money on the road and the rest learning of it back in Canaan. The report is technically true—they did return the money—but shaped for maximum innocence. The steward’s answer introduces God once more: “Peace be to you, fear not; your God and the God of your father has given you a treasure in your sacks; your money came to me.” The brothers are thus told, astonishingly, that this inexplicable windfall is a divine gift.
The irony is sharp. These are men who, moments earlier, had wondered aloud whether God was punishing them for what they did to their brother. Now they are invited to see themselves as recipients of divine largesse. Are they truly prepared to believe that God is showering them with gifts? Do they not suspect that an economy in which guilt is met with bonus cash may be running on a different logic than strict justice?
That evening they dine in Yosef’s house, seated in exact birth order, astonished yet increasingly at ease. They eat, they drink, they become, the text says, yishtakeru—lightly drunk. Reuven has been restored, Binyamin appears safe, and mission accomplished: they have grain, they have favor, they have shared a royal banquet. The earlier sense that “God is seeking us out” seems to dissipate in the warmth of hospitality.
It is precisely at this point of comfort that Yosef sets the final test in motion. He instructs his steward once again to fill their sacks with grain and return each man’s money, but now adds a new element: “Put my silver goblet in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, together with his money.” At dawn the brothers depart, satisfied; they have their donkeys, their provisions, their money, their younger brother, and, so they think, their innocence.
Then the steward is sent after them with a carefully crafted accusation: “Why have you repaid evil for good?” The charge is framed not yet in religious terms but in moral ones—an appeal to fairness. This alone should disturb them. Having just enjoyed a level of generosity they themselves know they did not deserve, they now hear that they have responded with betrayal.
The steward could at this moment have continued in the language Yosef has been teaching—“I fear God,” “God is just.” Instead, he introduces an entirely different register: “Is not this the cup from which my master drinks, and with which he practices divination?” Until now the brothers have been led to see the Egyptian ruler as a man of law and yirat Elohim. Suddenly, they are told that his power rests on nichush, occult knowledge. A judge who divines rather than deliberates is not someone to whom one can appeal with arguments of justice.
Their response is naïve and revealing. Confident that no theft has occurred, they declare that whoever is found with the goblet shall die, and the rest will become slaves. The fate they had so feared they now volunteer, exacerbating it with the additional penalty of death. The steward, sounding more reasonable than his defendants, mitigates their self‑imposed sentence: “He with whom it is found shall be my slave, and you shall be innocent.”
The search proceeds in ascending order until the goblet is found in Binyamin’s sack. The brothers tear their garments and return to the city, where they fall before Yosef once again. Yosef’s question cuts to the heart of the matter: “What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man such as I surely practices divination?” The statement is jarring. Why does Yosef insist on presenting himself as a practitioner of magic precisely at the moment when justice is most in question?
Yosef momentarily abandons the persona of the just, God‑fearing ruler in order to deprive the brothers of any human address for their appeals, forcing them toward the only court that remains open to them: God’s.
Yehudah’s reply finally reaches the language Yosef has been waiting for. “What can we say to my lord, how can we speak, and how can we justify ourselves? God has found the sin of your servants.” The earlier vague sense of karma now crystallizes into explicit confession before God. It is as if Yosef has been a ventriloquist, slowly shaping the situation until the words he himself has been speaking for years—“God,” “sin,” “justice”—emerge from Yehudah’s mouth.
Yosef, however, refuses to accept their blanket self‑condemnation: “Far be it from me to do this; the man in whose hand the cup was found, he shall be my slave, but you, go up in peace to your father.” On the surface this sounds like justice tempered with mercy. Yet if, as many commentators understand, the brothers are now implicitly confessing to the sale of Yosef, then Yosef’s insistence on individualized guilt presses the drama to its breaking point. Will they abandon Binyamin as they once abandoned Yosef, or will they finally refuse to live with such a skewed distribution of suffering?
Several commentators—among them the Rashbam and R. Avraham ben Harambam—explain Yosef’s talk of divination as strategic misdirection. By presenting himself as a practitioner of the occult, he ensures that the brothers will not attribute his uncanny knowledge to shared family history and will not suspect that the anonymous ruler before them is, in fact, Yosef. But beyond the practical disguise, there is a deeper educational move.[15]
As long as the brothers believe they are dealing with a just, God‑fearing administrator, they can hope that the system will exonerate them. Once they are told that the system is driven by nichush(divination), by forces beyond reason and appeal, they experience what their brother once experienced in the pit: the terror of having no one to talk to. The false comfort of a fair legal order is pulled out from under them, and they are forced to confront the only court that remains—the one before God.
Targum Yonatan’s striking rendition of the opening of Vayigash may be hearing precisely this shift. As Yehudah approaches the mysterious ruler, he says,
בראשית פרק מד פסוק יח (פרשת ויגש)
וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ אֵלָ֜יו יְהוּדָ֗ה וַיֹּאמֶר֘ בִּ֣י אֲדֹנִי֒ יְדַבֶּר־נָ֨א עַבְדְּךָ֤ דָבָר֙ בְּאָזְנֵ֣י אֲדֹנִ֔י וְאַל־יִ֥חַר אַפְּךָ֖ בְּעַבְדֶּ֑ךָ כִּ֥י כָמ֖וֹךָ כְּפַרְעֹֽה:
And Yehudah approached him and said, ‘Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and let your anger not flare against your servant, for you are like Paro.’
According to the Targum Yonatan, there is a subtext to his words:
תרגום המיוחס ליונתן - תורה בראשית פרק מד פסוק יח (פרשת ויגש)
וּקְרֵיב לְוָתֵיהּ יְהוּדָה וַאֲמַר בְּמָטוּ רִיבּוֹנִי יְמַלֵל בְּמָטוּ עַבְדָךְ פִּתְגָמָא בְּמִשְׁמָעֵיהּ דְרִבּוֹנִי וְלָא יִתְקֵיף רוּגְזָךְ בְּעַבְדָךְ אֲרוּם מִן שַׁעְתָּא דְאָתִינָן לְוָותָךְ הֲוָת אָמַר לָן מִן קֳדָם יְיָ אֲנָא דָחִיל וּכְדוּן חָזְרוּן דִינָיִךְ לְמֶהֱוֵי מְדַמְיָין לְרִיבָּנוֹי דְפַרְעֹה:
כתר יונתן בראשית פרק מד פסוק יח (פרשת ויגש)
ויגש אליו יהודה ויאמר אנא אדוני ידבר נא עבדך באוזניו של אדוני ולא יתחזק רוגזך בעבדך כי מן השעה שבאנו אליך היית אומר לנו מלפני יי אני ירא ועתה חזרו משפטיך להיות דומים לאדוניו של פרעה:
And Yehuda approached him and said: ‘Please, my lord, let your servant speak into my lord’s ears, and let your anger not be strong against your servant, for from the moment we came to you you would say to us: “It is from before God that I stand in awe,” but now your judgments have reverted to being like those of Pharaoh’s master(s)
Yehudah is protesting the rupture between the Yosef they thought they knew—the God‑fearing official—and the Yosef who now speaks the language of magic and arbitrary power. In that protest, and in the confession that precedes it, the brothers at last begin to speak the way Yosef has been speaking all along.
Targum Yonatan hears Yehudah’s opening words as a gentle but searing rebuke. “Please, my lord, let your servant speak in your ears… for from the moment we came before you, you would say to us, ‘From before God I stand in awe,’ yet now your judgments have become like those of Paroh.” Yehudah appeals to the Yosef they first encountered—the ruler who claimed to fear God—and contrasts him with the seemingly pagan official who now speaks the language of magic and nichush.
Read against the entire narrative, Targum Yonatan’s midrashic line feels exactly right. From the beginning Yosef has said, in effect, “I fear God”; again and again he has assured them that there is justice and that everything will be governed by that justice. That is genuinely who Yosef is. Yet, as seen, he also takes them to another level. First, he grants them a gift they plainly do not deserve: their money is returned, they are invited to dine with the viceroy, Binyamin is honored; they are treated far better than their past would warrant. A spiritually alert person might have responded with unease—“why is such goodness coming to us?”—and turned that question into renewed conversation about God.
Then Yosef reverses the dynamic. He stops speaking about justice, introduces talk of divination, and lets them feel what it means to live in a world where no fair court, human or divine, seems to be listening. The commentaries that emphasize his feigned paganism capture this turn: the ground of hope shifts under their feet. At that moment the brothers have nothing left to rely on—not Paroh, not the mysterious Tzafnat Paneach, not even the illusion of a rational legal system. Their only remaining recourse is the one Yosef himself has used in every pit and prison: to turn directly to God.
Seen this way, Yosef is reenacting his own biography for them. When he was thrown into a pit, sold as a slave, or imprisoned on false charges, justice did not place him there. Justice could not be trusted to redeem him. What remained was prayer, a radical turning to the One beyond all courts. “There are no atheists in foxholes,” the saying runs; Yosef’s life suggests that there are no detached theologians in pits. Every step—from Potiphar’s house to the dungeon to Paroh’s palace—has taught him that there is only One address to which he can speak.
Yosef now leads his brothers to that same foxhole. He strips away every secondary support: trust in Egyptian law, trust in a benevolent administrator, even trust in the consistency of the ruler’s religious persona. What remains is the truth Yehudah finally utters: “God has found the sin of your servants.” They stop speaking only in the language of karma—“we did bad things; bad things are happening to us”—and begin to speak of God, guilt, and plea.
This is why Targum Yonatan’s paraphrase of Yehudah’s protest is so poignant. Yehudah is begging not for mercy alone but for midat ha‑din itself—at least a recognizable form of justice. Even that may not save them, given the weight of their history, but the very request signals that they have moved from negotiating with power to pleading before God.
With this in mind, the revelation in chapter 45 can be heard differently. Yosef’s sudden flood of God‑language—“God sent me before you,” “God has made me lord of all Egypt,” “it was not you who sent me here but God”—is not the beginning of his theology but its culmination. It gathers up every conversation he has had: with Mrs. Potiphar in the language of sinning against God; with the imprisoned officials in the language of “interpretations belong to God”; with Paroh in the language of “what God is about to do.”
When he instructs his brothers what to say to Yaakov, he does not merely compose a diplomatic cable. He tells them to transmit his own way of speaking: “God has placed me as lord over all Egypt.” What they initially report—“Yosef is still alive, and he is the ruler over all Egypt”—is factually correct but spiritually tone‑deaf. It is not how Yosef talks. Yaakov hears the headline and his heart stops; this sounds like an Egyptian bulletin, not like a message from his son.
From Yosef’s engineered godlessness comes Yehudah’s first full sentence about God; from Yehudah’s new language comes the brothers’ God‑language to Yaakov; and from that chain of speech flows the return of ruach ha‑kodesh.
Only later, when “they told him all the words of Yosef,” do they finally reproduce Yosef’s diction as well as his data. They speak of the God who sent him, who placed him, who is orchestrating famine and salvation. At that moment, according to this reading, Yaakov recognizes not only that Yosef is alive, but that Yosef is still Yosef: a man whose lips are filled with God. That is why “the spirit of Yaakov their father revived.” The Shekhinah that had withdrawn returns because he hears, through his sons, that the Shekhinah has never left Yosef.
In this light, the wagons and simanim remain evocative midrashic images, but the pshat of “all the words of Yosef” points elsewhere. What finally revives Yaakov is not a clever code about eglah arufah but a recovered voice: the realization that his son reads power, exile, and suffering as a conversation with God, and that his brothers have at last learned to speak that language as well.
Yaakov does not merely discover that Yosef is alive; he discovers that Yosef is still Yosef. Something holy, long absent, suddenly returns to him. The sons who once brought him a blood‑stained coat now bring him a different garment: Yosef’s language. They do not only say, “Yosef is ruler in Egypt.” They begin to speak the way Yosef speaks—to read history as the script of God, to tell of exile and power in sentences stitched with “God sent me,” “God placed me,” “God is doing this.”
In those “words of Yosef” Yaakov hears more than information. He hears a familiar music, the cadences of a boy whose dangerous dreams have not shattered him but have ripened into vision. The child he once sent to seek his brothers has passed through pits and prisons and palaces, yet his soul has not been traded away in any market of Egypt. Yosef’s God‑consciousness, tested in the solitude of temptation and the darkness of confinement, has become a kind of holy ventriloquism: he has taught a wine steward to say “God,” coaxed Paroh himself into speaking of ruach Elohim, and finally drawn his brothers into confessing, “God has found the sin of Your servants.”
When that language finally reaches Yaakov, carried awkwardly yet faithfully by the very sons who once silenced Yosef, it is as if he suddenly recognizes a beloved voice coming from unfamiliar mouths. The wagons stand outside the tent, heavy with grain and royal authority, but inside the tent the true miracle is auditory: all his sons now sound a little like Yosef. In their words Yaakov encounters not only the survival of his lost child but the survival of his child’s holiness. The dreams have materialized without devouring the dreamer; the boy who saw the sheaves bow down has become the man who bows before God.
That is why the Torah does not say simply that Yaakov believed, but that “the spirit of Yaakov their father revived.” What returns to him is not mere optimism but the Shekhinah. The divine spirit, which withdrew when he could no longer hear God in his own story, comes back when he hears that his son has carried that story forward—speaking of God in Egyptian nights, teaching pagans to hear providence, and now lending his own God‑saturated voice to his brothers. In that moment Yaakov does not just regain a son; he regains a covenantal future in which all his children, each perhaps in a slightly different cadence, begin to learn Yosef’s language of God. Families are often healed not only by new facts but by learning to retell their hardest stories with God placed at the center of the narrative.
[1] Bereishit 29:12-14
בראשית פרק כט פסוק יב - יד (פרשת ויצא)
(יב) וַיַּגֵּ֨ד יַעֲקֹ֜ב לְרָחֵ֗ל כִּ֣י אֲחִ֤י אָבִ֙יהָ֙ ה֔וּא וְכִ֥י בֶן־רִבְקָ֖ה ה֑וּא וַתָּ֖רָץ וַתַּגֵּ֥ד לְאָבִֽיהָ: (יג) וַיְהִי֩ כִשְׁמֹ֨עַ לָבָ֜ן אֶת־שֵׁ֣מַע׀ יַעֲקֹ֣ב בֶּן־אֲחֹת֗וֹ וַיָּ֤רָץ לִקְרָאתוֹ֙ וַיְחַבֶּק־לוֹ֙ וַיְנַשֶּׁק־ל֔וֹ וַיְבִיאֵ֖הוּ אֶל־בֵּית֑וֹ וַיְסַפֵּ֣ר לְלָבָ֔ן אֵ֥ת כָּל־הַדְּבָרִ֖ים הָאֵֽלֶּה: (יד) וַיֹּ֤אמֶר לוֹ֙ לָבָ֔ן אַ֛ךְ עַצְמִ֥י וּבְשָׂרִ֖י אָ֑תָּה וַיֵּ֥שֶׁב עִמּ֖וֹ חֹ֥דֶשׁ יָמִֽים:
[2] Targum Yonatan Bereishit 45:27
תרגום המיוחס ליונתן - תורה בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז (פרשת ויגש)
וּמַלִילוּ עִמֵיהּ יַת כָּל פִּתְגָמֵי יוֹסֵף דְמַלֵיל עִמְהוֹן וַחֲמָא יַת סְדָנַיָיא דְשָׁדַר יוֹסֵף לְמִיטוּל יָתֵיהּ וּשְׁרַת רוּחַ נְבוּאָה דְאִיסְתַּלְקַת מִנֵיהּ בְּעִידַן דְזַבִּינוּ יַת יוֹסֵף וְתָבַת עֲלוֹי יַעֲקֹב אֲבוּהוֹן:
כתר יונתן בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז (פרשת ויגש)
וידברו עִמו את כל דברי יוסף שׁדִבר עִמהם וירא את העגלות ששלח יוסף לשאת אותו ותשרה רוח נבואה שנסתלקה מִמנו בזמן שמכרו את יוסף ושבה על יעקב אביהם:
[3] Rashi Bereishit 45:27
רש"י בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז (פרשת ויגש)
את כל דברי יוסף - סִימָן מָסַר לָהֶם בַּמֶּה הָיָה עוֹסֵק כְּשֶׁפֵּרֵשׁ מִמֶּנּוּ – בְּפָרָשַׁת עֶגְלָה עֲרוּפָה, זֶהוּ שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר וַיַּרְא֙ אֶת־הָ֣עֲגָל֔וֹת אֲשֶׁר־שָׁלַ֥ח יוֹסֵ֖ף, וְלֹא נֶאֱמַר אֲשֶׁר שָׁלַח פַּרְעֹה: ותחי רוח יעקב - שָׁרְתָה עָלָיו שְׁכִינָה, שֶׁפֵּרְשָׁה מִמֶּנּוּ:
[4] Rashbam Bereishit 45:27
רשב"ם בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז (פרשת ויגש)
את כל דברי יוסף - שאר דברים שדיבר אליהם הכתובים למעלה שבכה על צואריהם והכירו בודאי שהוא אחיהם. וגם ראה את העגלות אשר שלח יוסף על פי פרעה, ותחי רוח יעקב, כי שמר את הדבר שסוף יוסף להיות מושל [והעגלות הללו] אינן יוצאות ממצרים כי אם על פי מושל, כמו שפירשתי למעלה:
[5] Seforno Bereishit 45:27
ספורנו בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז (פרשת ויגש)
וידברו אליו את כל דברי יוסף. שאמר ועוד חמש שנים אשר אין חריש וקציר כדי לערב בדבר הבשורה איזהו דאגה: ותחי רוח יעקב. נרפא מן העלוף הקודם בהדרגת השמחה עם הדאגה
[6] Ramban Bereishit 45:27
רמב"ן בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז (פרשת ויגש)
וידברו אליו את כל דברי יוסף - יראה לי על דרך הפשט שלא הוגד ליעקב כל ימיו כי אחיו מכרו את יוסף, אבל חשב כי היה תועה בשדה והמוצאים אותו לקחוהו ומכרו אותו אל מצרים, כי אחיו לא רצו להגיד לו חטאתם, אף כי יראו לנפשם פן יקצוף ויקללם, כאשר עשה בראובן ושמעון ולוי (להלן מט ג - ז). ויוסף במוסרו הטוב לא רצה להגיד לו, ולכך נאמר ויצוו אל יוסף לאמר אביך צוה לפני מותו לאמר וגו', ואלו ידע יעקב בענין הזה היה ראוי להם שיחלו פני אביהם במותו לצוות את יוסף מפיו, כי ישא פניו ולא ימרה את דברו, ולא היו בסכנה ולא יצטרכו לבדות מלבם דברים:
[7] Ha‘amek Davar Bereishit 45:27 based on Bechorot page 29.
דברי יוסף אשר דבר. בהרחבת דברים שיבאו למצרים, וניכרים דברי אמת: וירא את העגלות וגו'. טורח רב כזה אין לחוש לשקר, וכדאיתא בבכורות דכ"ט דטורח לא עבדי לשיקרא, ובזה האמין: אשר שלח יוסף. כבר נתבאר שלא הודיעו עתה כי פרעה שלחם: ותחי רוח וגו'. ביארנו כמה פעמים דשורש חי משמעו כ"פ מלשון חיים עלזים ושמחים
[8] Rashi Bereishit 29:25
רש"י בראשית פרק כט פסוק כה (פרשת ויצא)
ויהי בבקר והנה היא לאה - אֲבָל בַּלַּיְלָה לֹא הָיְתָה לֵאָה, לְפִי שֶׁמָּסַר יַעֲקֹב סִימָנִים לְרָחֵל, וּכְשֶׁרָאֲתָה רָחֵל שֶׁמַּכְנִיסִין לוֹ לֵאָה אָמְרָה: עַכְשָׁו תִּכָּלֵם אֲחוֹתִי, עָמְדָה וּמָסְרָה לָהּ אוֹתָן סִימָנִים (מגילה י"ג(:
[9] Beit Halevi Bereishit 27:22
בית הלוי בראשית פרק כז פסוק כב (פרשת תולדות)
הקול קול יעקב והידים ידי עשו, ולא הכירו, ויברך אותו. לכאורה יש להבין כיון דההכרה של הקול היה נגד ההכרה של הידים במאי הכריע שהוא עשו וברכו. ולולא דמסתפינא היה אפשר לומר דהרי יצחק הרבה לבודקו אם הוא באמת עשו או הוא מטעה אותו. וי"ל דגם בתחילה נתיירא עשו מזה וקודם שהלך מיצחק אמר לאביו סימן שיוודע שהוא עשו שישנה קולו כקולו של יעקב ולדבר בנחת כיעקב ולהזכיר שם שמים וזהו סימן שהוא עשו דאם יבא יעקב להטעות הרי מסתמא ישנה הוא קולו שידמה כקול עשו. ועיין ברמב"ן שכתב על הא דאמר יעקב אולי ימושני אבי והא דלא נתיירא יותר שיכירו ע"י הקול משום דיכול לשנותו כקולו של עשו. וזהו שאמר הקול קול יעקב והידים ידי עשו הרי שני הסימנים מתאימים ולא הכירו וע"כ ויברך אותו. וי"ל עוד דיעקב בשכלו הבין גם את סוד זה ומש"ה לא שינה קולו ודבר כדרכו. וזהו שאמר הכתוב בא אחיך במרמה ותרגם אונקלוס בא אחוך בחוכמא, ולכאורה מרמה וחכמה הם שני עניינים, רק לפי הנ"ל הכל אחד דהמרמה הוא מה שלא עשה מרמה ודיבר כדרכו ולמרמה כזה לא יקרא מרמה רק חכמה שהבין כל זה שאין צריך לו לעשות מרמה רק ידבר כדרכו, ועשו נלכד ע"י ערמתו:
[10] Bereishit 39:7-9.
בראשית פרק לט פסוק ז - ט (פרשת וישב)
(ז) וַיְהִ֗י אַחַר֙ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֔לֶּה וַתִּשָּׂ֧א אֵֽשֶׁת־אֲדֹנָ֛יו אֶת־עֵינֶ֖יהָ אֶל־יוֹסֵ֑ף וַתֹּ֖אמֶר שִׁכְבָ֥ה עִמִּֽי: (ח) וַיְמָאֵ֓ן׀ וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ אֶל־אֵ֣שֶׁת אֲדֹנָ֔יו הֵ֣ן אֲדֹנִ֔י לֹא־יָדַ֥ע אִתִּ֖י מַה־בַּבָּ֑יִת וְכֹ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־יֶשׁ־ל֖וֹ נָתַ֥ן בְּיָדִֽי: (ט) אֵינֶ֨נּוּ גָד֜וֹל בַּבַּ֣יִת הַזֶּה֘ מִמֶּנִּי֒ וְלֹֽא־חָשַׂ֤ךְ מִמֶּ֙נִּי֙ מְא֔וּמָה כִּ֥י אִם־אוֹתָ֖ךְ בַּאֲשֶׁ֣ר אַתְּ־אִשְׁתּ֑וֹ וְאֵ֨יךְ אֶֽעֱשֶׂ֜ה הָרָעָ֤ה הַגְּדֹלָה֙ הַזֹּ֔את וְחָטָ֖אתִי לֵֽאלֹהִֽים:
[11] Bereishit 20:10,11.
בראשית פרק כ פסוק י - יא (פרשת וירא)
(י) וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֲבִימֶ֖לֶךְ אֶל־אַבְרָהָ֑ם מָ֣ה רָאִ֔יתָ כִּ֥י עָשִׂ֖יתָ אֶת־הַדָּבָ֥ר הַזֶּֽה: (יא) וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ אַבְרָהָ֔ם כִּ֣י אָמַ֗רְתִּי רַ֚ק אֵין־יִרְאַ֣ת אֱלֹהִ֔ים בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וַהֲרָג֖וּנִי עַל־דְּבַ֥ר אִשְׁתִּֽי:
[12] Bereishit 41
בראשית פרק מא פסוק טז - לט (פרשת מקץ)
(טז) וַיַּ֨עַן יוֹסֵ֧ף אֶת־פַּרְעֹ֛ה לֵאמֹ֖ר בִּלְעָדָ֑י אֱלֹהִ֕ים יַעֲנֶ֖ה אֶת־שְׁל֥וֹם פַּרְעֹֽה: … (כה) וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יוֹסֵף֙ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֔ה חֲל֥וֹם פַּרְעֹ֖ה אֶחָ֣ד ה֑וּא אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁ֧ר הָאֱלֹהִ֛ים עֹשֶׂ֖ה הִגִּ֥יד לְפַרְעֹֽה: … (כח) ה֣וּא הַדָּבָ֔ר אֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּבַּ֖רְתִּי אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֧ר הָאֱלֹהִ֛ים עֹשֶׂ֖ה הֶרְאָ֥ה אֶת־פַּרְעֹֽה: … (לב) וְעַ֨ל הִשָּׁנ֧וֹת הַחֲל֛וֹם אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֖ה פַּעֲמָ֑יִם כִּֽי־נָכ֤וֹן הַדָּבָר֙ מֵעִ֣ם הָאֱלֹהִ֔ים וּמְמַהֵ֥ר הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים לַעֲשֹׂתֽוֹ: …(לז) וַיִּיטַ֥ב הַדָּבָ֖ר בְּעֵינֵ֣י פַרְעֹ֑ה וּבְעֵינֵ֖י כָּל־עֲבָדָֽיו: (לח) וַיֹּ֥אמֶר פַּרְעֹ֖ה אֶל־עֲבָדָ֑יו הֲנִמְצָ֣א כָזֶ֔ה אִ֕ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֛ר ר֥וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֖ים בּֽוֹ: (לט) וַיֹּ֤אמֶר פַּרְעֹה֙ אֶל־יוֹסֵ֔ף אַחֲרֵ֨י הוֹדִ֧יעַ אֱלֹהִ֛ים אוֹתְךָ֖ אֶת־כָּל־זֹ֑את אֵין־נָב֥וֹן וְחָכָ֖ם כָּמֽוֹךָ:
[13] Bereishit 42
[14] Bereishit 43.
[15] Rashbam, R. Avraham ben Harambam comments to Bereishit 44:5
רשב"ם בראשית פרק מד פסוק ה (פרשת מקץ)
והוא נחש ינחש בו - יש לומר שהיה מראה עצמו לעיניהם כיודע ענינים על ידי קסם ונחש, ושמא בכוס היה קוסם. ויש מפרשים חכם כמותו ינחש על הכוס מי גנבו ממנולפי שכת' לפנינו כי נחש ינחש איש אשר כמוני, ואין כתוב שם ינחש בו:
רבי אברהם בן הרמב"ם בראשית פרק מד פסוק ה (פרשת מקץ)
(ה) והוא נחש ינחש. כלומר שאע"פ שאין לו (לגביע) ערך אצלו הרי יש לו בו ניחוש וקסם ואין זה לפי שיוסף [היה] סומך על הניחוש אלא טען כך והיה מיחס אותו (את הניחוש) לעצמו כדי להסתיר לגמרי מה שבלבו ולהטעות (אותם שיחשבו) כי הוא איש מצרי:
