Genesis 44:15

And Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that ye have done? wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
Joseph	יוֹסֵ֔ף yo.Sef	H3130	Joseph · proper noun, a man's name
said	וַיֹּ֤אמֶר vai.Yo.mer	H559	to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
deed	הַמַּעֲשֶׂ֥ה ha.ma.'a.Seh	H4639	an action (good or bad) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
done	עֲשִׂיתֶ֑ם 'a.si.Tem	H6213	to do or make · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural
ye	יְדַעְתֶּ֔ם ye.da'.Tem	H3045	to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural
man	אִ֖ישׁ 'ish	H376	a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
certainly	נַחֵ֧שׁ na.Chesh	H5172	properly · verb, piel infinitive construct
divine	יְנַחֵ֛שׁ ye.na.Chesh	H5172	properly · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Genesis 44:4-5 And when they were gone out of the city, and not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou dost ove…
Genesis 3:13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Genesis 21:26 And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.
Genesis 39:8 But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that…
Genesis 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Exodus 32:1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 44:1-17

Joseph heaps further kindnesses upon his brethren, fills their sacks, returns their money, and sends them away full of gladness; but he also exercises them with further trials. Our God thus humbles those whom he loves and loads with benefits. Joseph ordered his steward to put a fine silver cup which he had (and which, it is likely, was used at his table when they dined with him) into Benjamin's sack's mouth, that it might seem as if he had stolen it from the table, and put it here himself, after his corn was delivered to him. If Benjamin had stolen it, it had been the basest piece of dishonesty and ingratitude that could be and if Joseph, by ordering it to be there, had designed really to ta…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 44:6

he overtook them, and he spake . . . these words--The steward's words must have come upon them like a thunderbolt, and one of their most predominant feelings must have been the humiliating and galling sense of being made so often objects of suspicion. Protesting their innocence, they invited a search. The challenge was accepted [Gen 44:10-11]. Beginning with the eldest, every sack was examined, and the cup being found in Benjamin's [Gen 44:12], they all returned in an indescribable agony of mind to the house of the governor [Gen 44:13], throwing themselves at his feet [Gen 44:14], with the remarkable confession, "God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants" [Gen 44:16].

Adam Clarke on Genesis 44:5

Whereby - he divineth? - Divination by cups has been from time immemorial prevalent among the Asiatics; and for want of knowing this, commentators have spent a profusion of learned labor upon these words, in order to reduce them to that kind of meaning which would at once be consistent with the scope and design of the history, and save Joseph from the impeachment of sorcery and divination. I take the word נחש nachash here in its general acceptation of to view attentively, to inquire. Now there has been in the east a tradition, the commencement of which is lost in immemorial time, that there was a Cup, which had passed successively into the hands of different potentates, which possessed the s…

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The Church Fathers

ON JOSEPH'S DIVINATORY SCIENCE. — And Joseph said to them, What is this thing that ye have done? know ye not that a man such as I can surely divine ? About this divination he also sent word through a messenger. Well, what does this mean? Since those words were not spoken in earnest, but only as a joke, as the ending showed, should one think that it is not a lie? Lies, in fact, are from liars that are serious, not joking. On the other hand, things that are said jokingly and do not exist are not considered lies. But the greatest problem is the meaning of Joseph's actions with his brothers, making fun of them so often and keeping them in suspense until they discovered who he was. For although the action, when it is read, is all the softer and the more unexpected for those to whom it was addressed, however, given the seriousness of Joseph's prudence, if there were no significant meaning in this kind of game, then neither he would have done it and the Scripture would not have narrated it, which has such great authority and sanctity and such a keen insight into future things that will be prophesied as prophecy. It is not my intention now to develop this point; I just want to warn you what to do here. For I think that it is not even meaningless who does not say: I divine, but a man like me divines. And if this is a special mode of expression, we must find something similar in the texts of Scripture. [
— Augustine of Hippo, QUESTIONS ON GENESIS, Q. 144 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Cup — A wine-cup (Gen. 40:11, 21), various forms of which are found on Assyrian and Egyptian monuments. All Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold (1 Kings 10: 21). The cups mentioned in the New Testament…
Judah · .Goes down into Egypt for corn (grain) — .Goes down into Egypt for corn (grain)

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Genesis 44:15

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 44:1-17

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 44:6

Adam Clarke on Genesis 44:5

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Genesis 44:15

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Genesis 44:1-17

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Genesis 44:6

Adam Clarke on Genesis 44:5

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Gill on Genesis 44:15

John Calvin on Genesis 44:7-15

Keil & Delitzsch on Genesis 44:14-17

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Genesis 44:14

Rashi on Genesis 44:15