⦗80–83⦘ “When they despaired of persuading him, they withdrew to confer privately. The eldest of them said, ‘Do you not know that your father took from you a solemn pledge by Allah, and that before this you failed in your duty toward Joseph? I will never leave this land until my father permits me or Allah decides for me, and He is the best of judges. Return to your father and say, “Our father, your son has stolen. We testify only to what we know, and we could not have guarded against the unseen. Ask the town in which we were and the caravan with which we returned. We are certainly truthful.”’ He said, ‘Rather, your own souls have enticed you into something. So beautiful patience is called for. Perhaps Allah will bring them all back to me. Indeed, He alone is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.’”
That is, when Joseph’s brothers despaired of Joseph releasing their brother to them, “they withdrew to confer privately”—meaning that they gathered by themselves, with no one else present, and began consulting one another in confidence. Then “the eldest of them said, ‘Do you not know that your father took from you a solemn pledge by Allah’” to protect him and bring him back unless you were completely overpowered, “and that before this you failed in your duty toward Joseph?” Thus, two offenses had come together against them: their earlier failure regarding Joseph and their subsequent failure to bring back his brother. He therefore had no face with which to confront his father.
“I will never leave this land”—that is, I will remain in this land and not depart from it—“until my father permits me or Allah decides for me,” meaning that He decrees for me to return, either alone or with my brother. “And He is the best of judges.”
He then instructed them what to say to their father: “Return to your father and say, ‘Our father, your son has stolen,’” meaning that he was detained for theft, and we were unable to bring him back to you despite every effort we made. Yet we have testified to nothing except what we knew. We testified only to what we knew because we saw the drinking vessel taken from his baggage. “And we could not have guarded against the unseen”—that is, had we known the unseen, we would not have been so eager or exerted such effort to have him ⦗404⦘ accompany us, nor would we have given you our pledges and solemn assurances. We never imagined that matters would go this far.
“And ask,” if you doubt what we say, “the town in which we were and the caravan with which we returned,” for they witnessed what we have told you. “We are certainly truthful”: we have neither lied, altered, nor changed anything. This is precisely what happened.
When they returned to their father and informed him of this news, his sorrow intensified and his anguish doubled. He also suspected them in this affair, just as he had suspected them in the first. He “said, ‘Rather, your own souls have enticed you into something. So beautiful patience is called for.’” That is, in this matter I shall resort to beautiful patience—patience unaccompanied by discontent, panic, or complaint to people.
Then, when he saw that the situation had grown severe and the distress had reached its utmost, he turned in hope of relief and said, “Perhaps Allah will bring them all back to me”—meaning Joseph, Benjamin, and their elder brother who had remained in Egypt.
“Indeed, He alone is the All-Knowing”—the One who knows my condition, my need for His relief and gracious favor, and my utter dependence upon His kindness—“the All-Wise,” who has appointed a measure for everything and a limit for every matter, in accordance with what His divine wisdom requires.