They replied, “The man questioned us in detail about ourselves and our family: ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ And we answered him accordingly. How could we possibly know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother here’?”
Here, 1. Jacob urges his sons to go and buy more corn in Egypt, Gen 43:1, Gen 43:2. The famine continued; and the corn they had bought was all spent, for it is meat that perisheth. Jacob, as a good master of a family, is in care to provide for those of his own house food convenient; and shall not God provide for his children, for the household of faith?
Commenting on Genesis 43:1-10
Gen 43:6-7 To the father’s reproachful question, why they had dealt so ill with him, as to tell the man that they had a brother, Judah replied: “The man asked after us and our kinsmen: Is your father yet alive? have ye a brother? And we answered him in conformity (פּי על as in Exo 34:27, etc.) with these words (i.e., with his questions).
Commenting on Genesis 43:6-7