Tafseer of Joseph · Yusuf · 12:62
And [Joseph] said to his servants, "Put their merchandise into their saddlebags so they might recognize it when they have gone back to their people that perhaps they will [again] return."
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
His statement: (wa-qāla li-fityānihi ijʿalū biḍāʿatahum fī riḥālihim): Allah, the Exalted, says: Yūsuf said 'to his young men' — that is, his servants; as in:
19470 — Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning his statement: (wa-qāla li-fityānihi): that is to say: to his servants.
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(ijʿalū biḍāʿatahum fī riḥālihim): he says: put back into their baggage the purchase prices of the food which you received from them.
'Al-riḥāl' is the plural of 'raḥl'; that is the plural for the large numbers; the plural for the small numbers of it — from three to ten — is: 'arḥul'.
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With the same meaning as we have mentioned regarding 'al-biḍāʿa' (the merchandise), the people of interpretation also spoke.
Mention of who said this:
19471 — Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: (ijʿalū biḍāʿatahum fī riḥālihim): that is to say: their money (awrāq).
19472 — Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, who said: then he commanded that their merchandise — with which he had given them the food — be put into their baggage without their knowing it.
19473 — Ibn Wakīʿ related to us, saying: ʿAmr related to us, on the authority of Asbāṭ, on the authority of al-Suddī, who said: While he was measuring out for them, he said to his young men: 'put their merchandise into their baggage, so that they may recognize it when they return to their family, perhaps they will come back' — to me.
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Should someone ask: why did Yūsuf command his young men to put the merchandise of his brothers into their baggage?
The answer is: this may have several possible explanations:
The first: he feared that his father did not have enough money — since it was a year of drought and famine — so that confiscating it would harm them, and he wanted it to return to him.
Or: he wanted his father and brothers to be able to derive relief from it, together with their limited need for it; so he sent it back to them without their knowing the reason for the return, out of nobility and generosity.
The third: he wanted thereby that they should not break their promise of return, because they, when they found in their baggage the purchase price which they had already received and possessed — and which had by then become the property of someone other than themselves as compensation for his food — would be reluctant to keep the purchase price of a food they had already received until they returned it to its rightful owner; and this would all the more incite them to return to him.
