What Does Genesis 42:26 Mean?

Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed. The departure is the close of the first Egyptian encounter. The brothers loaded the grain: the practical purpose of the journey achieved: and left. Simeon remains behind; the other nine have grain for the household; they carry the concealed silver without yet knowing it. The departure is the beginning of the journey home that will become the journey of revelation: first the silver discovery in verse 27, then the full discovery at the inn, then the report to Jacob in verses 29 to 38. Everything will change between the departure from Egypt in verse 26 and the return to Egypt in Genesis 43.

The loaded donkeys are the visible measure of what the trip achieved at its surface level: they came to buy grain and they are returning with grain. The famine that threatened the household has been met with the grain of Egypt. At the surface, the mission accomplished its purpose. But the sacks contain more than grain: they contain the returned silver, the evidence of something mysterious and frightening, and the implicit demand to bring Benjamin on the next trip. The successful grain purchase is also the beginning of a moral and familial crisis that the brothers will have to navigate with their elderly father.

The economy of the departure verse is the narrative's reflection of the journey's unremarkable exterior. Nine men loading nine donkeys with grain and leaving Egypt: from the outside, this is exactly what thousands of foreign visitors to Egypt were doing during the famine. The extraordinary interior of this specific journey: the identity of the official they dealt with, the guilt they confessed to each other, the silver that will alarm them: is entirely invisible from the outside. The loaded donkeys represent both the successful purchase and the approaching crisis.