What Does Genesis 43:17 Mean?

The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph's house. The steward executes Joseph's instructions immediately. The efficiency of the execution: "the man did as Joseph told him": reflects the prime-ministerial authority: Joseph's word is acted on without delay or question. The same speed that characterized the execution of Pharaoh's decisions (Genesis 41:14: "they quickly brought him out") now characterizes the execution of Joseph's decisions: when the second-in-command of Egypt gives an instruction, it is done.

"Brought the men to Joseph's house": the household of the prime minister is where the brothers are being taken. This is not the administrative office where they were interrogated; this is the private residence. The transition from official interrogation space to the personal home is a shift from the hostile official context to something more intimate. The men who were accused of espionage and had a brother imprisoned are now being brought into the home of the man who imprisoned their brother. They do not know this is grace in disguise; they experience it as a frightening escalation of their vulnerability.

The brothers' response to being brought to Joseph's house will be described in the next verse: fear that the silver is the cause, that they are about to be enslaved. They cannot read what is actually happening: a brother preparing a reconciling feast in the most adequate setting available to him. The hospitality that Joseph has organized is not visible to the brothers as hospitality; it looks to them like danger. Their guilt-distorted perception of events: begun in the "hearts failed them" of Genesis 42:28: continues as they are led toward the dinner table.