What Does Genesis 44:13 Mean?

Then they tore their garments and every man loaded his Donkey, and they returned to the city. The brothers' response to the cup's discovery is immediate and communal: they tear their garments (the ancient Near Eastern expression of grief, distress, and mourning), load their animals, and return to the city. Every man: not just Benjamin, not just the nearest brothers: every man tears his garment and returns. The decision to return is made without debate, without calculation, without considering the steward's offer that the rest are innocent and may go free.

The tearing of garments is the same act that Jacob performed in Genesis 37:34 when he believed Joseph was dead: the mourning of a devastating loss. The brothers use the grief gesture for the discovery of the cup in Benjamin's sack, as though the cup's discovery is already the end. They are not defiant (we didn't take it, prove it in court); they are not calculating (we're innocent per the terms, let's go); they are immediately grief-stricken and immediately returning. The collective mourning and the collective return are the first evidence of the test's answer: they are not abandoning Benjamin to go free.

The loading of the donkeys for the return is the reversal of verse 3's departure: in verse 3 they were sent away with loaded donkeys heading home; in verse 13 they turn those same donkeys back toward the city. The journey that began with the chapter's confident early-morning departure is cut short by the cup discovery. The brothers who thought they were going home are returning to face the official's judgment on a charge they know to be false but cannot refute.