Joseph (Yusuf)
Verses 77-79 GROUP_469 12.77-79
77
قَالُواْ إِن يَسْرِقْ فَقَدْ سَرَقَ أَخٌ لَّهُ مِن قَبْلُ فَأَسَرَّهَا يُوسُفُ فِي نَفْسِهِ وَلَمْ يُبْدِهَا لَهُمْ قَالَ أَنتُمْ شَرٌّ مَّكَانًا وَاللّهُ أَعْلَمْ بِمَا تَصِفُونَ
They said, ‘If he is a thief, a brother of his had [also] committed theft before him.’ But Joseph kept his secret and revealed nothing to them. He said [to himself], ‘Your deed was worse. God best knows the things you speak of.’
78
قَالُواْ يَا أَيُّهَا الْعَزِيزُ إِنَّ لَهُ أَبًا شَيْخًا كَبِيرًا فَخُذْ أَحَدَنَا مَكَانَهُ إِنَّا نَرَاكَ مِنَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ
They said, ‘O exalted one, he has a very aged father, take one of us in his place. We can see that you are a very good man.’
79
قَالَ مَعَاذَ اللّهِ أَن نَّأْخُذَ إِلاَّ مَن وَجَدْنَا مَتَاعَنَا عِندَهُ إِنَّـآ إِذًا لَّظَالِمُونَ
He replied, ‘God forbid that we should take anyone other than the person on whom we found our property. In that case, we would clearly be wrongdoers.’
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Commentary
(a) According to commentators of the Quran, in his childhood Joseph quietly removed an idol from his grandmother’s house and broke it. This showed his antipathy for polytheism. But because it was a parallel to Benjamin’s act, his brothers gave it the colour of theft, and making this an excuse to blacken Benjamin’s name, they said, ‘A brother of his had [also] committed theft before him.’ Joseph’s brothers showed great humility to Joseph, who occupied a very high position in Egypt, addressing him as ‘O exalted one’, etc. But the Joseph of Canaan, who was in their eyes only a village boy, was being wrongly alleged to be a thief. Joseph knew very well that due to the drinking cup placed by him in Benjamin’s pack, his brother was unnecessarily being accused of being a thief. But for timely reasons, he kept quiet and allowed matters (i.e. what was going on between his brothers and the royal officers) to take their own course. When he was obliged to say something, he did not refer to Benjamin as ‘one who has stolen something belonging to us,’ but ‘the person on whom we found our property.’