Now Joseph gave these instructions to the steward of his house: “Fill the men’s sacks with as much food as they can carry, and put each man’s silver in the mouth of his sack. Then put my cup, the silver one, in the mouth of the youngest one’s sack, along with the silver for his grain. —Genesis 44:1 & 2, NIV
Every brother was scared. "How could this happen?" "What's wrong with us, that we are paying for our brother's misfortune?" Joseph looked like that tanned slave they saw yesterday being tied and whipped to a pole for being too black; like that woman caught sleeping with a royal guard a few moons' ago; like that old servant who dropped dead on the ground just as he finished working on the first floor of the royal pyramids. If they lived, would this be their destiny?
Each brother lined up and opened his sack of grain. Some checked, and they were happily relieved; others cowered and trembled with fear. "I didn—" The steward shushed him.
Judah...no? Issachar...no? Dan...no?
Then someone remembered: after the party, when the stewards checked the quality of the grain, someone saw Joseph put a silver cup on one of his bags. But it was too dark (and they all looked the same), so they had a hard time telling them apart...
Zebulum...no? Gad...no? Asher...no? Naphtali...no?
And then there was Benjamin. He carried his brother Joseph's sack for good luck on his very first journey. His father gave it to him as a present to remember his older brother's life. "Sir, I didn't steal anything", he said. "But I also felt the sack to be too heavy for me."
And he was right: the cup was snagged into the bottom of the sack. And Joseph found a new slave.