Tafsir of Yusuf 12:77

"They said, 'If he steals...'"

{A brother of his}: They meant Yusuf. It is narrated that when they extracted the measuring cup from Benjamin’s saddlebag, his brothers hung their heads in shame. They turned to him and said, "What have you done? You have disgraced us and blackened our faces! O sons of Rachel, we are never free from your trials. When did you take this cup?"

He replied, "O sons of Rachel, upon whom the trials never cease! You took my brother [Yusuf] and destroyed him, and the one who placed this cup in my saddlebag is the same one who placed the goods in your saddlebags."

There is disagreement regarding what they attributed to Yusuf in terms of theft:

• It is said: In his youth, he took an idol belonging to his maternal grandfather, broke it, and threw it among the carcasses on the road.
• It is said: He entered a temple, took a small gold statue they worshipped, and buried it.
• It is said: There was a goat or a chicken in the house, and he gave it to a beggar.
• It is said: Ibrahim (peace be upon him) had a belt that his eldest descendants inherited. It passed to Ishaq, then to his daughter, who was his eldest child. She raised Yusuf—she was his paternal aunt—after his mother died, and she could not bear to be parted from him. When he grew up, Yaqub wanted to take him back, so she took the belt, tied it around Yusuf under his clothes, and said, "Ishaq’s belt is missing; search to see who took it." They found it tied around Yusuf. She said, "He is my servant; I do with him as I please." So Yaqub left him with her until she died.

{But he kept it secret}: This is an ellipsis conditioned by the explanation that follows. Its interpretation is: {You are in a worse position}. It is feminine [in the Arabic text] because the phrase "You are in a worse position" is considered a "sentence" or a "word"—as they refer to a group of words as a "word." It is as if it were said: "He kept the sentence or word, which is his saying: 'You are in a worse position,' secret." The meaning is: He said to himself, "You are in a worse position," because the phrase "He said, 'You are in a worse position'" is a substitution for "He kept it secret." In the reading of Ibn Mas'ud, it is "fa-asrahu" (masculine), referring to the "statement" or "speech."

{In a worse position}: You are in a worse state regarding theft, for you are thieves in truth, having stolen your brother from your father.

{And Allah is most knowing of what you describe}: He knows that neither I nor my brother committed theft, and the matter is not as you describe.

"They said, 'O Aziz, he has a father, a very old man, so take one of us in his place. Indeed, we see you are of the doers of good.'"