Mother Tongue

When Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, he tells them, כי פי המדבר אליכם, which is interpreted to mean, that he was speaking to them in Hebrew. The Ramban explains that unlike previous meetings that had Yosef speaking in Egypt by way of an interpreter, he was now speaking to them in Hebrew.

This is another explanation as to why the brothers couldn’t figure out that the viceroy of Egypt was actually Yosef. Had they spoken in Hebrew all the time, they may have detected a familiar voice. But this is much more difficult, when Yosef was speaking in Egyptian.

There is one further point about speech. Yosef was also indicating that he, too, had repented for his bad speech that caused his brothers to hate him in the first place.

The reunion of Yakov’s family, was healing on many levels.