وَجاءوا أَباهُم عِشاءً يَبكونَ

In the evening, they came weeping to their father.

EXEGESIS

ʿIshāʾ, while translated here as evening, actually refers to the first portion of the night, after it has gotten dark.^[1]

EXPOSITION

In order that their father would believe their lie, the brothers decided to linger until the evening after they had placed Prophet Joseph (a) in the well, so that they could claim that they had tried to look for Prophet Joseph’s (a) corpse and that they did so until it got dark.

In the evening: the expression is difficult to understand as anything but the evening of the same day, as there would be no meaning to specify the time of day if it was several days later. Hence, we may reject any reports that claim they waited by the well for several days and that one of them visited Prophet Joseph (a) in that time and took him food.

They came weeping to their father: again, in order to deflect the guilt away from themselves and that their lie would be more believable, they pretended to cry.^[2]

REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE

Some have considered their tears to be genuine, and that they cried because they already imagined their father crying over Prophet Joseph (a).^[3] Such an interpretation is giving them too much credit and if they possessed such empathy and love for their father at that time, they would not have done what they did.

[1] Lisan, 15/60, ʿ-sh-y. See also Munyah, 14/156.
[2] See Alusi, 6/391; Mizan, 11/101; Munyah, 14/156.
[3] Tibyan, 6/110.