The brothers cannot answer. So Joseph does something astonishing. He invites them closer.
"Joseph said to his brothers, Come near, I pray, and examine me. And they came near. And he said to them, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Mizraim" (Genesis 45:4). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the invitation with the verb bidku — examine, investigate, look closely.
The midrash explains what the examination involved. Some sages say Joseph showed them he was circumcised — proof he was a son of the covenant of Abraham, not an Egyptian. Others say he spoke to them in the lashon ha-kodesh, the sacred Hebrew tongue, without an interpreter, so they could hear the voice of the boy they once knew. Either way, the Targum preserves the intimacy of the moment: not a courtroom, but a private recognition.
Then Joseph says the thing he has never once said in their hearing. I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Mizraim. The accusation is in the sentence — whom you sold — but the emphasis is elsewhere. Notice the word order. I am Joseph your brother. The relationship comes first. The crime comes second.
The sages treasure this phrasing. Joseph names the wrong. He does not pretend it did not happen. But he names the relationship before the wound. Ach-chem — your brother — is spoken before m'chartem — whom you sold. The identity of kinship is placed in front of the fact of betrayal.
This is the Jewish grammar of reconciliation. You do not paper over the sin. You do not make it the headline either. You lead with I am your brother, and then you acknowledge what was done, and you make both true at the same time.