Joseph's counter-offer is designed to look generous. It is in fact the most dangerous trap he has set yet.
"Far be it from me to do thus; the man in whose hand the chalice hath been found shall be my slave; but you, go up in peace to your father" (Genesis 44:17). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the vizier's velvet reasonableness. I will not punish the innocent. Only the guilty will remain. The rest of you, go home.
Hear what Joseph is really offering. Leave Benjamin behind. Return to Jacob without him. Make your peace with one more lost son of Rachel. He is giving his brothers the exact deal they once took twenty-two years earlier. A brother stays behind, enslaved in Egypt. The rest walk home. Tell your father whatever you want.
This is the trap. If the brothers accept, they have not changed. They will simply have traded Joseph for Benjamin, twenty years apart. If they refuse, they will have committed themselves — with their own mouths, on the road, in front of armed guards — to standing with the youngest rather than abandoning him.
The sages call this Joseph's masterstroke. He does not accuse his brothers of their old crime. He simply recreates the conditions and lets them choose again. This is the essence of teshuvah in Maimonides' ruling (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 2:1): repentance is only complete when the same opportunity returns and you refuse it.
The offer sits in the air like a blade. Go in peace. Leave the boy. Repeat the sin.
What Joseph does not say aloud — but waits to hear — is whether Judah will finally answer differently this time. He is about to.