The confession arrives without prompting. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 42:21 preserves the exact moment the brothers name what they did: "In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, when we saw the distress of his soul, when he entreated us, and we would not hearken to him; therefore hath this affliction come upon us."
The detail the Torah held back for twenty-two years
This verse contains information the Torah never told us in Genesis 37. When Joseph was thrown into the pit, he begged. He pleaded. His brothers heard him and refused to listen. The Torah's account of the sale (Genesis 37:23-28) omits this entirely — no voice from the pit, no pleading, just a silent victim and a business transaction. But here, sitting in an Egyptian prison, the brothers finally say it. He entreated us. We heard him. We would not listen.
The theology of the affliction
Their second sentence is the key. "Therefore hath this affliction come upon us." The Aramaic paraphrase, which took its final form in the Land of Israel around the seventh or eighth century CE, treats this as the first moment of real teshuvah — repentance — in the story. The brothers name the sin. They connect it to their present suffering. They do not blame Egypt, Pharaoh, or bad luck. They own the chain of cause and consequence. In the rabbinic understanding of repentance, codified centuries later by Rambam in Hilkhot Teshuvah, this is step one: confession with specifics.
The takeaway
Twenty-two years of silence end with a single honest sentence. The brothers begin to be forgivable the moment they stop editing the story.