tn The disjunctive clause provides supplemental information that is important to the story.

tn “was listening.” The brothers were not aware that Joseph could understand them as they spoke the preceding words in their native language.

tn Heb “for [there was] an interpreter between them.” On the meaning of the word here translated “interpreter” see HALOT 590 s.v. מֵלִיץ and M. A. Canney, “The Hebrew melis (Prov IX 12; Gen XLII 2–3),” AJSL 40 (1923/24): 135–37.