John Gill Bible Commentary

And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks,.... Both those in which were the corn they had bought, and those in which were their provender for their cattle, and provision for themselves: that, behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack; the same purse, and the same pieces of money, gold or silver, they had paid to the steward: and when both they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid; the Targum of Jonathan adds,"because of Simeon, whom they had left there;''fearing that they should he charged with theft or fraud, and that Simeon would be put to death; they had opened their sacks before, and found their money in them, but put it up again as it was, in order to open them in their father's presence, from whom they thought proper to conceal this circumstance, lest he should blame them for not returning to the governor with their money upon the first notice of it, when they had travelled but one day's journey; wherefore they make no mention of it in the account of things that befell them, and express their surprise and fear upon finding it when they opened their sacks, as if they had known, nothing of it before; though it may be their fears were renewed and increased by what Jacob might observe to them, as the consequence of it, which they had not so thoroughly considered before.