‘And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the lodging place he saw his silver and behold, it was in the mouth of his sack.'
It is stressed that at this stage only one of them finds the silver. It is probable that they would all feed their asses from the one opened sack and they would not dream for one moment that this would be true for them all. It had every sign of being a plant so that they could be accused of theft. There were probably also a number of servants who also bore sacks on their asses, and they would have no silver in them. Jacob had a large household to feed with many retainers.