We [be] twelve brethren, sons of our father,.... All brethren by the father's side, though not by the mother's, and by one father; they had been twelve, and were so now, though they knew it not, supposing that one was dead, as is next observed:
one [is] not; is not alive, but dead; the Targum of Jonathan is,
"what is become of one we know not''
and the youngest [is] this day with our father in the land of Canaan; see Genesis 42:13.