For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.
I was stolen - i:e., carried off by secret violence, and not exiled in consequence of crime.
Out of the land of the Hebrews. The neighbourhood of Hebron might be so called from the long residence, the immense substance, and the powerful influence of the patriarchs among the Canaanite tribes (Genesis 14:13; Genesis 21:23; Genesis 23:6; Genesis 26:14; Genesis 29:14; Genesis 34:1-31; Genesis 39:17). The Hebrews, as an appellative applied to the patriarchal emigrants into Canaan, was, as Gesenius has remarked, the name current in Egypt and among foreign nations.
Into the dungeon, х babowr (H953)] - in the pit, or prison (see the note at Genesis 37:22). Nothing has hitherto met us in the record indicative of Joseph's feelings: but this earnest appeal reveals a sadness and impatient longing for release which not all his piety and faith in God could dispel.
The circumstances mentioned exactly describe this officer's duties, which, notwithstanding numerous assistants, he performed with his own hands.