Judah urges his father to accept his proposal, because they are wasting time coming to a decision when they should be getting food for their starving families.

If we had not delayed: that is, “if we had not wasted so much time, we could have gone twice to Egypt and home again” or “if we had not taken so long to make up our minds, ….” Some translations refer back to an earlier discussion and say “If you had not prevented us from going before, …” or “If we had not wasted so much time since we asked you earlier, we would have made two trips for food by now.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .