The Divine Hand at Work in Genesis 22

In verse 21, they seem to recognize a divine hand at work. Joseph is setting up circumstances and manipulating the events such that they might even be provoked by things that might not even be conscious. And something like that may work on them at some kind of a subconscious level where they begin to realize my freedom is coming because of my brothers being detained. They are interpreting these events in their life as divine punishment, as poetic justice that the Lord is meeting out against them.