Character built on faith.
This chapter continues the same thread of Joseph's policy, and the same lessons are in it.
I. PRACTICAL WISDOM THE FRUIT OF PIETY. The true man is the strong man. With a deep knowledge of the human heart, Joseph felt quite sure that the only way to move Jacob from Canaan was to detain Benjamin.
II. THE SANCTITY OF THE AFFECTIONS. Real religion their only safeguard in the world's hardening and perverting influences. Joseph did apparent violence to his brethren's and his father's feelings that he might afterwards fill them with joy. There was a great deal of genuine family affection at the bottom of the scheme. He could not bear to part with Benjamin. He at first meant to maintain the dissembling till the old man was brought, but nature burst through the restraint. The whole a testimony to the real purity and simplicity of Joseph's heart, and therefore, in such circumstances of temptation as his, to his real religion.
III. CONTRAST BETWEEN GOD'S IDEAL OF GREATNESS AND THE WORLD'S. Great rulers and statesmen are not wont thus to cultivate the emotions. The tendency of high position is to harden the heart, and to change nature into policy, and the real into the artificial. Yet such instances as Joseph show the possibility of uniting the two spheres—the secular and the spiritual, and being great in both.—R.
HOMILIES BY J.F. MONTGOMERY