Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/301

Rh hood, anger, or envy! Therefore the Bible says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue". And the rabbis taught that though the tongue speaks in Rome, it can kill in Syria, and the slanderous words it utters are like a coal which can never be completely extinguished. And the Bible also says, "Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people" (Leviticus XIX, 16).

Yet just this is what Joseph did. Even against his own brothers he brought evil tales unto his father. Possibly they were true, and possibly they were exaggerated, for that is generally the way with evil reports. Had Joseph been inspired by sincere love for his brothers, and by the desire to help them correct their faults, his motives might have been commendable. But he seems merely to have delighted in telling all the evil things about his brothers he could, and representing himself thereby as better than they. His dreams, too, seem to have suggested the same idea to his father and brothers, and most of all to himself, and for this reason especially he seems to have taken delight in recounting them. As yet none of them could have the least intimation of all that the dreams really meant. His father chided him for the assumption of authority implied in the dreams, and his brothers hated him, and little wonder. For there is no being more contemptible than a tale-bearer of this kind. Joseph was' far from a lovely character when we first make his acquaintance. But we shall see how he, too, like his father, Jacob, was chastened and purified by the sufferings which his own misdeeds brought upon him, until at last he became a noble man and a worthy servant of the Lord, through whom God did a wonderful work. It has been said, that the worth of a man depends upon his two smallest organs, his heart and his tongue. The truth of this adage is well exemplified in the story of Joseph.

Probably Joseph was not altogether to blame, or rather he was not the only one to blame. In the first place, Jacob \n