Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt.
Ver. 33. Now therefore let Pharaoh, &c.] This was good counsel, and it proved best to the counsellor. The Jews injuriously charge him with ambitious self-seeking: so they did Noah, as is above noted, with hard-heartedness and incompassionateness to the old world. These made the worst of things, and so condemned the generation of God's children. How much better had it been to have followed that golden rule of Epictetus! Take every man by that name whereby he may best be held; a as Virgil dealt by Ennius, Cyprian by Tertullian, Jerome by Origen, Augustine by Tichonius. If an action had a hundred various faces, we should always cast our sight upon the fairest; and make the best of everything. What Joseph did here, he did doubtless by divine direction. b
a Ea quemque ansa prehendamus qua commode teneri queat. - Epictet.
b Fran. de Sales, cap. 28.