Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.
Then Joseph could not refrain. The severity of the inflexible magistrate here gives way to the natural feelings of the man and the brother. However well he had disciplined his mind, he felt it impossible to resist the artless eloquence of Judah. He saw a satisfactory proof, in the return of all his brethren on such an occasion, that they were affectionately united to one another; he had heard enough to convince him that time, reflection, or grace had made a happy improvement on their character; and he would probably have proceeded in a calm and leisurely manner to reveal himself as prudence might have dictated. But when he heard the heroic self-sacrifice of Judah, and realized all the affection of that proposal-a proposal for which he was totally unprepared-he was completely unmanned: he felt himself forced to bring this painful trial to an end. It is impossible for anyone whose taste can relish genuine, simple nature, not to be deeply affected with Judah's speech as it is in the Pentateuch. On reading it we are perfectly prepared for the effect which it produced on his unknown brother. We see, we feel, that humanity, natural affection, could hold out no longer. In Josephus, Judah's speech is a very different kind of performance-something so cold, so far-fetched, so artificial both in sentiments and in language, that it savours more of one who had been educated in the schools of the Greek sophists than of those plain, artless, patriarchal shepherds (Campbell's 'Lectures on Ecclesiastical History,' vol. 1:, pp. 19,20). The impression, however, produced by the resistless pathos of the speech is greatly weakened by the injudicious division of the chapter.
He cried, Cause every man to go out. In ordering the departure of witnesses of this last scene, he acted as a warm-hearted and real friend to his brothers-his conduct was dictated by motives of the highest prudence-that of preventing their early iniquities from becoming known either to the members of his household or among the people of Egypt.