And he lifted up his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and said, Is this your younger brother, of whom you spoke unto me? And he said, God be gracious unto you, my son.
All Commentaries on Genesis 43:29 Go To Genesis 43
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
The foregoing is in the moral sense. In the mystical sense, however, the Lord Jesus saw Paul—for “the eyes of the Lord are upon the just”—and said, “Is this your youngest brother?” He is still called the youngest, for he did not yet exhibit a venerable faith of mature age, and he had not yet grown into mature manhood, “into that measure of the age of the fullness of Christ,” as Paul himself says. Indeed, he is called a young man only in that passage where he kept the garments of those who were stoning Stephen. And on that account he desired that Philemon imitate not his youth but his old age, as he wrote, “I rather beseech, since you are such a one as Paul, an old man.” On that account he preaches that younger widows are to be refused, not by reason of their age but on account of a kind of wantonness in offenses that are reaching full growth and an immaturity in virtue. But chastity merits greater praise in a young man than in one who is old. Moreover, I think it is not far from the truth if we adopt the following interpretation. Although Paul was struck and taken up and was terrified because blindness had befallen him, still he began to come near when he said, “Lord, what will you have me do?” For that reason he is called the youngest by Christ, so that he who was called to grace could be excused from the guilt of his hazardous years. Yes, Christ saw him when the light shone round him; because young men are recalled from sin more by fear than by reason, Christ applied the goad and mercifully admonished him not to kick against it.
