Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors.
Read Chapter 37
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
And so we are taught the proper nature of parental love and filial gratitude. It is pleasant to love one’s children and very pleasant to love them exceedingly, but often even parental love does harm to the children unless it is practiced with restraint; for it may give the beloved child free rein out of excessive indulgence or, by preference shown to one child, may alienate the others from the spirit of brotherly love. That son gains more who gains the love of his brothers. This is a more splendid manifestation of generosity on the part of the parents and a richer inheritance for the sons. Let the children be joined in a like favor, who have been joined in a like nature…. What wonder if quarrels arise among brothers over an estate or a house, when enmity blazed up among the sons of holy Jacob over a tunic? What then? Should we find fault with Jacob because he preferred the one son to the others? But we cannot take from parents their freedom to love the more those children whom they bel...
According to a mystical or allegorical interpretation Joseph prefigured a type of our Lord. Now if we consider the actions of Joseph, at least in part, we clearly recognize in him an obvious figure of the Lord. Joseph had a multicolored tunic; our Lord and Savior is known to have had one also, since he took the church, which was composed of various nations, like the covering of a garment. The variety of this tunic, that is, of the church that Christ took, is of a different sort; the church has different, varied graces—the martyrs, confessors, priests, ministers, virgins, widows and those who perform works of justice. This variety of the church is not one of colors but of graces; for in this variety of his church our Lord and Savior shines with a multicolored, precious garment. Joseph was sold by his brothers and procured by the Ishmaelites; our Lord and Savior was sold by the Jews and acquired by the Gentiles. Moreover, the Ishmaelites who bought Joseph carried different kinds of perfu...
When the Christian people devoutly come to church, of what benefit is it that they hear how the holy patriarchs took their wives or begot their children, unless they perceive in a spiritual sense why these things happened or what the facts prefigured? Behold, we have heard that blessed Jacob begot a son and called his name Joseph and that he loved him more than the rest of his sons. In this place blessed Jacob prefigured God the Father; holy Joseph typified our Lord and Savior. Therefore Jacob loved his son because God the Father loved his onlybegotten Son, as he himself said, “This is my beloved Son.”
Therefore, in order that our words do not wander from the right way, we say that the Immanuel was born to the Father as a Son of his old age, because he appeared in the latter times of the world, that is, in these times, and after him there will be no other. We expect to be saved in no one else. He alone is sufficient, because we say that the salvation and life of the world is placed in no one else. He shepherds us forever, according to the words of the psalmist, and we will be the subjects of him who is beloved, who appeared in the latter times of the world, as I just said, after he had assumed the flesh and who preexisted as God. In fact, we say that he is coeternal with the Father. ,
Old age, and therefore expected to have no more children; but he loved him still more, on account of his innocent and sweet behaviour (Menochius): in which sense the Samaritan, Chaldean, have, "because he was a wise and prudent boy. "
Colours. The nations of the East delight in gaudy attire, "hanging down to the heels "as the original passim is sometimes expressed, talarispolymita, ver. 3. (Calmet)
What is meant by “he loved Joseph more than all his other sons, as he was a son of his old age”? Since he was born in Jacob’s old age, it is saying, toward the end of his life, on this account he loved Joseph more than all the others. You see, somehow the children born to one in old age seem particularly dear and manage to attract their father’s favor in greater measure. For us to learn, however, that this was not the only factor in winning his father and causing him to prefer him to his brothers, sacred Scripture teaches us that even after him another son was born. If the manifestation of love had proceeded according to natural inclination, that last son would have been loved more for being truly a son of his old age and born at the time the good man reached the end of his life. So what can we say it means? That it was a kind of grace from on high that made the young man amiable and rendered him preferable to all the others on account of the virtue of his soul …. In Scripture the reas...
