And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.
Read Chapter 39
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Then the loving God, though wanting to make Joseph feel completely secure, did not release him from slavery or set him at liberty. This, after all, is ever God’s way, not to free virtuous people from dangers or preserve them from trials but, in the midst of such trials, to give evidence of his characteristic grace to such an extent that the very trials prove an occasion of festivity for them. Hence blessed David also said, “In my distress you gave me room to move”; “you did not take away the distress,” he is saying, “or free me from it and make me be completely at ease, but, what is quite remarkable, you brought me peace though I was in fact still in distress.” This is exactly what the loving Lord does in this case: “He blessed the house of the Egyptian in Joseph.” Even the barbarian now learned that the man thought to be a slave was particularly close to God. “He turned over all his possessions into Joseph’s keeping,” the text says, “and had no care for anything except the food he ate.” It was as if he had appointed him master of his whole household. The slave, the captive, held in his care all his master’s possessions. This is what virtue is like: wherever it appears, it prevails over all things and controls them. You see, just as darkness is driven out with the rising sun, so too in this case every evil is absent with the approach of virtue.
