'Thus you shall say to Joseph, "Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong." ' And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father." And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.Okay, are these brothers ever going to learn? After all they've been through, now they lie to Joseph (or at least, there's nothing here to indicate that it wasn't a lie). They were separated for about thirteen years before they migrated to Egypt. It's been seventeen years since then, without one bit of apparent resentment or malice. But after all that, the brothers are worried about a thirty-year grudge.
Now, I'm not the most forgiving person. But I have trouble holding a grudge for more than a few months, at least to the point where I want payback. I may not particularly like someone after that, and I generally will try to avoid people who have wronged me, but I'm not very good at keeping out for blood. Maybe the lifespan being longer meant people remembered grudges longer, or maybe the relative sparsity of population, or maybe the culture had something to do with it. But at some point "honesty is the best policy" must become the rule of one's life, or you're going to spend the rest of it waiting and dreading the payback you think is coming.
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