6561. 'Your father commanded before he died, saying' means that it is by the command of the Church. This is clear from the representation of Israel, to whom 'father' refers here, as the Church, dealt with in 4286, 6426; from the meaning of 'commanding' as influx, dealt with immediately above in 6560, here a command which, being that of the Church, accordingly comes from the Divine; and from the meaning of 'before he died' as when the Church was still in existence. The fact that it is by the command of the Church that one should forgive one's brother or the neighbour is clear from the Lord's words in Matthew,
Peter said to Jesus, Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and I ought to forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say this, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Matt 18:21, 22.
But the idea was ingrained in the Jewish nation that they should never forgive anyone at all who had harmed them in any way but retain him as their enemy. They thought they were allowed to hate him, treat him in whatever way they liked, and kill him. The reason they thought this was that external things alone and nothing internal concerned that nation; thus they were not subject to any command of the internal Church. This was why Joseph's brothers were so afraid that Joseph would hate them and repay them with evil.
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