Genesis 37:4 And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him. "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?" (Proverbs 27:4). Even a brother is sometimes exposed to its influence. Like the wild tornado which, as it sweeps along, destroys the loveliest flowers, and leaves the garden desolate as the wilderness, it has cut down many a youth of promise, and turned many a peaceful home into a scene of sadness and distress. We may say of it as Seneca says of anger, to which it is intimately allied: that it is a vice decidedly against nature; for it divides instead of joining, and in some measure frustrates the end of Providence in human society. "One man was born to help another; envy makes us destroy one another. Nature unites, envy separates; the one is beneficial, the other mischievous; the one succours even strangers, the other destroys the most intimate friends; the one ventures all to save another, the other ruins himself to undo another." (Thornley Smith) Parallel Verses KJV: And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. |
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