The dry eye of the destroyer.
"But they are not grieved for the hurt of Joseph." Of the many aspects of Israel's sin, this is among the most repulsive. It is bad enough to sin against our brother, and by our wrong doing to blight his life; but it makes the crime hideous to look, uncaring and callous, on the desolation we ourselves have wrought.
I. ONE MAN'S SUFFERING IS A FIT OCCASION OF ANOTHER MAN'S SORROW. Men are brothers (Acts 17:26), and owe a mutual regard for each other's concerns (Philippians 2:4). Suffering is evil, and the proper relation toward those enduring it is sympathy (1 John 3:17). God pities the afflicted, and compassion in him is the reason and measure of its dutifulness in us (Matthew 9:36; Luke 10:33-37). We cannot disregard the sufferings of men without sinning against God and against our own humanity.
II. THE GREAT OBSTACLE TO SYMPATHY IS THE SELFISHNESS OF SIN. This leads to atheism on the one hand, and misanthropy on the other. The first man showed this tendency, the second that. Adam failed in regard for God, Cain in regard for his brother. But both transgressions arose out of the one sinful character of selfishness. Adam violated God's command because he preferred his own way; Cain destroyed Abel's life because he thought less of it than of his own wounded self-love. And all men, in proportion as they are sinful, are selfish, inconsiderate, and misanthropic. Love is of God, and rules where God dwells. Where God dwells not we have men "hateful and hating one another." Selfishness and disregard of others' happiness is the very mark and token of a corrupt nature.
III. SELFISHNESS IS WORST IN KIND WHEN MANIFESTED TOWARD OUR OWN KINDRED. In addition to the philanthropy which has its basis in the brotherhood of the race, is the stronger affection which arises out of nearer ties. "Our neighbour," "our own," "those of our own household," are, in an ascending scale, the prescribed and natural objects of our love and care (Matthew 19:19; 1 Timothy 5:8). In proportion to the closeness of our relation to an individual is the normal strength of the tie between us, and so the guilt of disregarding it. The disregard of Israel for Israelites was selfishness of a peculiarly heartless kind. It was the sin of brother against brethren, and involved the violation of blood ties sacred by every law.
IV. THE GREATEST DEGREE OF SELFISHNESS IS THAT IN REGARD TO THE SUFFERINGS OF OTHERS, INFLICTED OR BROUGHT ABOUT BY OURSELVES. In Israel, the men who disregarded the judgments decimating the nation were the men whose wickedness had brought them on. They were indifferent, in fact, about sufferings of which they were themselves the authors. And they have their counterparts in the world still. The drunkard who ruins his own family, the libertine who ruins the family of his neighbour, are the only men in the community who "care for none of these things." The explanation is that special sin produces special hardness of heart, and the man whose wickedness involves society in misery is the man who, by the very fact, is constituted most incapable of feeling it.