Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. (Gen 45,4-5)

From the outside point of view, it seemed that it were the brothers who had won, but what they gained in reality was a life of hypocrisy, fear, and guilt. The shared secret, which was not to have been revealed in any way, made them conspirators, and it was not possible for any of them to come out with the truth, because it would harm others. With all this, the brothers got into a prison worse than Joseph because it held them from within. The balance is depressing: in the end, the brothers spent more years in prison than the one they hurt.

Unlike them, it did not take long for Joseph, who was supposed to end up humiliated and defeated and found himself in prison literally, to rise up in his heart - as if the subsequent change of his position only proved what was going on inside. Like everyone else he also must have had a number of personal faults, but when he was in the whirlwind of events, he fought his inner struggle and won: he decided to forgive and not be destroyed by any bitterness. Therefore, unlike his brothers, he could walk towards the inner freedom and would have been experiencing it whether his life was outwardly successful or not.

He thus confirmed the old wisdom of Plato that it is much better for a man to be hurt than to hurt someone else.