5838. Verses 32-34 For your servant became surety for the boy to my father, saying, If I do not bring him back to you I shall be sinning against my father all my days. And now, I beg you, let your servant stay instead of the boy, a slave to my lord; and let the boy go up with his brothers. For how am I to go up to my father, and the boy is not with me? Perhaps I shall see the evil which will come upon my father.

'For your servant became surety for the boy to my father, saying' means an attachment to itself. 'If I do not bring him back to you' means unless it is joined to spiritual good. 'I shall be sinning against my father all my days' means a turning away, as a result of which the good of the Church ceases to exist. 'And now, I beg you, let your servant stay instead of the boy, a slave to my lord' means submission. 'And let the boy go up with his brothers' means in order that interior truth may be joined to spiritual good. 'For how am I to go up to my father, and the boy is not with me?' means that spiritual good from the natural would be without interior truth. 'Perhaps I shall see the evil which will come upon my father' means a perception that it will perish.