Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh] That so great a favourite, so honourable a person as Joseph was, should need mediatours to the King, or that he should use them without need, may seeme not to consist with his preeminence, or prudence; yet there might be many reasons for it; it might be his modesty, to be beholding to some Courtiers to mediate for him with the King, who haply had done the like office for them; and by making them mediatours, he tooke occasion to give them full information, and satisfaction touching his motion, and to engage them to speake for it, who otherwise would be forward enough to frame exceptions against it, and to traduce him for it, as if he meant to desert the King, or did disdain his Kingdome, as not good enough for the interment of his dead Father, which had kept him while he was alive: And he might have cause to feare offence the rather, if (as it may befall the best and worthiest men by the ficklenesse of the Kings favour, or the falshood of supplanting Courtiers) his authority and acceptation were any whit weakned, the times of necessity which caused his advancement being now expired. Or it may be the ceremony of mourning required his residence about the dead corps: Or last of all, perhaps it was against the ceremony of the Court for a man in a mourning habit to appeare in the presence of the King, as Esth. 4. 12. For such reasons as these, (and it may be there were others, which Josephs wisdome might keep to himselfe, or communicate unto the servants of Pharaoh) might he at this time make use of such intercessours, to make knowne and present his request to Pharaoh.