Genesis 42:13

42:13 They replied, “Your servants are from a family of twelve brothers. ¹  We are the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is with our father at this time, ²  and one is no longer alive.” ³ 

Genesis 42:36

42:36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You are making me childless! Joseph is gone. ⁴  Simeon is gone. ⁵  And now you want to take ⁶  Benjamin! Everything is against me.”

Job 7:8

7:8 The eye of him who sees me now will see me no more; ⁷ 

your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone. ⁸ 

Job 7:21

7:21 And why do you not pardon my transgression,

and take away my iniquity?

For now I will lie down in the dust, ⁹ 

and you will seek me diligently, ¹⁰ 

but I will be gone.”

Jeremiah 31:15

31:15 The Lord says,

“A sound is heard in Ramah, ¹¹ 

a sound of crying in bitter grief.

It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” ¹² 

Zechariah 1:5

1:5 “As for your ancestors, where are they? And did the prophets live forever?

¹ tn Heb “twelve [were] your servants, brothers [are] we.”

² tn Heb “today.”

³ tn Heb “and the one is not.”

⁴ tn Heb “is not.”

⁵ tn Heb “is not.”

⁶ tn The nuance of the imperfect verbal form is desiderative here.

⁷ sn The meaning of the verse is that God will relent, but it will be too late. God now sees him with a hostile eye; when he looks for him, or looks upon him in friendliness, it will be too late.

⁸ tn This verse is omitted in the LXX and so by several commentators. But the verb שׁוּר (shur, “turn, return”) is so characteristic of Job (10 times) that the verse seems appropriate here.

⁹ tn The LXX has, “for now I will depart to the earth.”

¹⁰ tn The verb שָׁחַר (shakhar) in the Piel has been translated “to seek early in the morning” because of the possible link with the word “dawn.” But the verb more properly means “to seek diligently” (by implication).

¹¹ sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

¹² tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.