Genesis 37:35

37:35 All his sons and daughters stood by ¹  him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” ²  So Joseph’s ³  father wept for him.

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.”

Genesis 42:38

42:38 But Jacob ⁷  replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. ⁸  If an accident happens to him on the journey you have to make, then you will bring down my gray hair ⁹  in sorrow to the grave.” ¹⁰ 

Genesis 44:28

44:28 The first disappeared ¹¹  and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” I have not seen him since.

Jonah 2:7

2:7 When my life ¹²  was ebbing away, ¹³  I called out to ¹⁴  the Lord,

and my prayer came to your holy temple. ¹⁵ 

¹ tn Heb “arose, stood”; which here suggests that they stood by him in his time of grief.

² tn Heb “and he said, ‘Indeed I will go down to my son mourning to Sheol.’” Sheol was viewed as the place where departed spirits went after death.

³ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “is not.”

⁵ tn Heb “is not.”

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

⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁸ sn The expression he alone is left meant that (so far as Jacob knew) Benjamin was the only surviving child of his mother Rachel.

⁹ sn The expression bring down my gray hair is figurative, using a part for the whole – they would put Jacob in the grave. But the gray head signifies a long life of worry and trouble.

¹⁰ tn Heb “to Sheol,” the dwelling place of the dead.

¹¹ tn Heb “went forth from me.”

¹² tn Heb “my soul.” The term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul”) is often used as a metonymy for the life and the animating vitality in the body: “my life” (BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 3.c).

¹³ tn Heb “fainting away from me.” The verb הִתְעַטֵּף (hit’attef, “to faint away”) is used elsewhere to describe (1) the onset of death when a person’s life begins to slip away (Lam 2:12), (2) the loss of one’s senses due to turmoil (Ps 107:5), and (3) the loss of all hope of surviving calamity (Pss 77:4; 142:4; 143:4; BDB 742 s.v. עַטֵף). All three options are reflected in various English versions: “when my life was ebbing away” (JPS, NJPS), “when my life was slipping away” (CEV), “when I felt my life slipping away” (TEV), “as my senses failed me” (NEB), and “when I had lost all hope” (NLT).

¹⁴ tn Heb “remembered.” The verb זָכַר (zakhar) usually means “to remember, to call to mind” but it can also mean “to call out” (e.g., Nah 2:6) as in the related Akkadian verb zikaru, “to name, to mention.” The idiom “to remember the Lord” here encompasses calling to mind his character and past actions and appealing to him for help (Deut 8:18-19; Ps 42:6-8; Isa 64:4-5; Zech 10:9). Tg. Jonah 2:7 glosses the verb as “I remembered the worship of the Lord,” which somewhat misses the point.

¹⁵ sn For similar ideas see 2 Chr 30:27; Pss 77:3; 142:3; 143:4-5.