Genesis 37:30

37:30 returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy isn’t there! And I, where can I go?”

Genesis 37:33-35

37:33 He recognized it and exclaimed, “It is my son’s tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! ¹  Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!” 37:34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, ²  and mourned for his son many days. 37:35 All his sons and daughters stood by ³  him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” ⁴  So Joseph’s ⁵  father wept for him.

Genesis 42:36

42:36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You are making me childless! Joseph is gone. ⁶  Simeon is gone. ⁷  And now you want to take ⁸  Benjamin! Everything is against me.”

Job 14:10

14:10 But man ⁹  dies and is powerless; ¹⁰ 

he expires – and where is he? ¹¹ 

[37:33]  ¹ sn A wild animal has eaten him. Jacob draws this conclusion on his own without his sons actually having to lie with their words (see v. 20). Dipping the tunic in the goat’s blood was the only deception needed.

[37:34]  ² tn Heb “and put sackcloth on his loins.”

[37:35]  ³ tn Heb “arose, stood”; which here suggests that they stood by him in his time of grief.

[37:35]  ⁴ 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.

[37:35]  ⁵ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[42:36]  ⁶ tn Heb “is not.”

[42:36]  ⁷ tn Heb “is not.”

[42:36]  ⁸ tn The nuance of the imperfect verbal form is desiderative here.

[14:10]  ⁹ tn There are two words for “man” in this verse. The first (גֶּבֶר, gever) can indicate a “strong” or “mature man” or “mighty man,” the hero; and the second (אָדָם, ’adam) simply designates the person as mortal.

[14:10]  ¹⁰ tn The word חָלַשׁ (khalash) in Aramaic and Syriac means “to be weak” (interestingly, the Syriac OT translated חָלַשׁ [khalash] with “fade away” here). The derived noun “the weak” would be in direct contrast to “the mighty man.” In the transitive sense the verb means “to weaken; to defeat” (Exod 17:13); here it may have the sense of “be lifeless, unconscious, inanimate” (cf. E. Dhorme, Job, 199). Many commentators emend the text to יַחֲלֹף (yakhalof, “passes on; passes away”). A. Guillaume tries to argue that the form is a variant of the other, the letters שׁ (shin) and פ (pe) being interchangeable (“The Use of halas in Exod 17:13, Isa 14:12, and Job 14:10,” JTS 14 [1963]: 91-92). G. R. Driver connected it to Arabic halasa, “carry off suddenly” (“The Resurrection of Marine and Terrestrial Creatures,” JSS 7 [1962]: 12-22). But the basic idea of “be weak, powerless” is satisfactory in the text. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 105) says, “Where words are so carefully chosen, it is gratuitous to substitute less expressive words as some editors do.”

[14:10]  ¹¹ tn This break to a question adds a startling touch to the whole verse. The obvious meaning is that he is gone. The LXX weakens it: “and is no more.”