Genesis 37:29-30

37:29 Later Reuben returned to the cistern to find that Joseph was not in it! ¹  He tore his clothes, 37:30 returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy isn’t there! And I, where can I go?”

Genesis 37:34-35

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.

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¹ tn Heb “and look, Joseph was not in the cistern.” By the use of וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh, “and look”), the narrator invites the reader to see the situation through Reuben’s eyes.

² tn Heb “and put sackcloth on his loins.”

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

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.

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