Genesis 37:33

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!”

Genesis 37:35

37:35 All his sons and daughters stood by ²  him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” ³  So Joseph’s ⁴  father wept for him.

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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.

² tn Heb “arose, stood”; which here suggests that they stood by him in his time of grief.

³ 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.

⁴ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.