Discovery BoxGenesis 42:36 
Context42:36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You are making me childless! Joseph is gone. 1 Simeon is gone. 2 And now you want to take 3 Benjamin! Everything is against me.”
Genesis 42:38
Context42:38 But Jacob 4 replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. 5 If an accident happens to him on the journey you have to make, then you will bring down my gray hair 6 in sorrow to the grave.” 7
1 tn Heb “is not.”
2 tn Heb “is not.”
3 tn The nuance of the imperfect verbal form is desiderative here.
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 sn The expression he alone is left meant that (so far as Jacob knew) Benjamin was the only surviving child of his mother Rachel.
6 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.
7 tn Heb “to Sheol,” the dwelling place of the dead.
