Discovery BoxGenesis 42:36-38 
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.”
42:37 Then Reuben said to his father, “You may 4 put my two sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my care 5 and I will bring him back to you.” 42:38 But Jacob 6 replied, “My son will not go down there with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. 7 If an accident happens to him on the journey you have to make, then you will bring down my gray hair 8 in sorrow to the grave.” 9
1 tn Heb “is not.”
2 tn Heb “is not.”
3 tn The nuance of the imperfect verbal form is desiderative here.
4 tn The nuance of the imperfect verbal form is permissive here.
5 tn Heb “my hand.”
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 sn The expression he alone is left meant that (so far as Jacob knew) Benjamin was the only surviving child of his mother Rachel.
8 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.
9 tn Heb “to Sheol,” the dwelling place of the dead.
