The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 492

.Joseph out ot the pit, and sold .Joseph to the my son's coat; an evil beast (vide ver. 20) Ish.maelites for twenty pieces of ailver - hath devoured him (this was precisely what literally, for twenty (sc. shekels) of Bilver= his sons meant him to infer); .Joseph is with- £2 10s. ; the price afterwards fixed for a out doubt rent in pieces - ~nb ~7~, the boy between five and twenty (Levit. xxvii. inf. abs. Kai with tho Pnal expressing un- 5), the average price of a slave being thirty doubted certainty. shekels (Ezek. xxi. 32), and Joseph only bringing twenty because he was a lad (Kurtz), Ver. 34.-And .Jacob rent his clothes, and because the Midianites desired to make money put sackcloth upon his loins,-i'~ (cf. aa~o,, by the transaction (Keil), perhaps because aauoi:, saccus), the llSllal dress of mourners his brethren wished to avoid the reproach of (2 Sam. iii. 31 ; N eh. ix. l ; Esther iv. 1), having ach,d from love of gain (Gerlach), but was a coarse, thick haircloth, of which corn most probably because J oseph's brethren ea.red sacks were also made (eh. xlii. 25), and little what they had for him, if so be they which in cases of extreme mental distress were rid of him (Lawson). On the term was worn next the skin (1 Kings xxi. 2i)- lceseph vide eh. xx. 16. And they brought and mourned for his son many days. Though 1 oseph into Egypt-where they in tum dis- twenty-two years elapsed before Jacob a<'ain0 posed of their purchase, doubtless at a profit beheld his son, and though doubtless the old (ver. 36). . man's grief for the premature and violent Vere. 29, 30.-And Reuben (in whose ab- death, as he imagined, of Rachel's chihl sence apparently the scheme of sale had bc~n was little abated by the lapse of time, vet concocted and carried through) returned to the expression "many days" may only°be the pit (obviously with a view to deliver employed to mark the intensity of Jacol/s Joseph); and, behold, Joseph was not in the sorrow, which continued longer than the pit; and he rent hie clothes-in token of customary mournings of the period. his mingled grief and hc;,rror at the discovery (cf. ver. 34 ; xliv. 13 ; 2 Sam. xiii. 31 ; 2 Ver. 35.-And all his sons-the criminals Kings xviii. 37; Job i. 20). And he returned become comforters (Lange) - and all his unto his brethren, and said, The child (or daughters-either Jacob had other daughters besides Dinah (Kalisch, Gerlach, 'Speaker's Y"ung man, as in eh. iv. 23, where_ ,i~ in the Commentary'), or these included his daugh- one hemisttch is equivalent to t::''t;:t in the ters-in-law, the word being employed as in other) is not; and I, whither shall I go-i. e. Ruth i. 11, 12 (Willet, Bush, Murphy), or the however shnll I account for his disappearance I term i., used freely without being designed to Ve~s. 31, 32. -And they-i. e. Joseph's indicate whether he had one or more girls in brethren, including Reuben, to whom mani- his family (Augustine)-rose np to comfort festly the matter had been explained (Cand- him (this implies the return of Jacob's lish thinks Reuben may hn.vo been deceived brethren to Hebron) ; but he refused to be by his brethren), and who wanted the courage comforted; and he said (here the thought either to expose their wickedness or to dis- must be supplied: It is vain to ask me to sent from their device for deceiving Jacob- be comforted), For I will go down into the took .Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the grave unto my son mourning-or, retaining goats, - more correctly, a he-goat of the the order of the Hebrew words, which is goats, since the name of goat seems to have almost always more expressive than those bolonaed in a wider sense to other animals adopted by our tro.nslators, I will go down olso (Gesenius) ; usually understood to mean to my son mourning to, or tow11rds, in the the somewhat older he-goat which was used direction of, SheoL The tcnn ~k~-more ns n sin offering-Levit. xvi. 9 ; xxiii. 19 ; fully ~it-:~, an inf. absol. for a no~, either Numb. vii. 16 ; xv. 24 (Fiirst)-and dipped the coo.tin the blood; and they sent the coat (I) from ~~ref= ~V~, to go down, to sink of mo.ny colours (vide on vcr. 3), and they (Gesenius, Fiirst), signifying the hollow brought it (or caused it to be brought by the place ; or, (2) nccording to the older lexi- hnnds of a servant) to their father, and said (of course by the lips of the messenger), This cographers and etymologists, from ~Ii:)~, to have we fonnd: know now whether it be ask, and meaning either tho region which thy son's coat or no. Either Jacob's sons inexorably summons nil men into its shade, had not the fortitude to witness the first the realm that is ahrays cm ving becaus~ outburst of his grief, or they had not the never satisfied (Keil, Murphy, Lange), or the effrontery requisite to carry through their land that excites questioning and wonder in scheme in their owu persons, nnd were ac- the humnn heart, "the undiscovered coun- cordingly obliged to employ another, pro- try from whose boumo no travel:cr returns" bably o. slave, to carry home the bloody coat ('r. Lewis)-is not the graTI!, since Jncob's to .Jacob in Hebron. son had no grave, but the rlaco of departe,l Ver. 33.--And ho knew it, and said, It is spirils, the unseen wo'.·~d (' A,~,,,;, LXX.) into  'l'HE BOOK OF GENESIS. [cm. xxxvn. 2G-36.