All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father wept for him.
Jacob's sons bring him a bloodstained coat. He draws the conclusion they intended: his favourite son has been torn to pieces. What follows is one of the rawest pictures of grief in the Bible. Here is a father who refuses all comfort, and who expects to mourn until his own death.
A father caught by his own trick
Long before, Jacob had used goatskins and borrowed clothes to steal his brother's blessing from his blind father. Commentators notice that his sorrow now comes by the same means as his sin.
F. B. HoleIn Genesis 27 we read how Jacob deceived his blind father, Isaac, by wearing Esau's garment. That garment is described as Esau's "best garments," and since he was the elder son it may have been much like Joseph's "coat of many colours." Fine clothes were how Jacob deceived his father, and fine clothes were how his sons deceived him. He dealt out deceit, and it was dealt back to him. God's government of His people works with great precision.
The time-lag between the two events is part of the lesson.
Hamilton SmithThirty years before, Jacob had deceived his father with "the skins of the young goats." Now, after long years, his own sons deceive him with a young goat. There may be long years between the sowing and the reaping, but at last the reaping time comes. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind very fine.
The comforters who caused the grief
All his children gather round him, and they are the ones who deceived him. Their sympathy is an act, and their father's grief is their punishment.
L. M. GrantHis mourning for his son went on for a long time. All his sons and his daughters tried to comfort him, but he would not respond. Of course the comfort his sons offered was hypocritical, and we may be sure that Jacob's intense sorrow troubled their consciences all the more. He tells them that the agony of his mourning will not be relieved before he goes "down to Sheol" — the unseen state of soul and spirit that begins at death.
Faith that saw no further than the grave
Jacob was a true man of God, yet here his hope reaches no further than the tomb. Set his words beside another grieving father's.
Hamilton SmithJacob says, "I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning." Of David we read that he "arose ... and came into the house of the LORD and worshipped." Both men stand in the presence of a child's death, but one goes down mourning and the other goes up to worship. Both were true saints, yet one looked no further than death and the grave, while the other looked beyond death to resurrection.
What Jacob meant by "Sheol"
Jacob believed there was no body left to bury. That rules out one reading of his words.
A. J. PollockThe word cannot mean the grave here. Jacob believed his son Joseph was dead. He had been deceived by the sight of his son's coat of many colours, dyed red with blood, and he cried out, "Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces." So he had not the slightest hope of his own body being laid in his son's grave, when he did not believe that grave existed at all.
Another writer weighs what Jacob's words would mean if death ended everything.
F. W. GrantJacob speaks of going down to Sheol to his son Joseph; and that has very little force if it means going down to nothing at all. David's words about his child make the point stronger still: "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me" (2 Sam. 12:23).
Sorrow that bends the will
This refusal to be comforted is not Jacob's last word on bereavement. Compare it with what he says later.
The Bible TreasuryIn the first instance he tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and refused to be comforted... But in the last he says, "If I am bereaved, I am bereaved" — in other words, "I submit." What a difference! What desolation, when grief tears the heart and there is no resource in God! What a contrast, when the Almighty God is a refuge, and the grieving one can say, "If I am bereaved, I am bereaved!"
And the grief rested on a lie. The son Jacob mourned was alive.
C. StanleyWhen Joseph made himself known to his brothers, he had been, as it were, dead about twenty years. Yes, twenty long years had passed since his father had said, "I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning."... But now Israel said, "It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive."
Summary
- Sowing. Jacob deceived a father with a garment and a goat; his sons deceived him with a garment and a goat. God's government works with precision, however many years lie between.
- Reaping. The comfort he is offered is worthless. His comforters caused the wound, and every tear he sheds presses on their consciences.
- Dimness. Jacob's faith goes only as far as the grave. David, in the same loss, went up to worship, looking past death to resurrection.
- Sheol. Jacob expected to go to his son. Sheol is the unseen state of soul and spirit after death, not a going down into nothing.
- Submission. The man who refused comfort later says, "If I am bereaved, I am bereaved." He lives to say, "It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive."