And all his sonnes] They that had their hearts and hands deepest in the plot that did so afflict their father, pretend a sympathie of sorrow with him, and a desire to minister comfort unto him; thus they increase their owne sin by hypocrisie, while they make offer of lessening his sorrow by compassion. and all his daughters] That is, Dinah with his sonnes wives, for he had no daughters of his owne but Dinah, nor were his sonnes of age to have children (who being Jacobs grandchildren might be called his daughters, see Chap. 31. vers. 43.) to comfort him; for his eldest sonne being not above twenty five yeares old, it was not like that any child of his, or any of the rest were now of sufficient age to be his comforters. I will goe downe] Jacob was so passionately affected with the conceit of his sonnes untimely death, that by sorrow he is like to hasten his owne; and carried with the tyde of his distemper beyond himselfe, he both refuseth all comfort, and resolveth to carry his griefe to his grave. He was perhaps too fond in his love to Joseph, and now he smarts for it, as David did for doting upon Absolom: 2 Sam. 18. 5: 33 The excesse of one affection (the case being changed) turneth to the excesse of another; in both the best may offend, and therefore all must watch more carefully over their hearts, that their passions grow not too wild to be governed with grace, and reason. grave] The word Sheol here used and Englished the grave, signifieth generally the state of the dead, without any reference to paine, or anguish, as Psalms 30:3. Isaiah 38:18-19. and in many other places, especially in this place where Jacob, when he conceived that Joseph was killed, rent his clothes and refused comfort, saying, I will goe downe into the grave unto my sonne mourning; for by the grave he could not mean a place digged below in the earth, for he thought he was devoured and torn in pieces, by some evill beast, vers. 33. much lesse that he was gone to hell, the place of the damned, because he was a good child, and had evident signes of the favour of God towards him; and particularly it is taken for a low place in the earth, and that either shallower, as the grave, Proverbs 30:16. or deeper, as that devouring gulfe which swallowed Core, and his company, Numbers 16:33. or for the place and state of the damned, where they are shut up to suffer torment without mitigation or end. The Popish Divines in their annotations upon this place find fault with our Translation for the word grave, and would faine have it be beleeved, that because Jacob thought his sonne went not into the grave, and meant not himselfe to goe to hell, that Limbus is the place meant by Sheol, a place bordering upon hell, where they must meet and where there is no paine; and some of them deny the word Sheol to be any where in Scripture taken for the grave; but others of them confesse it is frequently so taken. We may take the word Sheol then here for the grave, or state of the dead, out of commerce with the living; and if the Papists will have the word Sheol to signifie either hell, or some state of the dead next above it, and neere unto it, as Limbus Patrum, or Purgatorie, what will they say of the sheep and oxen and tents which in the sixteenth of Numbers, vers. 33. went downe in the pit? in the Originall the word is Sheol; sure sheep and oxen, &c. went not to Hell, or Limbus.