When they reached home they showed the coat to Ja'cob and said, "We found this coat out in the hill country. You can tell whether or not it belonged to Jo'seph." Ja'cob knew that it was the coat which he had given his favorite son, and declared that some wild animal must have killed him. Since the brothers had hoped that their father would believe this to be true, they said nothing to change his mind.
Ja'cob's sorrow seemed to be greater than he could bear, and he gave up all hope of ever being happy again. Now that his favorite son appeared to have lost his life, Ja'cob could not blame himself enough for having sent him on a dangerous journey without anyone to go with him. The older brothers added one more sin to those already committed by pretending to mourn with their father in his grief, and the comfort which they tried to bring him was as false as their hearts.
For twenty years Ja'cob carried this great sorrow in his heart, thinking all the time that his favorite son Jo'seph was dead; while the ten brothers of Jo'seph were forced to suffer the tortures of remorse in the secret cogitations of their own guilty hearts. In the meantime, the domestic life of the chosen family was seriously disrupted by the faithlessness and indiscretions of Ju'dah. Leaving the family where God was known and honored he made friends with the Ca'naan-ites; and positively disobeying the command of God married an idolatrous woman of Ca'naan.
