Ruben returned unto the pit - It appears he was absent when the caravan passed by, to whom the other brethren had sold Joseph.

And Reuben returned unto the pit,.... It is very probable he had pretended to go somewhere on business, with an intention to take a circuit, and come to the pit and deliver his brother, and go home with him to his father. The Jews say (b) he departed from his brethren, and sat down on a certain mountain, that he might descend in the night and take Joseph out of the pit, and accordingly he came down in the night, and found him not. So Josephus (c) says, it was in the night when Reuben came to the pit, who calling to Joseph, and he not answering, suspected he was killed:

and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; for neither by looking down into it could he see him, nor by calling be answered by him, which made it a clear case to him he was not there:

and he rent his clothes; as a token of distress and anguish of mind, of sorrow and mourning, as was usual in such cases; Jacob afterwards did the same, Genesis 37:34.

(b) Pirke Eliezer, ut supra. (c. 38.) (c) Antiqu. l. 2. c. 3. sect. 3.

The business was settled in Reuben's absence; probably because his brethren suspected that he intended to rescue Joseph. When he came to the pit and found Joseph gone, he rent his clothes (a sign of intense grief on the part of the natural man) and exclaimed: "The boy is no more, and I, whither shall I go!" - how shall I account to his father for his disappearance! But the brothers were at no loss; they dipped Joseph's coat in the blood of a goat and sent it to his father, with the message, "We have found this; see whether it is thy son's coat or not." Jacob recognised the coat at once, and mourned bitterly in mourning clothes (שׂק) for his son, whom he supposed to have been devoured and destroyed by a wild beast (טרף טרף inf. abs. of Kal before Pual, as an indication of undoubted certainty), and refused all comfort from his children, saying, "No (כּי immo, elliptical: Do not attempt to comfort me, for) I will go down mourning into Sheol to my son." Sheol denotes the place where departed souls are gathered after death; it is an infinitive form from שׁאל to demand, the demanding, applied to the place which inexorably summons all men into its shade (cf. Proverbs 30:15-16; Isaiah 5:14; Habakkuk 2:5). How should his sons comfort him, when they were obliged to cover their wickedness with the sin of lying and hypocrisy, and when even Reuben, although at first beside himself at the failure of his plan, had not courage enough to disclose his brothers' crime?

And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes.

29, 30. Reuben returned unto the pit-He seems to have designedly taken a circuitous route, with a view of secretly rescuing the poor lad from a lingering death by starvation. His intentions were excellent, and his feelings no doubt painfully lacerated when he discovered what had been done in his absence. But the thing was of God, who had designed that Joseph's deliverance should be accomplished by other means than his.

37:23-30 They threw Joseph into a pit, to perish there with hunger and cold; so cruel were their tender mercies. They slighted him when he was in distress, and were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph, see Am 6:6; for when he was pining in the pit, they sat down to eat bread. They felt no remorse of conscience for the sin. But the wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain, Ps 76:10. Joseph's brethren were wonderfully restrained from murdering him, and their selling him as wonderfully turned to God's praise.