Jacob's heart fainted, or, was weakened, or failed, he fell into a swoon, as it is ordinary, because of the greatness and suddenness of the news, and the conflict of contrary and violent passions, raised hereby; grief at the remembrance of his former loss, and excessive joy for Joseph's recovery and felicity; hope that this might be true, and fear lest it should be but a fiction of theirs: any one of these passions are able to cause a fainting of the spirits, but much more when all meet together, especially in an aged person. He believed them not; partly because of the greatness, and strangeness, and desirableness of the thing; compare Psalms 126:1; and partly because they were by this very relation convicted of one lie about Joseph, in saying that he was dead, and therefore might easily be thought guilty of another.

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