And they told him: told may not be suitable in this context in some languages, which may require something equivalent to “They announced,” “… reported,” “… broke the news.” It is also possible to restructure this verse to say, for example, “When they told him ‘Joseph is still alive; he is the ruler of all of Egypt,’ Jacob was….”

Joseph is still alive: this news is the climax of the whole story as far as Jacob is concerned; and it may need to be delivered with suitable excitement or emphasis. One example of how this may be done is “Joseph is not dead! No. He is still alive; and now he is….”

His heart fainted is literally “his heart froze [turned cold].” The sense of the metaphor is “to become numbed.” In English we may say “it took his breath away” or “he was stunned.” Examples from translations in other languages are “his thinking became weak,” “his head was confused,” and “his thinking became hard.”

For he did not believe them: that is, he could not believe what he was hearing. No doubt he had for years looked for the day when he would hear this news; then when it came he could not believe it. Another way of expressing he did not believe them is “he thought they were deceiving him.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .