Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 45:26

26 And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governour over all the land of Egypt. And Jacobs heart fainted , for he believed them not .

Or, was weakned, 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 Iosephs 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.

Partly because of the greatness and strangeness and desireableness of the thing, compare Psal. 126. 1. and partly because they were by this very relation convicted of one lye about Ioseph▪ in saying that he was dead, and therefore might easily be thought guilty of another.

Marginal references: Heb. his.