The moment Jacob examines the bloody coat, something astonishing happens. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:33) gives us a line that reshapes the whole Joseph narrative. Jacob says: a beast of the wilderness hath not devoured him, neither hath he been slain by the hand of man; but I see by the Holy Spirit, that an evil woman standeth against him.
Jacob sees the truth. Not all of it — not the brothers' plot, not the caravan, not the pit — but enough. He sees that Joseph is not dead. He sees, through the Ruach ha-Kodesh, a woman who will menace his son. The sages identified her instantly: the wife of Potiphar, who would one day try to seduce Joseph in Egypt and have him thrown into prison when he refused (Genesis 39:7–20).
Think about the implication. Jacob knows Joseph is alive. Jacob can even identify a future danger that has not yet happened. And yet he still tears his clothes, still refuses to be comforted, still descends into decades of grief. Why?
Because prophecy does not cancel pain. Seeing through the veil does not mean feeling less. Jacob knows Joseph is not in a grave — but he does not know where Joseph is, and he does not know when he will see him again. The Holy Spirit tells him enough to keep hope burning faintly, but not enough to extinguish grief.
This is perhaps the deepest teaching of the Targum: the righteous sometimes carry two truths at once. Joseph is alive. Joseph is also gone. A father can hold both, and ache with both, for twenty-two years — until the day a viceroy of Egypt lifts his head and says, in Hebrew, I am Joseph, your son.