29 Now Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit; so he tore his garments. 30 He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there; as for me, where am I to go?” 31 So they took Joseph’s tunic, and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood; 32 and they sent the varicolored tunic and brought it to their father and said, “We found this; please examine it to see whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”33 Then he examined it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!” 34 So Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days.35 Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him. 36 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s officer, the captain of the bodyguard.
After Reuben’s reaction, you might have thought there would be some positive action taken by the brothers. Perhaps they could have chased after Joseph and rescued him. No? Yeah, not these brothers. The first thing they do is set about to cover up their idiocy and deceive their father. There’s no remorse or sadness until they see what it does to their father. And even then, they only try to comfort him. There’s no attempt whatsoever to try and make things right. Lesson to learn? When you screw up badly, it only makes it that much worse when you try and cover it up. And it just snowballs until the thing is totally out of your control. So don’t cover it up. It won’t work anyway.