Genesis 50:1

Joseph is here paying his last respects to his deceased father. 1. With tears and kisses, and all the tender expressions of a filial affection, he takes leave of the deserted body, Gen 50:1. Though Jacob was old and decrepit, and must needs die in the course of nature - though he was poor comparatively, and a constant charge to his son Joseph, yet such an affection he had for a loving father, and so sensible was he of the loss of a prudent, pious, praying father, that he could not part with him without floods of tears. Note, As it is an honour to die lamented, so it is the duty of survivors to lament the death of those who have been useful in their day, though for some time they may have survived their usefulness. The departed soul is out of the reach of our tears and kisses, but with them it is proper to show our respect to the poor body, of which we look for a glorious and joyful resurrection. Thus Joseph showed his faith in God, and love to his father, by kissing his pale and cold lips, and so giving an affectionate farewell. Probably the rest of Jacob's sons did the same, much moved, no doubt, with his dying words. 2. He ordered the body to be embalmed (Gen 50:2), not only because he died in Egypt, and that was the manner of the Egyptians, but because he was to be carried to Canaan, which would be a work of time, and therefore it was necessary the body should be preserved as well as it might be from putrefaction. See how vile our bodies are, when the soul has forsaken them; without a great deal of art, and pains, and care, they will, in a very little time, become noisome. If the body have been dead four days, by that time it is offensive. 3. He observed the ceremony of solemn mourning for him, Gen 50:3. Forty days were taken up in embalming the body, which the Egyptians (they say) had an art of doing so curiously as to preserve the very features of the face unchanged; all this time, and thirty days more, seventy in all, they either confined themselves and sat solitary, or, when they went out, appeared in the habit of close mourners, according to the decent custom of the country. Even the Egyptians, many of them, out of the great respect they had for Joseph (whose good offices done for the king and country were now fresh in remembrance), put themselves into mourning for his father: as with us, when the court goes into mourning, those of the best quality do so too. About ten weeks was the court of Egypt in mourning for Jacob. Note, What they did in state, we should do in sincerity, weep with those that weep, and mourn with those that mourn, as being ourselves also in the body. 4. He asked and obtained leave of Pharaoh to go to Canaan, thither to attend the funeral of his father, Gen 50:4-6. (1.) It was a piece of necessary respect to Pharaoh that he would not go without leave; for we may suppose that, though his charge about the corn was long since over, yet he continued a prime-minister of state, and therefore would not be so long absent from his business without licence. (2.) He observed a decorum, in employing some of the royal family, or some of the officers of the household, to intercede for this licence, either because it was not proper for him in the days of his mourning to come into the presence-chamber, or because he would not presume too much upon his own interest. Note, Modesty is a great ornament to dignity. (3.) He pleaded the obligation his father had laid upon him, by an oath, to bury him in Canaan, Gen 50:5. It was not from pride or humour, but from his regard to an indispensable duty, that he desired it. All nations reckon that oaths must be performed, and the will of the dead must be observed. (4.) He promised to return: I will come again. When we return to our own houses from burying the bodies of our relations, we say, "We have left them behind;" but, if their souls have gone to our heavenly Father's house, we may say with more reason, "They have left us behind." (5.) He obtained leave (Gen 50:6): Go and bury thy father. Pharaoh was willing his business should stand still so long; but the service of Christ is more needful, and therefore he would not allow one that had work to do for him to go first and bury his father; no, Let the dead bury their dead, Mat 8:22.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gen 50:1 And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

Ver. 1. And Joseph fell upon his father’s face.] As willing to have wept him alive again, if possible; yet more moderate than his father had been in the supposed death of him by an evil beast devouring him. But of mourning for the dead. {See Trapp on "Gen 23:9"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

- The Burial of Jacob

10. אטד 'āṭâd Atad, “the buck-thorn.”

11. מצרים אבל 'ābêl-mı̂tsrayı̂m, Abel-Mitsraim, “mourning of Mizraim,” or meadow of Mizraim.

This chapter records the burial of Jacob and the death of Joseph, and so completes the history of the chosen family, and the third bible for the instruction of man.

Gen 50:1-3

After the natural outburst of sorrow for his deceased parent, Joseph gave orders to embalm the body, according to the custom of Egypt. “His servants, the physicians.” As the grand vizier of Egypt, he has physicians in his retinue. The classes and functions of the physicians in Egypt may be learned from Herodotus (ii. 81-86). There were special physicians for each disease; and the embalmers formed a class by themselves. “Forty days” were employed in the process of embalming; “seventy days,” including the forty, were devoted to mourning for the dead. Herodotus mentions this number as the period of embalming. Diodorus (i. 91) assigns upwards of thirty days to the process. It is probable that the actual process was continued for forty days, and that the body lay in natron for the remaining thirty days of mourning. See Hengstenberg’s B. B. Mos. u. Aeg., and Rawlinson’s Herodotus.

Gen 50:4-6

Joseph, by means of Pharaoh’s courtiers, not in person, because he was a mourner, applies for leave to bury his father in the land of Kenaan, according to his oath. This leave is freely and fully allowed.

Gen 50:7-14

The funeral procession is now described. “All the servants of Pharaoh.” The highest honor is conferred on Jacob for Joseph’s sake. “The elders of Pharaoh, and all the elders of the land of Mizraim.” The court and state officials are here separately specified. “All the house.” Not only the heads, but all the sons and servants that are able to go. Chariots and horsemen accompany them as a guard on the way. “The threshing-floor of Atari, or of the buck-thorn.” This is said to be beyond Jordan. Deterred, probably, by some difficulty in the direct route, they seem to have gone round by the east side of the Salt Sea. “A mourning of seven days.” This is a last sad farewell to the departed patriarch. Abel-Mizraim. This name, like many in the East, has a double meaning. The word Abel no doubt at first meant mourning, though the name would be used by many, ignorant of its origin, in the sense of a meadow. “His sons carried him.” The main body of the procession seems to have halted beyond the Jordan, and awaited the return of the immediate relatives, who conveyed the body to its last resting-place. The whole company then returned together to Egypt.

Gen 50:15-21

His brethren supplicate Joseph for forgiveness. “They sent unto Joseph,” commissioned one of their number to speak to him. now that our common father has given us this command. “And Joseph wept” at the distress and doubt of his brothers. He no doubt summons them before him, when they fall down before him entreating his forgiveness. Joseph removes their fears. “Am I in God’s stead?” that I should take the law into my own hands, and take revenge. God has already judged them, and moreover turned their sinful deed into a blessing. He assures them of his brotherly kindness toward them.

Gen 50:22-26

The biography of Joseph is now completed. “The children of the third generation” - the grandsons of grandsons in the line of Ephraim. We have here an explicit proof that an interval of about twenty years between the births of the father and that of his first-born was not unusual during the lifetime of Joseph. “And Joseph took an oath.” He thus expressed his unwavering confidence in the return of the sons of Israel to the land of promise. “God will surely visit.” He was embalmed and put in a coffin, and so kept by his descendants, as was not unusual in Egypt. And on the return of the sons of Israel from Egypt they kept their oath to Joseph Exo 13:19, and buried his bones in Shekem Jos 24:32.

The sacred writer here takes leave of the chosen family, and closes the bible of the sons of Israel. It is truly a wonderful book. It lifts the veil of mystery that hangs over the present condition of the human race. It records the origin and fall of man, and thus explains the co-existence of moral evil and a moral sense, and the hereditary memory of God and judgment in the soul of man. It records the cause and mode of the confusion of tongues, and thus explains the concomitance of the unity of the race and the specific diversity of mode or form in human speech. It records the call of Abraham, and thus accounts for the preservation of the knowledge of God and his mercy in one section of the human race, and the corruption or loss of it in all the rest. We need scarcely remark that the six days’ creation accounts for the present state of nature. It thus solves the fundamental questions of physics, ethics, philology, and theology for the race of Adam. It notes the primitive relation of man to God, and marks the three great stages of human development that came in with Adam, Noah, and Abraham. It points out the three forms of sin that usher in these stages - the fall of Adam, the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men, and the building of the tower of Babel. It gradually unfolds the purpose and method of grace to the returning penitent through a Deliverer who is successively announced as the seed of the woman, of Shem, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. This is the second Adam, who, when the covenant of works was about to fall to the ground through the failure of the first Adam, undertook to uphold it by fulfilling all its conditions on behalf of those who are the objects of the divine grace.

Hence, the Lord establishes his covenant successively with Adam, Noah, and Abraham; with Adam after the fall tacitly, with Noah expressly, and with both generally as the representatives of the race descending from them; with Abraham especially and instrumentally as the channel through which the blessings of salvation might be at length extended to all the families of the earth. So much of this plan of mercy is revealed from time to time to the human race as comports with the progress they have made in the education of the intellectual, moral, and active faculties. This only authentic epitome of primeval history is worthy of the constant study of intelligent and responsible man.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Gen_50:1-13

Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father

The honour paid to the departed Jacob:

I.

PRIVATE.

1. The tears of his family.

2. The respect paid to last wishes.

II. PUBLIC. (T. H. Leale.)

Ceremonies after death:

The order of the ceremonies alluded to, and on the whole agreeing with classical and monumental records, was as follows:

1. When the extinction of the vital breath could no longer be doubted, the relatives began a preliminary mourning, perhaps observed during the day of death only (Gen_50:1), and consisting in public lamentations, in covering the head and the face with mud (or dust), girding up the garments, and beating the breasts.

2. Then the body was delivered up to the embalmers, who, in the case of Jacob, completed their work in forty days (Gen_50:3), though it more frequently required seventy.

3. Simultaneously with the operations of embalming commenced the chief or real mourning, which, lasting about seventy days (Gen_50:3), usually ended together with the process of mummification, but which, in the instance of the patriarch, exceeded it by thirty days.

4. The body, after having been enclosed in a case of wood or stone (Gen_50:26), was then either deposited in the family vaults (Gen_50:13), or placed in a sepulchral chamber of the house of the nearest relative (Gen_50:26). (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)

Three modes of embalming:

1. If the most expensive mode, estimated at one talent of silver, or about £250, was employed, the brain was first taken out through the nostrils, partly with an iron (or bronze) hook, and partly by the infusion of drugs; then an appointed dissector made with a sharp Ethiopian stone, a deep incision (generally about five inches long) in the left side, at a part before marked out by a scribe; but having scarcely performed this operation, he hastily fled, persecuted by those present with stones and imprecations, as one who was guilty of the heinous crime of violently mutilating the body of a fellow-man. Then one of the embalmers, holy men, who lived in the society of the priests, and enjoyed unreserved access to the temples, extracted through the incision all intestines, except the kidneys and the heart; every part of the viscera was spiced, rinsed with palm-wine, and sprinkled with pounded perfumes. The body was next filled with pure myrrh, cassia, and other aromatics, with the exception of frankincense; sewed up, and steeped in natrum during seventy days, after the expiration of which period it was washed, and wrapped in bandages of linen cloth covered with gum. By this procedure all the parts of the body, even the hair of the eyebrows and eyelids, were admirably preserved, and the very features of the countenance remained unaltered.

2. The cost of the second mode of embalming amounted to twenty mince, or about; £81. No incision was made, nor were the bowels taken out; but the body was, by means of syringes, filled with oil of cedar at the abdomen, and steeped in natrum for seventy days. When the oil was let out, the intestines and vitals came out in a state of dissolution, while the natrum consumed the flesh, so that nothing of the body remained except the skin and the bones; and this skeleton was returned to the relatives of the deceased. The possibility of an injection, as here described, without the aid of incisions, has been doubted; and, in some cases, incisions have indeed been observed near the rectum.

3. A third and very cheap method, employed for the poorer classes, consisted merely in thoroughly rinsing the abdomen with syrmaea, a purgative liquor (perhaps composed of an infusion of senna and cassia), and then steeping the body in natrum for the usual seventy days. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 50:1. Joseph fell upon his father’s face — Having first, no doubt, closed his eyes, according as God had promised that he should; and wept upon him, and kissed — His pale and cold lips, thus manifesting his love to and his sorrow for the loss of him. Probably the rest of Jacob’s sons did the same, much moved, no doubt, with his dying words.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE FUNERAL OF JACOB, Gen_50:1-14.

“The royal obsequies of Israel and Joseph fittingly end the history of the patriarchal age, and the first stage in the development of the covenant people. The father of Joseph was buried with all the magnificence of an Egyptian funeral. No prophet, or prince, or king of Israel’s line, even in the noontide glory of the Hebrew monarchy, was ever laid to his rest with such pomp and splendour. The funeral ceremony was, with the Egyptians, an elegant art, in which they concentrated their religion and highest philosophy, and on which they lavished their taste and wealth. Their belief in immortality, and in the re-union of the soul with the body after transmigration, led them to carve magnificent sepulchres out of their mountains, and decorate them with all the splendours of painting and architecture, where the embalmed body, fresh in feature and fragrant in smell, might wait, as in a palace hall, to welcome the spirit on its return from its wanderings. Thus the Greek historian, Diodorus, says that the Egyptians built only inns for the living, but eternal habitations for the dead. The temples and tombs of Egypt are not only the oldest and most massive monuments of the past, but are also monuments of man’s faith in God and the future state, which have endured from the earliest dawn of civilization.

“Magnificent funeral processions are pictured in the royal tombs of Thebes. Such an imposing pageant is here described, though with such unworldly simplicity as almost to escape the eye, when ‘all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s house,’ leaving only their ‘little ones’ in the land of Goshen, with ‘chariots and horsemen,’ a ‘very great company,’ (Gen_50:7-9,) set forth from the land of Goshen on a funeral march of three hundred miles, through the desert, round the Dead Sea, to the banks of the Jordan, and halted there for seven days’ funeral rites, such as the land of Canaan never witnessed before or after, and which stamped the meadow with the name, ‘Mourning (place) of the Egyptians.’” — Newhall.

1. Joseph fell… and wept… and kissed — A touching picture of the tender emotion of Joseph’s soul. The prominence given to Joseph in the account of this funeral was due to his official position in Egypt as well as to his great devotion to his father.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Gen_50:2. The physicians.] The Egyptians had special physicians for each disease; the embalmers forming a class by themselves.—

Gen_50:3. Mourned for him three score and ten days.] The seventy days of mourning included the forty required for embalming.—

Gen_50:5. My grave which I have digged for me.] “This term is applied to the preparation of a tomb (2Ch_16:14). He thus speaks of having himself done what had been done by Abraham (Genesis 24); though it is not impossible that he had made preparations there for himself when he buried Leah.” (Jacobus.)—

Gen_50:7. The elders of his house.] The court officials. The elders of the land of Egypt.] The state officials.—

Gen_50:10. Beyond Jordan.] Considered, not as written from the position of Moses, but as bearing the usual meaning—East of the Jordan.—

Gen_50:11. Abel-mizraim.] “This name, like many in the East, has a double meaning. The word Abel no doubt at first meant mourning, though the name would be used by many, ignorant of its origin, in the sense of a meadow.” (Murphy.)—

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH—Gen_50:1-13

THE HONOUR PAID TO THE DEPARTED JACOB

This was of two kinds.

I. Private. The dead body of Jacob was honoured.

1. By the tears of his family. All the sons loved their father. They performed their last office for him by laying him in the grave. (Gen_50:12-13.) They mourned for him with true affection. But in Joseph especially is this strong filial love manifested. He fell with tears and kisses upon the dead face of his beloved father. (Gen_50:1.) When he stood by the old man’s bedside with his two sons, he listened calmly to the prophetic words which were uttered; he could bear up and control his feelings; but when the last spark of life was gone, he gave way. A crowd of overwhelming thoughts rushed upon him, and held to that dear embrace he abandons himself to grief. Jacob was honoured also.

2. By the respect paid to his last wishes. He desired to be buried in the sepulchre of his fathers, around which gathered so many tender and solemn memories. His sons carried out that wish. (Gen_50:4-5; Gen_50:12-13.) It was a bold thing for Joseph to ask so much of Pharaoh, for the journey to the grave was about three hundred miles. The embalming would be necessary in order to prepare the body to be borne such a long distance. Thus the desire of the dying man was fully accomplished. He was laid, the latest occupant, in the sepulchre whose denizens he had but a short time before enumerated. (Gen_49:31).

II. Public. Public mourning was ordered. “The Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.” (Gen_50:3). This fell but a little short of a royal mourning. Jacob was honoured by a great nation with a public funeral, on an imposing and magnificent scale. In the funeral procession there were court and state officials, a military escort of chariots and horsemen;” it was a very great company. (Gen_50:9.) The Canaanites were impressed with the sight, and called the place where the funeral procession halted by a name which signifies, the mourning of the Egyptians. (Gen_50:11). 1 This might be objected to as merely formal. In the customs of polite nations, in the matter of court mourning, there is, no doubt, much that is mere outward form. Yet even these ought not to be despised as having no value. They are an outward witness of what men ought to be, and what they ought to feel. They show respect for departed worth, sympathy with survivors, and a thoughtful and solemn recognition of our common mortality.

2. This might be objected to as utilitarian. Some would say, this was altogether an unnecessary expense, time and labour wasted to no profit: “To what purpose is this waste.” (Mat_26:8.) The disciples of our Lord objected to the costly ointment poured upon Him, in this same utilitarian spirit. But Christ discovered a native beauty in actions far surpassing the value of their outward form and use. Thus truth, goodness, and charity may be profitable in what they bestow; but they are also lovely in themselves. They are to be admired apart from the benefits they render. As they cannot be gotten for gold, so they are not to be compared with it. This mourning was imposing in its expensive grandeur, yet it produced feelings and impressions of more value than mere wealth. It produced respect for goodness. Men could not help reflecting upon that greatness of character which had won so much public homage. It strengthened the finest and noblest human feelings,—love, sympathy, compassion for those in sorrow. It invited to seriousness, giving men time to pause in the midst of busy life, so that they might think upon another world. And unless this inward life of noble thoughts and feelings is encouraged, of what use is a nation’s wealth and splendour?

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Gen_50:1. We are not told what Reuben or Simeon felt on this occasion; their sensibilities were not so strong as those of Joseph, but theirself-reflections must have been bitter. Joseph’s tears were attended with secret consolation.—(Bush.)

Gen_50:2. With wonderful propriety does Joseph unite in his own person the Israelitish truthfulnes with that which was of most value in the Egyptian customs and usages.—(Lange.)

Jacob was embalmed, according to the custom of Egypt. This was done to retard the progress of corruption; for so long as the body was there, their friend seemed still among them. In that we find an intimation of immortality.—(Robertson.)

Gen_50:3. All the Egyptians saw how dear Jacob was to their lord, and thought they could not pay a more suitable token of respect to him than by mourning for his father. When good and great men die, it is proper that the general heart of the community should feel the stroke of Providence. A loud voice comes from their graves, proclaiming that soon we shall be with them. Shall we not, then, prepare for the decease which we must so soon accomplish?—(Bush.)

Gen_50:4. Joseph could not apply in person to Pharaoh, because he was in mourning attire. It had been a long established custom in the time of Esther, to exclude all such from the courts of kings. (Est_4:2.) The palace was regarded as the image of heaven, the region of life and gladness, and therefore, the visible signs and symbols of death could not be permitted to enter.

Gen_50:5-6. The Egyptians were very jealous of the honour of their country which they esteemed “the glory of all lands.” They might have thought that Joseph, who had received such honours in their land, did not discover a grateful sense of their favours, if he had carried his father’s body to be buried in another land without giving a good reason for it. The old man had himself, moreover, been treated with great generosity by Pharaoh. Joseph wished to obviate any such reflections, and therefore produced reasons for his request.—(Bush.)

Gen_50:7-13. The mourning train of Jacob, a presignal of Israel’s return to Canaan. The dead Jacob draws beforehand the living Israel to Canaan. Before all is the dying Christ.—(Lange.)

In this there was fulfilled the promise made. (Gen_46:4.) Jacob was literally brought back from Egypt to Canaan; since for his body did God prepare this prophetic journey.—(Starke.)

So great a cavalcade attending Jacob to his long home through a part of two different countries would spread the fame of the good man, and revive the remembrance of him in the land of Canaan. And it was much for the interest of religion that his name should be known. In his life he had eminently displayed the virtues by which religion is recommended.—(Bush.)

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

ELEVENTH SECTION

Joseph’s mourning. Jacob’s burial in Canaan. The brothers’ dread of Joseph. His word of peace and trust for them. Joseph’s last provision for his own return home to Canaan after death, similar to the provision of his father.

Gen_50:1-26

1And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. 2And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm1 his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. 3And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days. 4And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, 5My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die; in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now, therefore, let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again. 6And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear. 7And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, 8and all the elders of the land of Egypt. And all the house [attendants, servants] of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s house; only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. 9And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and it was a very great company. 10And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad [buckthorn], which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and sore lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father seven days. 11And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians; wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which is beyond Jordan. 12And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them. 13For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a burying-place, of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre. 14And Joseph returned into Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. 15And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil we did unto him. 16And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, 17So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive,2 I pray thee, now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil; and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. 18And his brethren also went, and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants 19[literally, and more pathetically, Behold us, thy servants]. And Joseph Said unto them, Fear not, for am I in the place of God? 20But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 21Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.3 22And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father’s house; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. 23And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph’s knees. 24And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die; and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 25And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. 26So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him; and he was put in a coffin [a sarcophagus] in Egypt.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. As the fundamental idea of the preceding chapter denoted, with solemn foresight, the future appearance of Israel in the promised land, so, in the closing chapter before us, the actual return of Israel to Canaan is settled, by way of anticipation, in the burial of Jacob in Canaan, and by the oath which Joseph gives to his brethren. The spirit of the theocratic home-feeling in its higher significance, and of the assurance of their return, breathes through this whole chapter. In this, Genesis points beyond, not only to the exodus of the children of Israel, but away beyond this also, to the eternal home, as the goal of God’s people.

2. According to Knobel, merely Gen_50:12-13 belongs to the ground Scripture, while all the rest is an enlargement made by the Jehovist; but then the Jehovist must be supposed to follow the first document (see p. 377, Knobel). As respects this criticism, now, must things themselves be allowed to speak, especially such things as the strong presence of Joseph, and other facts of a similar kind!

3. Contents: 1) The mourning for Jacob’s death, and the preparation of his dead body in Egypt, Gen_50:1-6.—2) The mourning procession to Canaan, Gen_50:7-13.—3) The breaking out of an old wound. The fear of Joseph’s brothers, and his declaration that their guilt has been expiated under the government of God’s grace, Gen_50:14-21.

4. Joseph’s life and death. His provision exacted from them by an oath: that he should be carried home to Canaan at his death, Gen_50:22-26.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Gen_50:1-6.—And Joseph fell.—An inimitably touching expression of his soul’s deep emotion.—And the forty days were fulfilled.—For forty days did the process of embalming continue. Then follow thirty days, which make the full three-score and ten days—the time of mourning for a prince. “The embalming of the body was an Egyptian custom, practised for pay by a special class of skilled artists (ταριχευταί), to whom the relations gave the body for that purpose. According to Herodotus, ii. 86, there were three modes of proceeding, of which the most costly was as follows: they drew out the brain through the nostrils, and filled the cavity in the head with spices; then they took out the viscera, and filled the space with all kinds of aromatics, after which they sewed it up. The next step was to salt the body with natron, and let it lie seventy days, or longer. Then they washed it off, wrapt it in fine linen, and smeared it with gum. Finally, the relatives took it back, enclosed it in a chest, and kept it in a chamber for the dead. We derive the same information from Diodorus Sic., i. 91, and, moreover, that the taricheutists (the embalmers) were held in high honor, and ranked in the society of the priests. In the several districts they had particular places for their business (Strabo, xvii. p. 795). They used asphaltum which was brought from Palestine to Egypt (Diod., xix. 99; Strabo, xvi. p. 764). From thence, too, they obtained the spices that were employed (see Gen_37:25; Gen_43:11). The intestines they put in a box and cast into the Nile; doing this because the belly was regarded as the seat of sins, especially those of gluttony and intemperate drinking. (Porphyr. Abstin., iv. 10.) See more on this subject in Friedreich (Zur. Bibel, ii. p. 199). See also Winer, Realwörterb., ‘Embalming.’ Jacob was prepared as a mummy. Joseph in the same manner, Gen_50:26. This is related of no other Hebrew. The embalming mentioned later among the Jews was of a different kind (Joh_19:39).” Knobel. The mourning for Aaron and Moses was observed thirty days.—Speak in the ears of Pharaoh.—On an occasion so peculiar he lets others speak for him; moreover it was unseemly to appear before the king in mourning.—The grave which I have digged for me.—This is not at variance with the supposition that Abraham had previously bought the cave. In this cave of Machpelah Jacob had, at a later time, made a special preparation of a grave for himself. It is a conjecture of Von Bohlen, with Onkel and others, that כרה here, should be rendered bought; but there is no need of it.

2. Gen_50:7-13. The great mourning procession of the Egyptians here proceeded, on the one hand, from their recognition of Joseph’s high position, and, on the other, from their love of funeral festivity (Hengstenberg).—Threshing-floor of Atad.—So called from אָטָד, thorn, because, perhaps, surrounded by thorn-bushes.—Seven days.—The usual time of mourning. The place is called by Hieronymus, Bethagla. Concerning the late discovered traces of the place, lying not far from the northern end of the Dead Sea, see Knobel, p. 379. It is this side of Jordan, though the account says beyond Jordan. The expression is explained, when, with the older commentators, we take into view that the traditionary mention arising from the old position of the Israelites, had become fixed. Bunsen would remove the seeming difficulty by maintaining that בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן actually means this side of Jordan. Delitzsch and Keil suppose that the place denoted is not identical with Bethagla, but actually lay on the other side of Jordan. There probably did the Egyptian mourning-train remain behind, after having gone round the Dead Sea; whilst the sons of Jacob, according to Gen_50:13, actually entered Canaan proper. The difficult question, why the mourning-train did not take the usual direct way from Egypt to Hebron, is answered by saying, that on the usual route they would have to guard themselves against encounters with warlike tribes; and this is supported by the fact, that the children of Israel, likewise, at a later day, had to avoid the direct route on the western side. Moreover, the march was in some respects typical, presenting an anticipation, as it were, of the later journey. Even at that time the Canaanites attentively watched the mourning procession; but they had no presentiment of its significance for the later time, and were especially quiet as they looked on during this “grievous mourning of the Egyptians.”

3. Gen_50:14-21.—And when Joseph’s brethren saw.—The father had stood as a powerful mediator between them and Joseph; and now conscience again wakes up. In their message to him they appeal to their father’s words, and there is no ground for what Knobel says, that this was a mere pretext. Joseph’s weeping testifies to an elevated and noble soul. Once they had sold him for a slave, and now they offer themselves as his servants. This is the last atonement. Joseph’s answer contains the full reconciliation. Am I in the place of God? Can I by my own will change his purposes? God has turned the judgment into a deliverance, and in this must they find peace and reconciliation. God has forgiven them; and, therefore, he himself can no longer retain their sins; nor would he; since that would be to put himself judicially in the place of the forgiving God.—What he says, Gen_50:20, gives us the grand golden key to his whole life’s history—yea, it is the germ of all theodicy in the world’s history.

4. Gen_50:22-26.—The third generation.—That is, great-grandchildren. The dead bodies were placed in chests of sycamore wood, and kept in the chambers of the dead. So Joseph’s body was kept. In the exodus of Israel it was carried along (Exo_13:19), and laid in the field of Jacob at Shechem (Jos_24:32).

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. We have denoted this chapter as the chapter of the home feeling. It is a trait that breathes through it. Canaan the home-land of Israel—type of the heavenly home.

2. Joseph’s disposition, mourning, and truthfulness.

3. With wonderful propriety does Joseph unite in his own person the Israelitish truthfulness with that which was of most value in the Egyptian customs and usages.

4. The mourning-train of Jacob, a presignal of Israel’s return to Canaan.

5. As God makes Genesis glorious in the beginning, by the account of his creation,—so here, at the end, by a display of his providence (Gen_50:20).

6. The admonitions of conscience.

7. Perfect love casteth out fear. Joseph’s word of peace for his brethren.

8. Joseph’s provision an act of faith. Pointing to the exodus.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Consecrated death.—Consecrated mourning. The consecrated mourning usage. The pious mourning procession. The divine sighing for home. The dead Jacob draws beforehand the living Israel to Canaan. Before all is the dying Christ.—The way of our future wonderfully prepared: 1. In the mourning-train; 2. in the exodus of the spirits; 3. in the going forth of the heart in its longing and sighing for home.

First Section. (Gen_50:1-6.) Starke: Extract from Herodotus ii. 85, 86, on the Egyptian mourning usages, and the embalming of the dead.—Bibl. Tub.: The bodies of the dead are rightly honored, when they are buried in the earth, with the common usages, when they are not superstitious; but they are not to be exposed for spiritual reverence, or carried about for that purpose, or have ascribed to them any miracle-working power. Though we may weep for the dead, it must not be with us as it is with the heathen, who have no hope.—Calwer Handbuch: Egypt swarmed with physicians, because there was one specially for each disease.

Second Section. (Gen_50:7-13.) Starke: Thus was there almost royal honor done to Jacob in his death; since for the dead Egyptian kings they used to mourn for seventy-two days.——Schröder: In this there was fulfilled the promise made Gen_46:4 : Jacob was literally brought back from Egypt to Canaan; since for his body did God prepare this prophetic journey.

Third Section. (Gen_50:14-21.) Starke: Attendance upon the dead to their place of rest is a Christian act.

Gen_50:16. They sent a messenger, saying; It was probably Benjamin whom they sent.—Hall: To one who means good, there can be nothing more offensive than suspicion.—The same: The tie of religion is much stricter than that of nature.

Gen_50:20. Lange: The history of Joseph and his brethren an example of the wonderful providence of God.—Bibl. Tub.: The wicked plots of wicked men against the pious, God turns to their best good.

Gerlach: The revelation of the most wonderfully glorious decree of God’s love and almighty power, which man cannot frustrate, yea, even the transformation of evil into blessing and salvation—this appears to have been fulfilled throughout the entire life of Joseph. His feeling, so greatly removed from the revenge which his brothers still thought him capable of, goes far beyond them. He speaks to their heart. His words drop like balm upon a wound. It is a beautiful pictorial expression which elsewhere occurs.—With an act of faith of the dying Jacob, connecting the first book of Moses with the second, this history closes, and thereby points to the fulfilling of the promise that now follows.—Schröder: As we have one father, they would say, so have we one God, our father’s God; forgive us, therefore, for God’s sake, the God of our father. They make mention of servitude as their deserved punishment, with reference to their evil deed to Joseph (Baumgarten).

Fourth Section. (Gen_50:22-26.) Starke: It is not probable that, at that time, the brothers were all living. [In that case the meaning would have reference to the heads of families.—To the wood out of which the coffins of the dead were made, there seems to have been ascribed the property of being incorruptible?—Comparison of Joseph with Christ in a series of resemblances.]—God does not suffer fidelity to parents, or love and kindly deeds to one’s own people, to go unrewarded.—Bibl. Wirt.: God is wont, sometimes, even in this life, to recompense to believers their cross and misery. That is the best thought of death, to remember the promise of God and his gracious redemption.—Schröder: It all ends with the coffin, the mourning for the dead, the funeral procession, and the glance into the future life. The age of promise is over; there follows now a silent chasm of four hundred years, until out of the rushes of the Nile there is lifted up a weeping infant in a little reed-formed ark. The age of law begins, which endures for fifteen hundred years. Then in Bethlehem-Ephratah is there born another infant, and with him begins the happy time, the day of light, and quickening grace (Krummacher).—Calwer Handbuch: His place as prime minister of Egypt had not extinguished Joseph’s faith in the divine promise. He shared in the faith; he is to be a coheir, a sharer in the inheritance.—Lisco: And so speaks Joseph yet, through faith, unto his people, though he has long been dead, and in his grave.—Heim: Joseph closed his life with an act of faith.

Footnotes:

[1][Gen_50:2.—חנט occurs only here, and in Son_2:13, where it is applied to the ripening of the fig. The Arabic ֿ״ has also both these senses of ripening and of embalming. The LXX have rendered it ἐνταφιάσαι, to bury, putting a part of a proceeding for the whole—to prepare him for burial. Vulgate—ut aromatibus condirent.—T. L.]

[2][Gen_50:17.—שָׂא, forgive; literally, lift up. The figure may be either the lifting up the supposed prostrate face, or the lifting off the burden of remembered guilt. It is most expressive either way.—T. L.]

[3][Gen_50:21.—וַיְדַבֵּר עַל לִבָּם. Rendered, and he spake kindly unto them. Literally, he spake unto their heart, and so the LXX have rendered it. He did not merely use good oratorical forma of encouragement, but spoke words coming from the heart, and which the heart immediately understood. It was the language of deep emotion. Compare the same expression, 1Sa_1:13, and Isa_40:2, rendered in the latter place, speak ye comfortably—literally, speak to the heart of Jerusalem. It is to be regretted that such intensive expressions of the Hebrew had not been more generally preserved in our English version. Some of them might have sounded strangely at first, but time would have naturalized them, and given them a place among the choicest idioms in our language.—T. L.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 50 The Burial of Jacob and Joseph’s Return and Death

1. The grief of Joseph (Gen 50:1-3)

2. The burial (Gen 50:4-13)

3. The return to Egypt (Gen 50:14-23)

4. The death of Joseph (Gen 50:24-26)

This great book which begins with the perfect and good creation of God ends with a burial and the last words are “a coffin in Egypt.” What havoc sin has wrought. Jacob died 147 years old and after his body was embalmed was carried to Canaan. Read in connection with Joseph’s death Exo 13:19, Jos 24:32 and Heb 11:22.

Genesis and Geology

Genesis is a revelation from God; geology is a discovery of man. A revelation from God can be augmented by God only; a discovery by man may be improved, matured, advanced, ripened progressively, till the end of the world. We therefore assume that Genesis is perfect and beyond the possibility of contradiction or improvement by us; and we equally assume that geology, because the discovery of man, and the subject of the investigation of man, may be improved by greater experience and more profound acquaintance with those phenomena which lie concealed in the bosom of the earth, waiting for man to evoke, explain, and arrange them. I am sure, therefore, that Genesis, as God’s Word, is beyond the reach of the blow of the geologist’s hammer; or the detection of a single flaw by microscope or telescope; it will stand the crucible of the chemist; and the severer the ordeal to which it is subjected, the more pure, resplendent, and beautiful it will emerge, indicating its origin to be from above, and its issue to be the glory of God, and the supreme happiness of mankind. Geology has before now retraced its steps; Genesis never. Before now it has been discovered, that what were thought to be facts incontrovertible were fallacies. It is found that phenomena described and discussed as true, were mistakes and misapprehensions, which maturer investigations have disposed of, and therefore I am not speaking dogmatically and without reason, when I say, that while Genesis must be true, geology--having already erred, may err again, and some of its very loudest assertions, made rashly by those who have least acquaintance with its data--may yet be proved to be wrong. But certain facts in it are now beyond all dispute. Let geology and Genesis be alleged to clash, and the discovery from the depths of the earth contradict the text from the page of the Bible; in such a case, I would submit first these questions: Are you sure that there is a real contradiction between the fact of geology and the text of the Bible, or is it only a contradiction between the fact discovered by science, and the interpretation that you put upon the text of the Bible? In the next place, if there be in any instance contradiction between a clear text of the Bible and a supposed fact or discovery made by the geologist, my inference, and without hesitation, is, that the geologist must have made a mistake, that Moses has made none; and there fore the advice we give to the geologist is, not to say, God’s work beneath contradicts God’s Word without, but just to go back again, read more carefully the stony page, excavate more laboriously in the subterranean chambers of the earth, and a maturer acquaintance with the facts of science may yet elicit the desirable result, that there is harmony where we thought discord, and perfect agreement where to us there seemed only discrepancy and conflict. We have instances of the possibility of some deductions of science being wrong in other departments of it. Astronomy was once quoted as contradicting the express declarations of the Word of God; maturer acquaintance with it has proved its perfect coincidence. Again, the hieroglyphics on the banks of the Nile, as deciphered by Young and Champollion, were instanced to prove a far greater age of the human race than that declared in the Bible; but subsequent investigation showed that the hieroglyphics were wrongly interpreted, not that God’s Word was untrue. The traditions of the Chinese were viewed as upsetting the records of the Mosaic history, but subsequent investigation has proved that those were wrong, and that God’s Word is true.

The Bible, whether we take it in Genesis or in the Gospels, contains no error; it has not a single scientific error in it. Yet it was not designed to teach science; but wherever it touches the province of science, it touches so delicately that we can see the main object is to teach men how to be saved, while its slight intimations of scientific principles or natural phenomena have in every instance been demonstrated to be exactly and strictly true. If the Bible said in any part of it, as the ancient philosopher alleged, that there were two suns, one for the upper hemisphere, and the other for the lower, then science would prove that Scripture was wrong; or if the Scripture said, as the Hindus believe, that the earth is a vast plain, with concentric seas of milk, honey, and sugar, supported by an elephant, and that the earthquakes and convulsions of the globe are the movements of that elephant as he bears it on his back, then science would have proved that to be absurd; and if Scripture has asserted it, such assertion would be demonstrably untrue. But the striking fact is that you find no such assertion, nor anything approaching such assertions in the Bible. How comes it to pass, then, that Moses has spoken so purely and truly on science where he does speak, and has been silent where there was such a provocative to speak-his very silence being as significant as his utterance? How happens it that Moses, with no greater education than the Hindu, or the ancient philosopher, has written his book, touching science at a thousand points so accurately, that scientific research has discovered no flaws in it; and has spoken on subjects the most delicate, the most difficult, the most involved; and yet in those investigations which have taken place in more recent centuries, it has not been shown that he has committed one single error, or made one solitary assertion which can be proved by maturest science or the most eagle-eyed philosopher to be incorrect scientifically or historically? The answer is, that Moses wrote by the inspiration of God, and therefore what he writes are the words of faithfulness and of truth. (Cumings.)

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

50:1-6 As with his father and grandfather, Jacob’s death brought the end of an era.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

CHAPTER L

Joseph bewails the death of his father, and commands the

physicians to embalm him, 1, 2.

The Egyptians mourn for him seventy days, 3.

Joseph begs permission from Pharaoh to accompany his father's

corpse to Canaan, 4, 5.

Pharaoh consents, 6.

Pharaoh's domestics and elders, the elders of Egypt, Joseph and

his brethren, with chariots, horsemen, c., form the funeral

procession, 7-9.

They come to the threshing-floor of Atad, and mourn there

seven days, 10.

The Canaanites call the place Abel-Mizraim, 11.

They bury Jacob in the cove of Machpelah, 12, 13.

Joseph returns to Egypt, 14.

His brethren, fearing his displeasure, send messengers to him to

entreat his forgiveness of past wrongs, 15-17.

They follow, and prostrate themselves before him, and offer to be

his servants, 18.

Joseph receives them affectionately, and assures them and theirs

of his care and protection, 19-21.

Joseph and his brethren dwell in Egypt, and he sees the third

generation of his children, 22, 23.

Being about to die, he prophecies the return of the children of

Israel from Egypt, 24,

and causes them to swear that they will carry his bones to Canaan, 25.

Joseph dies, aged one hundred and ten years is embalmed, and put

in a coffin in Egypt, 26.

NOTES ON CHAP. L

Verse 1. Joseph fell upon his father's face] Though this act appears to be suspended by the unnatural division of this verse from the preceding chapter, yet we may rest assured it was the immediate consequence of Jacob's death.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. And Joseph fell upon his father’s face. In this chapter, what happened after the death of Jacob, is briefly related. Moses, however, states that Jacob’s death was honored with a double mourning — natural (so to speak) and ceremonial. That Joseph falls upon his father’s face and sheds tears, flows from true and pure affection; that the Egyptians mourn for him seventy days, since it is done for the sake of honor, and in compliance with custom, is more from ostentation and vain pomp, than from true grief: and yet the dead are generally mourned over in this manner, that the last debt due to them may be discharged. Whence also the proverb has originated, that the mourning of the heir is laughter under a mask. And although sometimes minds are penetrated with real grief; yet something is added to it, by the affectation of making a show of pious sorrow, so that they indulge largely in tears in the presence of others, who would weep more sparingly if there were no witnesses of their grief Hence those friends who meet together, under the pretext of administering consolation, often pursue a course so different, that they call forth more abundant weeping. And although the ceremony of mourning over the dead arose from a good principle; namely, that the living should meditate on the curse entailed by sin upon the human race, yet it has always been tarnished by many evils; because it has been neither directed to its true end, nor regulated by due moderation. With respect to the genuine grief which is not unnaturally elicited, but which breaks forth from the depth of our hearts, it is not, in itself, to be censured, if it be kept within due bounds. For Joseph is not here reproved because he manifests his grief by weeping; but his filial piety is rather commended. We have, however, need of the rein, and of self-government, lest, through intemperate grief, we are hurried, by a blind impulse, to murmur against God: for excessive grief always precipitates us into rebellion. Moreover, the mitigation of sorrow is chiefly to be sought for, in the hope of a future life, according to the doctrine of Paul.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

1. And Joseph] For Joseph’s strong affection for his father, cf. Gen_45:3, Gen_46:29.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Joseph fell upon his father's face,.... Laid his own face to the cold face and pale cheeks of his dead father, out of his tender affection for him, and grief at parting with him; this shows that Joseph had been present from the time his father sent for him, and all the while he had been blessing the tribes, and giving orders about his funeral:

and wept upon him; which to do for and over the dead is neither unlawful nor unbecoming, provided it is not carried to excess, as the instances of David, Christ, and others show:

and kissed him; taking his farewell of him, as friends used to do, when parting and going a long journey, as death is. This was practised by Heathens, who had a notion that the soul went out of the body by the mouth, and they in this way received it into themselves: so Augustus Caesar died in the kisses of Livia, and Drusius in the embraces and kisses of Caesar (w). Joseph no doubt at this time closed the eyes of his father also, as it is said he should, and as was usual; see Gen 46:4.

(w) Vid. Kirchman. de Funer. Rom. l. 1. c. 5.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Kissing him, as it was then the custom, in testimony of an ardent affection. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And doubtless closed his eyes, as God had promised, Gen 46:4, which may be implied in this general phrase.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Burial of Jacob, and Death of Joseph

2. For the importance attached by the Egyptians to the preservation of the corpse see on Gen_40:19. The process, which was so thorough that mummies of Joseph's time may be seen in our museums in a state of good preservation, was briefly as follows. The brain and intestines were removed, and the stomach cleansed and filled with spices (embalmed). The body was then steeped in a mixture of salt and soda (called natron), for forty or more days, to preserve it from decay. Next, it was bound up in strips of linen smeared with a sort of gum; and finally it was placed in a wooden case, shaped like the human body, and deposited in a sepulchral chamber.

4. When the days of his mourning were past] It could not have been that cause which prevented Joseph from going personally to Pharaoh. 'More probably it was not usual to take steps in a matter which personally concerned the minister, without the mediation of other exalted personages' (D.).

10. Threshing floor of Atad] unknown. Beyond Jordan] i.e. E. of Jordan, implying that the writer is in Canaan: see on Deu_1:1.

11. Abel-mizraim] 'the meadow of Egypt.' 'The name may be historically explained owing to the long period of Egyptian domination in Palestine in pre-Mosaic times, as we learn from the Tel-el Amarna letters, but the narrator connects the name with Ebel, “mourning”' (D.).

19. Am I in the place of God?] i.e. to judge or to punish.

20. The selling of Joseph by his brethren had been a sinful action, but through his coming to Egypt God had brought about a great blessing to many. So He often brings good out of evil, though evil is not to be done in order that good may come. Joseph himself here sums up the great lesson of his career, so far at least as his brethren are concerned.

23. Were brought up upon] RV 'were born upon.' Joseph took the newborn children on his lap and so recognised them as his descendants: see Gen_30:3.

25. Cp. Heb_11:22,; 'By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones.' Joseph's instructions were carried out at the time of the exodus (Exo_13:19) and his body was buried at Shechem: see Jos_24:32.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Joseph fell upon his father"s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. Joseph had no doubt closed the eyes of his revered and beloved parent, as God had promised to the patriarch that he would, (Gen_46:4) and now, in demonstration both of the intensity of his love and of the bitterness of his sorrow, he sinks upon the couch upon which the lifeless form is lying, bonding over the pallid countenance with warm tears, and imprinting kisses of affection on the cold and irresponsive lip. It is neither unnatural nor irreligious to mourn for the dead; and he must be callous indeed who can see a parent die without an outburst of tender grief.

Vers. 1-14.

The funeral of Jacob.

I THE PRIVATE SORROW. That a great and good man like Jacob, the father of a numerous family, the ancestor of an important people, the chieftain of an influential tribe, the head of the Church of God, should depart this life without eliciting from some heart a tribute of sorrow, is inconceivable. That any of his sons witnessed the last solemn act of this great spiritual wrestler, when he gathered up his feet into his bed and yielded up his spirit into the hands of God, without a tear and without a pang of grief, although it is only the emotion of Joseph that is recorded, is what we cannot for a moment believe. Less demonstrative than was that of Joseph, less deep too, probably, since the heart of Joseph appears to have been peculiarly susceptible of tender emotions, we may yet suppose that the grief of Joseph"s brethren was not less real.

II THE PUBLIC MOURNING. In accordance with the customs of the times, and of the country, it was needful that a public ceremonial should be observed, in honor of the dead. Accordingly, Joseph, as the first step required by the usages of the people amongst whom he lived, gave instructions to his court physicians to embalm his father. For details as to the process, which occupied a period of forty days, the Exposition may be consulted. Then, along with this, for seventy days, peculiar rites, supposed to be expressive of the heart"s grief, such as rending the garments, smiting the breast, throwing dust upon the head, calling on the deceased, were maintained with the assistance of friends, neighbors, and professional mourners.

III THE FUNERAL PROCESSION.

1. The train of mourners. This consisted of the state and court officials of Pharaoh"s house, and of the land of Egypt, the members of the houses of Joseph and his brethren, and a troop of horsemen and charioteers for protection on the journey.

2. The line of march. This was either straight north, through the country of the Philistines, if Goren Atad was south of Hebron in Judea, or it was round about by the way of the wilderness, if the halting-place was east of Jordan.

3. The lamentation at Goren Atad. This was intended as a special demonstration before burial, and was conducted with such vehemence as to arrest the attention of the Canaanites, who called the place in consequence, Abel-Mizraim; i.e. the plain or the mourning of Mizraim.

4. The advance to Hebron. It is more than probable that the Egyptians, who had accompanied the funeral procession from Goshen, remained behind at Goren Atad, while Joseph and his brethren bore the patriarch"s body on to Hebron.

IV THE SOLEMN INTERMENT. His sons buried him in the ancestral vault; of Mach-pelah. Reverently, affectionately, tearfully, yet hopefully, let us hope, they laid the weary pilgrim down to sleep till the resurrection morn beside the dust of his own Leah, and in the company of Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Rebekah. It must have been an affecting, as surely it was a sublime spectacle, this coming home of an aged exile to lay his bones in his native land, this returning of the heir of Canaan to claim his inheritance, this laying down of the last member of the great patriarchal family among the other inmates of Machpelah. With the burial of Jacob, the first patriarchal family was complete, and the tomb was closed. The members of the second household slept at Shechem.

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD

Heb_11:22) not in any foolish feeling of relic worship, but because he would have the people while in Egypt not to be of Egypt. Those who live on the promises of God will feel that" faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," and confess, not by word only but by deed, and to the last moment of life, "that they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth," "seeking a better city, even a heavenly. R.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here, is,

I. The preparation for Jacob's funeral, ver. 1-6.

II. The funeral itself, ver. 7-14.

III. The settling of a good understanding between Joseph and his brethren, after the death of Jacob, ver. 15-21.

IV. The age and death of Joseph, ver. 22-26.

And Joseph fell upon his father's face and wept upon him, and kissed him - Joseph shewed his faith in God, and love to his father, by kissing his pale and cold lips, and so giving an affectionate farewell. Probably the rest of Jacob's sons did the same, much moved, no doubt, with his dying words.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Genesis 37 - 50

On which we shall dwell more particularly. There is not in scripture a more perfect and beautiful type of Christ than Joseph. Whether we view Christ as the object of the Father’s love, the object of the envy of His own, - in His humiliation, sufferings, death exaltation, and glory, in all we have Him strikingly typified by Joseph.

In Gen. 37 we have Joseph’s dreams, the statement of which draws out the enmity of his brethren. He was the object of his father’s love, and the subject of very high destinies, and inasmuch as the hearts of his brothers were not in communion with these things, they hated him. They had no fellowship in the father’s love. They would not yield to the thought of Joseph’s exaltation. In all this they represent the Jews in Christ’s day. He came to His own and his own received him not." He had "no form nor comeliness in their eyes." They would neither own Him as the Son of God, nor king of Israel. Their eyes were not open to behold "his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of "grace and truth." They would not have Him; yea, they hated Him.

Now, in Joseph’s case, we see that he, in no wise, relaxed his testimony in consequence of his brethren’s refusal of his first dream. "And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren;" and they hated him yet the more....And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren." This was simple testimony founded upon divine revelation; but it was testimony which brought Joseph down to the pit. Had he kept back his testimony, or taken off ought of its edge and power, he might have spared himself; but no; he told them the truth, and therefore they hated him.

Thus was it with Joseph’s great Antitype. He bore witness to the truth - He witnessed a good confession He kept back nothing - He could only speak the truth because He was the truth, and His testimony to the truth was answered, on man’s part, by the cross, the vinegar, the soldier’s spear. The testimony of Christ, too, was connected with the deepest, fullest, richest grace. He not only came as "the truth," but also as the perfect expression of all the love of the Father’s heart:" grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." He was the full disclosure to man of what God was. Hence man was left entirely without excuse. He came and showed God to man, and man hated God with a perfect hatred. The fullest exhibition of divine love was answered by the fullest exhibition of human hatred. This is seen in the cross; and we have it touchingly foreshadowed at the pit into which Joseph was cast by his brethren.

"And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit; and we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams." These words forcibly remind us of the parable in Matthew 22. "But, last of all, he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." God sent His Son into the world with this thought, "They will reverence my son;" but, alas! man’s heart had no reverence for the "well beloved" of the Father. They cast him out. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ; and they are at issue still. Man crucified Him; but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves; God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man gave Him the very lowest place on earth; God gave Him the very highest place in heaven, in brightest majesty.

ALL this is shown out in Joseph’s history. "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;) even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren." (Gen. 49: 22-26)

These verses beautifully exhibit to our view "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." "The archers" have done their work; but God was stronger than they. The true Joseph has been shot at and grievously wounded in the house of his friends; but "the arms of his hands have been made strong" in the power of resurrection, and faith now knows Him as the basis of all God’s purposes of blessing and glory in reference to the Church, Israel, and the whole creation. When we look at Joseph in the pit, and in the prison, and look; at him afterwards as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of God and the. thoughts of men; and so when we look at the cross, and at "the throne of the majesty in the heavens," we see the same thing.

Nothing ever brought out the real state of man’s heart toward God but the coming of Christ. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." (John 15: 22) It is not that they would not have been sinners. No; but "they had not had sin." So He says, in another place, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin." (John 9: 41) God came near to man in the Person of His Son, and man was able to say, "this is the heir;" but yet he said, "come, let us kill him." Hence, "they have no cloak for their sin." Those who say they see, have no excuse. confessed blindness is not at all the difficulty, but professed sight. This is a truly solemn principle for a professing age like the present. The permanence of sin is connected with the mere profession to see. A man who is blind, and knows it, can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for one who thinks he sees, when he really does not?

C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Mourning for Jacob

v. 1. And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him, an evidence of deep, almost uncontrollable sorrow.

v. 2. And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, an art in which the Egyptians had reached a high degree of perfection, as the condition of most mummies shows. And the physicians embalmed Israel. They took out those organs of the body which were most easily subject to decay, filling the cavities with spices, soaking the flesh in a solution which prevented its decaying, and then wrapping the body in linen smeared with gum. 6)

v. 3. And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those embalmed, so long it took for the entire process of embalming; and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days, not only during the forty days of the embalming, but for thirty days more, thus giving him the honor which was given to princes in Egypt.

v. 4. And when the days of his mourning were past, when the official, solemn mourning for Jacob had come to an end, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, to the officials of the king’s court—for since he was still in mourning, he could not appear before Pharaoh in person,—saying, if now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

v. 5. My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die; in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Since his father had taken the solemn oath from him, Joseph asked the courtiers to do him the favor of applying to Pharaoh for leave of absence for him, that he might bury his father. Jacob, in anticipation of his death, probably at the time when he buried Leah, had prepared also his own burial-place in the cave of Machpelah. It is by no means a sign of a sickly morbidity if Christians purchase and prepare a cemetery lot for themselves where they hope eventually to rest, for they believe in the resurrection of the dead. Joseph’s request was stated: Now, therefore, let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

v. 6. And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear. Pharaoh’s regard for Joseph, as for a faithful servant, had in no wise been diminished, and he readily granted the request.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 50:25

This is the one act of Joseph’s life which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews selects as the sign that he too lived by faith. It was at once a proof of how entirely he believed God’s promise, and of how earnestly he longed for its fulfilment. It was a sign of how little he felt himself at home in Egypt, though to outward appearance he had become completely one of its people. The ancestral spirit was in him true and strong, though he was "separate from his brethren." This incident, with the New Testament commentary on it, leads us to a truth which we often lose sight of.

I. Faith is always the same, though knowledge varies. There is a vast difference between a man’s creed and a man’s faith. The one may vary—does vary within very wide limits; the other remains the same. What makes a Christian is not theology in the head, but faith and love in the heart. The dry light of the understanding is of no use to anybody. Our creed must be turned into a faith before it has power to bless and save.

II. Faith has its noblest office in detaching from the present. All his life long, from the day of his captivity, Joseph was an Egyptian in outward seeming. He filled his place at Pharaoh’s court; but his dying words open a window into his soul, and betray how little he had felt that he belonged to the order of things in which he had been content to live. He too confessed that here he had no continuing city, but sought one to come. Dying, he said, "Carry my bones up from hence." Living, the hope of the inheritance must have burned in his heart as a hidden light, and made him an alien everywhere but upon its blessed soil. Faith will produce just such effects. Does anything but Christian faith engage the heart to love and all the longing wishes to set towards the things that are unseen and eternal? Whatever makes a man live in the past and in the future raises him; but high above all others stand those to whom the past is an apocalypse of God, with Calvary for its centre, and all the future is fellowship with Christ and joy in the heavens.

III. Faith makes men energetic in the duties of the present. Joseph was a true Hebrew all his days; but that did not make him run away from Pharaoh’s service. He lived by hope, and that made him the better worker in the passing moment. True Christian faith teaches us that this is the workshop where God makes men, and the next the palace where He shows them. The end makes the means important. This is the secret of doing with our might whatsoever our hand finds to do—to trust Christ, to live with Him and by the hope of the inheritance.

A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, p. 130.

Reference: Gen 50:26.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 370.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

that he collapsed on the face of his father

The term "he collapsed" is an idiom for being overcome. AT: "that he fell on his father in grief" (See: Idiom)

his servants the physicians

"his servants who took care of dead bodies"

to embalm his father

To "embalm" is a special way of preserving a dead body before it is buried. AT: "to prepare his father's body for burial" (See: Euphemism)

They took forty days

"They took 40 days" (See: Numbers)

seventy days

"70 days" (See: Numbers)

translationWords

Joseph (OT)

kiss

command

servant

Jacob

Egypt

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

ויפול יוסף, not only he but also his brothers, of course. Seeing that he was the most highly placed of the brothers the Torah mentions him. If he allowed himself this display of emotion, his brothers surely did no less.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.