Genesis 50:3

Gen 50:3 And 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.

Ver. 3. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.] Longer than Joseph mourned; they did it through "ignorance," and as men "without hope"; for both which, see 1Th 4:13. Joseph could look through his own loss, and see his father’s gain beyond it. Besides, he could say, as Jerome {a} in like case, Tulisti, Domine, patrem, quem ipse dederas: Non coutristor quid recepisti; ago gratias, quod dedisti. And if epicures could comfort themselves in their greatest dejections, ex praeteritarum voluptatum recordatione; { b} how much more could Joseph now; not only by calling to mind this last seventeen years’ enjoyment of his dear father, beyond all hope and expectation; but chiefly, that happy change his father had made, from darkness to light, from death to life, from sorrow to solace; from a factious world, to a heavenly habitation, where he drinks of that torrent of pleasure, without let or loathing.

{a} Jerome, ad Julian.

{b} Cic., De Finib., lib. ii.

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.

Gen 50:3. Forty days were fulfilled for him — That is, for embalming him, this time being, at the least, requisite to go through the process. But according to Herodotus, the body often remained at the embalmer’s seventy days. The Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days — Thirty days according to the custom of the Hebrews, Num 20:29,

Deu 34:8, over and above the forty employed in embalming, which also was a time of mourning. During all which time they either confined themselves, and sat solitary, or, when they went out, appeared in the habit of close mourners, according to the custom of the country.

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

50:3 the Egyptians mourned for Jacob for seventy days, just two days short of the mourning period for a pharaoh. This showed the great respect that the Egyptians had for Joseph.

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

They were more excessive in lamenting than the faithful.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

the Egyptians mourned, &c. It was made a period of public mourning, as on the death of a royal personage.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 3. Forty days] The body it appears required this number of days to complete the process of embalming; afterwards it lay in natron thirty days more, making in the whole seventy days, according to the preceding accounts, during which the mourning was continued.

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

3. And forty days were fulfilled for him. We have shown already that Moses is speaking of a ceremonial mourning; and therefore he does not prescribe it as a law, or produce it as an example which it is right for us to follow. For, by the laws, certain days were appointed, in order that time might be given for the moderating of grief in some degree; yet something also was conceded to ambition. Another rule, however, for restraining grief is given to us by the Lord. And Joseph stooped, more than he ought, to the perverted manners of the Egyptians; for the world affects to believe that whatever is customary is lawful; so that what generally prevails, carries along everything it meets, like a violent inundation. The seventy days which Moses sets apart to solemn mourning, Herodotus, in his second book, assigns to the embalming. But Diodorus writes that the seasoning of the body was completed in thirty days. Both authors diligently describe the method of embalming. And though I will not deny that, in the course of time, the skill and industry in practicing this art increased, yet it appears to me probable that this method of proceeding was handed down from the fathers.

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.

(3) Forty days.—Herodotus (ii. 86) describes the process of embalming as occupying seventy days, but he was speaking of what he saw at Thebes, whereas Memphis was the Egyptian capital in Joseph’s time; and the mummies of Thebes are, we are told, far more perfectly preserved than those of Memphis. Diodorus agrees very nearly with the periods mentioned here, saying (i. 91) that the embalming took somewhat more than thirty days, and the mourning for a king seventy-two. The usual period of mourning among the Israelites was thirty days (Num_20:29 : Deu_34:8). Probably, therefore, the forty days spent in the embalming were included in the “threescore and ten days,” during which the Egyptians mourned for Jacob.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3. forty days] Herod. ii. 86 mentions 70 days, and Diodorus (i. 72) mentions 72 days as the time required for the process of embalming.

threescore and ten days] It is here specially mentioned in honour of Jacob, that the Egyptian nation mourned him for 70 days.

The period of mourning for Aaron and for Moses was 30 days (Num_20:29; Deu_34:8). In later historic times the period of mourning for the dead was seven days (cf. 1Sa_31:13; Job_2:13; Sir_22:12; Jdt_16:24).

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.

Forty days were fulfilled for him,.... Were spent in embalming him:

for so are fulfilled the days of those that are embalmed; so long the body lay in the pickle, in ointment of cedar, myrrh and cinnamon, and other things, that it might soak and penetrate thoroughly into it: and so Diodorus Siculus (d) says, that having laid more than thirty days in such a state, it was delivered to the kindred of the deceased:

and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days; during the time of their embalming him; for longer than seventy days the body might not lie in the pickle, as before observed, from Herodotus. According to Diodorus Siculus (e), the Egyptians used to mourn for their kings seventy two days: the account he gives is, that"upon the death of a king, all Egypt went into a common mourning, tore their garments, shut up their temples, forbid sacrifices, kept not the feasts for seventy two days, put clay upon their heads (f), girt linen clothes under their breasts; men and women, two or three hundred together, went about twice a day, singing in mournful verses the praises of the deceased; they abstained from animal food, and from wine, and all dainty things; nor did they use baths, nor ointments, nor lie in soft beds, nor dared to use venery, but, as if it was for the death of a beloved child, spent the said days in sorrow and mourning.''Now these seventy days here are either a round number for seventy two, or two are taken from them, as Quistorpius suggests, to make a difference between Jacob, and a king of theirs, who yet being the father of their viceroy, they honoured in such a manner. Jarchi accounts for the number thus, forty for embalming, and thirty for mourning; which latter was the usual time for mourning with the Jews for principal men, and which the Egyptians added to their forty of embalming; see Num 20:29.

(d) lBibliothec. l. 1. p. 82. (e) lbid. p. 65. (f) Vid. Pompon. Mela de Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 9.

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

For him, i.e. for his embalming; that so the drugs or spices which were applied might more effectually reach to all the parts of the dead body, and keep it from corruption. And the effect of their diligence and so long continuance in this work was, that bodies have been preserved uncorrupt for some thousand of years.

Threescore and ten days, i.e. thirty days, (according to the custom of the Hebrews, Num 20:29; Deu 34:8, to which doubtless the Egyptians in this case did accommodate themselves,) besides the forty days spent in embalming him, which also was a time of mourning. And thus I suppose the Egyptians reckoned those seventy-two days which Diodorus Siculus saith they spent in mourning for their deceased kings.

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

3. Forty days… of those which are embalmed… mourned for him threescore and ten days — That is, it required forty days for the embalming, during which time the mourning for him went on, and after the embalming they continued to mourn for thirty days more. Thus the Egyptians honoured Jacob as though he were a great prince. “Diodorus says, that the process of embalming took more than thirty days, and that the Egyptians were accustomed to mourn seventy-two days for a king. Herodotus mentions that the body was never allowed to lie in the natron more than seventy days, 2:86. These periods, given by the classical writers, it will be seen remarkably correspond with the numbers of the text. The actual process occupied the first forty days, while the body lay for thirty days more in natron, completing thus the seventy days of mourning. Wilkinson, in Rawl., Her., ii, p. 122. There were, however, many grades and varieties of the process, according to the rank of the person, for rank is seen in the grave in Egypt as well as in Christendom.” — Newhall.

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

And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned (literally, wept) for him threescore and ten days i.e. the whole period of mourning, including the forty days for embalming, extended to seventy days, a statement which strikingly coincides with the assertion of Diodorus Siculus (1:72), that the embalming process occupied about thirty days, while the mourning continued seventy-two days; the first number, seventy, being seven decades, or ten weeks of seven days, and the second 12 x 6 = 72, the duodecimal calculation being also used in Egypt (vide Wilkinson in Rawlinson"s "Herodotus," vol. 2. p. 121; and in " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians: vol. 3. p. 471, et seqq., ed. 1878). The apparent discrepancy between the accounts of Genesis and Herodotus will disappear if the seventy days of the Greek historian, during which the body lay in antrum, be viewed as the entire period of mourning (Hengstenberg"s "Egypt and the Books of Moses," p. 68; Sir G. Wilkinson in Rawlinson"s "Herodotus," vol. 2. p. 121), a sense which the words tauta desantev tariceuousi litrw krihyantev hJmerav ejbdomhkonta (Heb 2:86) will bear, though Kalisch somewhat arbitrarily, but unconvincingly, pronounces it to be "excluded both by the context and Greek syntax."

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

He observed the ceremony of solemn mourning for him. Forty days were taken up in embalming the body, which the Egyptians 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 respect they had for Joseph, put themselves into mourning for his father.

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

וימלאו לו [AND FORTY DAYS] WERE FULFILLED — They (the physicians) completed the days of embalming until forty days were completed for him.

ויבכו אתו מצרים שבעים יום AND THE EGYPTIANS WEPT FOR HIM THREESCORE AND TEN DAYS — viz., forty days during the period of embalming and thirty more days for mourning. They wept for him during so long a period because a blessing had come to them on his arrival in Egypt for the famine then ceased and the waters of the Nile again increased (Midrash Tanchuma, Nasso 26).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

שבעים יום. Forty days were spent embalming his body and thirty days of weeping for the absence of this man henceforth. We find that both Moses and Aaron were mourned for 30 days (Numbers 20,29 and Deuteronomy 34 8) The difference was that Moses and Aaron were mourned after they had been buried, whereas Yaakov was mourned prior to his interment. This was permissible as the embalming procedure was equated with a kind of burial. During all these days the Egyptians wept out of respect for the feelings of Joseph. According to a view quoted by Rashi, the Egyptians also mourned him, being aware that this man had been able to arrest the famine five years before it had run its predetermined course. This concludes the manuscripts available of the Redak’s commentary on the Torah. We are all impoverished when reflecting on much has been lost of his commentary.

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.