Genesis 50:5

Gen 50:5 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. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

Ver. 5. In my grave which I have digged for me.] A usual thing of old. {2Ch 16:14 Mat 27:60} {See Trapp on "Gen 23:9"} Quintillus Plautianus, an ancient senator of Rome, in the days of Severus the Emperor, being wrongfully accused and condemned to die, desired before his death to see those things that he had long since laid by for his burial; {a} which when he saw to be little worth with long lying, Quid hoc rei est? inquit; itane cunctati sumus? What a thing is this? said he. Have we made no more haste to die than so? {b}

{a} Postulavit, ut ea quae ad sepulturam suam comparaverat, &c.

{b} τι τουτο εβραδυνωμεν. - Dio.

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.

5. have digged] or, bought. Both meanings are possible. LXX and Lat. favour “digged.” Syr. Pesh. and Targ. Onk. favour “bought.” The word in the Hebrew appears for “to buy” in Deu_2:6, and for “to dig” in Gen_26:25. It has been objected that, in the case of Jacob, neither meaning is appropriate to Machpelah (Gen_47:30), and that this passage refers to some other grave, e.g. that of Rachel (see note on Gen_48:7). But it is unreasonable to press this objection. Joseph’s report of Jacob’s words might well imply, that either Jacob or his forefathers had thus provided a burial-place. Moreover, he might possibly have hewn out a burial-place for himself in the rock of the cave. On the whole, “digged” seems more appropriate than “bought.” The language is not explicit enough to throw light upon the possibly independent legend of a burial-place, where Rachel was buried (Gen_48:7). The tradition of a “purchase” of ground by Jacob is connected with Shechem (see Gen_33:19; cf. Act_7:16), but not with a burial-place.

I will come again] Joseph is anxious to assure his master, Pharaoh, that he is not going treacherously to leave the Egyptian service.

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.

My father made me swear, saying, lo, I die,.... Having reason to believe he should not live long, he sent for Joseph, and took an oath of him to do as follows; this Joseph would have observed to Pharaoh, to show the necessity of his application to him, and the reasonableness of his request. The words of dying men are always to be regarded; their dying charge is always attended to by those who have a regard to duty and honour; but much more when an oath is annexed to them, which among all nations was reckoned sacred:

in the grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me; it was usual with persons in their lifetime to prepare graves or sepulchres for themselves, as appears from the instances of Shebna, Joseph of Arimathea, and others, and so Jacob provided one for himself; and when he is said to "dig" it, it is not to be supposed that he dug it himself, but ordered it to be dug by his servants, and very probably this was done at the time he buried Leah. Onkelos renders it, "which I have bought", possessed or obtained by purchase; and so the word is used in Hos 3:2 but the cave of Machpelah, in which Jacob's grave was, was not bought by him, but by Abraham; for to say, as some Jewish writers (h) suggest, that he bought Esau's part in it with a mess of pottage, is without foundation; it is better to take the words in the first sense. And now, since it was Jacob's desire, yea, his dying charge, to be buried in the grave he had provided for himself, the mention of this to an Egyptian king could not fail of having its desired effect; since the Egyptians, as the historian (i) says, were more careful about their graves than about their houses:

now therefore let me go up, I pray thee; to the land of Canaan, which lay higher than Egypt:

and bury my father; there, in the grave he has provided for himself:

and I will come again: to the land of Egypt; this he would have said, lest it should be thought he only contrived this to get an opportunity of going away to Canaan with all his wealth and riches.

(h) R. David Kimchi Sepher Shorash. rad. Ben Melech in loc. (i) Diodor. Sic. Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 47.

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

Digged, in the sepulchre which Abraham had purchased. This circumstance, and the exact words here used by Joseph, are not mentioned elsewhere. (Haydock)

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).

Here is a triple obligation upon Joseph:

1. His duty to fulfil the will of the dead.

2. The obedience which he owed to his father’s command.

3. The the of a solemn oath: all which had weight even with the heathens, and were so many arguments to Pharaoh and his courtiers.

In my grave which I have digged for me, according to the manner of those ancient and succeeding times. See 2Ch 16:14; Isa 22:16; Mat 27:60. In that large cave which Abraham bought for a burying-place for his family, Jacob had digged a particular and small cell or repository for himself, as others did after him upon the like occasion. And this reason is prudently added, to show that this desire proceeded not from any contempt of Pharaoh or his land, but from that common and customary desire of persons of all ages and nations to be buried in their fathers’ sepulchres.

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

5. Which I have digged for me — Some take the word כרה, here rendered digged, in the sense of purchased, as קנה is used in reference to Abraham’s purchase in Gen_49:30. If so rendered, the language used would make Jacob speak of Abraham’s act as his own. This is an allowable explanation, but unnecessary. The more common meaning of כרה is dig, and Jacob may have excavated his own sepulchre or separate chamber in the cave after the burial of Abraham and Isaac. See on Gen_23:9.

I will come again — “The earnestness of Joseph’s entreaty, and the repetition of his solemn oath to his father, show what difficulty a naturalized foreigner would have in leaving the land of the Pharaohs. Jacob’s characteristic foresight and prudence appear in exacting this oath, which he knew Pharaoh’s religious scruples would guarantee from violation, while, at the same time, Joseph would be protected from the national jealousy.” — Newhall.

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

He asked and obtained leave of Pharaoh to go to Canaan, to attend the funeral of his father. It was a piece of necessary respect to Pharaoh, that he would not go without leave; for we may suppose, 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 license.

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

אשר כריתי לי means according to its plain sense “[the grave] which I have digged” just as (Exodus 21:33) “If a man shall dig (יכרה)”. There is a Midrashic explanation (Sotah 13a) which fits in with a meaning of the word כריתי, viz., אשר כריתי means אשר קניתי “which I have bought”. For R. Akiba said, “when I went to the coast-towns I heard them use for what we term מכירה “trading” the term כירה (Rosh Hashanah 26a). Another Midrashic explanation takes כריתי to be connected with כרי a piled up heap of grain, for Jacob had taken all the silver and gold which he had brought from the house of Laban and made a pile of it and said to Esau, “Take this for your share in the cave” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 6).

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.