H C Leupold The story of Jacob’s burial is told in a rather detailed fashion, more so than is any other burial except Sarah’s in the book of Genesis (chapter 23), because it gives a fine example of faith on the part of the patriarchs. Jacob desired burial in the land of promise, thereby testifying to his faith in the promise. His sons did not treat the father’s request as an unimportant whim but executed it with fine conscientiousness. Besides, the entire material of the chapter is an excellent preparation for the book of Exodus. The sons of Israel had come down into Egypt at the behest of divine providence. They purposed to stay no longer than that same providence ordained. Jacob’s burial testifies that their thoughts and their hopes lay in Canaan. Joseph’s dying injunction points in the same direction.

1. GEESIS 50 COMMETARY
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
PREFACE
I quote many authors both old and new, and if any I quote do not want their
wisdom shared in this way they can let me know and I will remove it. My e-mail is
glenn_p86@yahoo.com
ITRODUCTIO
H C Leupold The story of Jacob’s burial is told in a rather detailed fashion, more
so than is any other burial except Sarah’s in the book of Genesis (chapter 23),
because it gives a fine example of faith on the part of the patriarchs. Jacob desired
burial in the land of promise, thereby testifying to his faith in the promise. His sons
did not treat the father’s request as an unimportant whim but executed it with fine
conscientiousness. Besides, the entire material of the chapter is an excellent
preparation for the book of Exodus. The sons of Israel had come down into Egypt at
the behest of divine providence. They purposed to stay no longer than that same
providence ordained. Jacob’s burial testifies that their thoughts and their hopes lay
in Canaan. Joseph’s dying injunction points in the same direction.
1. Joseph threw himself upon his father and wept
over him and kissed him.
1. This radical action reveals the deep emotions of Joseph, and though they are
radical emotions they are not unusual for those who have lost a loved one. The
whole scene is deeply emotional, and it would be an unusual man who would not
weep in such a situation. There is a finality in death that brings tears even to the Son
of Man who knows he will conquer it and render it harmless. Jesus wept in the face
of death, for he saw the sorrow it brought to others. He knew it was temporary, but
even this temporary loss is painful for those who have assurance of eternal life.

2. There is sorrow in separation even when there is hope of reunion. The Old
Testament saints did not have the clear revelation of eternity that we have as
Christians, and so there sorrow had to be more intense.
2. Here we see a kissing of the dead as an expression of deep love. Kissing the corpse
seems excessive to us today, but those who do not grieve and express their emotions
have problems because they stifle their emotions. Joseph had become an Egyptian
and not just a Jew, and so he was a part of a different culture, and they did things
different than the Jews.
3. KRELL, What a beautiful response by Joseph. The only tears recorded in
Joseph’s life were not for himself but for the plight of his brothers and now the loss
of his father. The suffering that Joseph had endured had turned him into a man of
love. Suffering can push us in one of two directions: it can create bitterness in us or
it can soften us. Joseph was a man of tenderness and loving graciousness to others.
He was very affectionate to his father and wept over him when he died.6 When
somebody we love dies, God expects us to weep. That’s why He gave us the ability to
shed tears. ormal tears are a part of the healing process (Ps 30:5), while abnormal
grief only keeps the wounds open and prolongs the pain. In my pastoral ministry,
I’ve learned that people who suppress their grief are in danger of developing
emotional or physical problems that are difficult to heal. Don’t be afraid to express
yourself when you grieve or experience loss.
Reflecting on death, it is important to be sure that you have harmonious
relationships. Right relationships in life ease the sting of grief in death. Today, if
things are not right between you and your dad, mom, siblings, or children, do all
that you can to make sure that there is peace (Rom 12:18).
4. Barnes, “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.
5. Gill, “ 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

3. 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.
6. Henry, “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. ote, 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
7. KD 1-3, “Burial of Jacob. - Gen_50:1-3. When Jacob died, Joseph fell upon the
face of his beloved father, wept over him, and kissed him. He then gave the body to
the physicians to be embalmed, according to the usual custom in Egypt. The
physicians are called his servants, because the reference is to the regular physicians
in the service of Joseph, the eminent minister of state; and according to Herod. 2,
84, there were special physicians in Egypt for every description of disease, among
whom the Taricheuta, who superintended the embalming, were included, as a
special but subordinate class. The process of embalming lasted 40 days, and the
solemn mourning 70 (Gen_50:3). This is in harmony with the statements of
Herodotus and Diodorus when rightly understood (see Hengstenberg, Egypt and the
Books of Moses, p. 67ff.).
8. TEARS, “Sadly, our tradition is replete with the theme of tears; we devote this
edition of JHOM, which is published in the sorrowful month of Av, to TEARS.

4. People cry, angels cry, even God Himself cries. The first tear was given by God as a
gift to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; God arms the two with a powerful
therapeutic tool — a good cry - as they set out to face the tribulations of the real
world. In various midrashic interpretations of the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac)
story, Abraham weeps as he takes the knife into his hand, and then the angels weep,
their tears blunting his knife and his eyes. An echo of this story is found in a story
from the Zohar (a mystical work composed in the 13th cent.), in which God is
moved by the tears of a child weeping over his dead father.
9. Avivah Zornberg Gottlieb's looks closely at the tears of Joseph, who weeps three
times in the course of his masquerade with his brothers.
The destruction of the Temples and the exile of the Jews from their land bring on
bitter weeping. Writes the author of Lamentations: [Jerusalem] weeps in the night,
and her tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her. In
commemoration of the inth of Av which marks the destruction of the Temples, we
include an early dirge, Zion Weeps, which is traditionally read on the synagogue
on the eve of the fast day.
This is the first of three occasions on which Joseph weeps. Each time he does so,
something opens up in him, an unplanned response, which is at first a mere
parenthesis, as he turns away and then turns back to his tyrannical role. In the
course of that parenthesis he knows himself lost and remembered by his brothers.
As they speak of what was not in the past, a new relationship is suggested, woven of
regret, empathy, loss. Listening to them, Joseph begins to be; his real life takes on
imagined luster in their words, in their contrition.
He weeps again, when Benjamin appears in front of him. Again, spontaneously,
anarchically, tears force him away from his brothers: even more emphatically, the
narrative stresses this withdrawal.
The effect is of a kind of slow-motion lingering on the experience of weeping —
before, during, and after. This is time out of time, after which Joseph returns to the
routines of his host role (Serve the meal). Again, a profound, repressed
consciousness breaks through the tears. evertheless, he controls himself.
Repressed memories of Joseph's brothers' cruelty to him rise to the surface, as their
responsibility to Rachel's other son, Benjamin, is tested. Will they abandon him, as
they abandoned Joseph in the past? This question — of abandonment, of alienation,
rather than of active cruelty — is the essence of Joseph's plot, in its final stage.
When Judah offers himself in place of Benjamin, simply because it is unbearable to
him to witness his father's anguish, if he should return without him[1], Joseph again
bursts out weeping. This time, however, he cannot restrain himself.
As on previous occasions of weeping, Joseph has time, before his tears overwhelm
him, to make preparations. Before he breaks down, instead of withdrawing, this
time he sends away all onlookers. And the passion of his tears is almost orgiastic. A
whole verse is given to the description of the weeping, as it echoes through the
palace. His weeping is an eruption of the pain of his loss, intensified to a point that
compels him to give up the masquerade. As Judah recalls the rememberings of his

5. father, Joseph is overwhelmed by the reality of his own absence; he weeps for the
third time and reveals himself.
Joseph's tears are perhaps those of which the Psalmist sings: Though he goes
alongweeping, carrying the seed bag, he shall come back with songs of joy, carrying
his sheaves[2]. André eher[3] writes of these tears:
What is to weep? To weep is to sow. What is to laugh? To laugh is to reap. Look at
this man weeping as he goes. Why is he weeping? Because he is bearing in his arms
the burden of the grain he is about to sow. And now, see him coming back in joy.
Why is he laughing? Because he bears in his arms the sheaves of the harvest.
Laughter is the tangible harvest, plenitude. Tears are sowing; they are effort, risk,
the seed exposed to drought and to rot, the ear of corn threatened by hail and by
storms. Laughter is words, tears are silence....It is not the harvest that is important:
what is important is the sowing, the risk, the tears. Hope is not in laughter and
plentitude. Hope is in tears, in the risk and in its silence.”
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg was recently invited to be a Jewish Bible scholar in a PBS
special on Genesis. She has gained great acclaim through her weekly lectures in
Jerusalem, in which she ranges across literature, cultures and time to delve into the
Bible's lessons on life.
10. STEVE ZEISLER, “This is not a faithless act. We have all felt the loss of a
loved one through death. Some would hold that if we really believe, then we will not
experience sorrow. But I don't subscribe to that. Joseph was a true believer, yet he
experienced extreme sorrow over his father's death. The apostle Paul wrote to the
Thessalonians, We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who
are asleep, that you may not grieve as those who have no hope. Grief over death is
entirely appropriate. It is grief that is without hope that is less than Christian. When
we lose someone we love, it is all right to grieve, but then we must do as Joseph did-get
on with life and allow the Lord to transform our feelings of grief to confidence in
him.
ow we come to the question of why Jacob was so detailed in his instructions
regarding the location of his tomb. He left no doubt where he wanted to be buried.
Joseph clearly had no doubt about his father's instructions. He responded by
organizing a massive funeral cortege that traveled from Egypt to Canaan. Because
of Joseph's stature as prime minister of Egypt, his father Jacob also had come to be
regarded as great in that kingdom. Thus, the great entourage was organized, with
elders of Pharaoh's household and elders of Egypt, horsemen, etc., accompanying
the enbalmed body of Jacob. The Canaanites were so impressed with the grief they
saw expressed that they renamed a local region where the party paused to mourn.”
11. H C Leupold, “o doubt the other sons were also present at their father’s death,
not only Joseph. The closing verses of the last chapter indicate this. They, too,

6. grieved greatly to lose their father; but Joseph’s grief is especially mentioned,
because he had all his days stood closer to his father than the other sons,
Consequently his pain was greater. We must remember, too, that the very close
relationship existing between Joseph and his father has stood in the forefront of the
narrative especially since Jacob’s coming to Egypt. For that matter, there was also
the promise of Ge 46:4 that Joseph would be at hand to close his father’s eyes in
death. The fulfilment of that promise deserved to be recorded. First of all Joseph
fell upon his father’s face, ’al peney ‘abhîw, a phrase reminding us of Ge 23:3,
where Abraham is said to have arisen after Sarah’s death from ’al peney Sarah.
atural grief usually finds an outlet in tears; so he wept over him. A last token of
the close affection that existed between the two was the parting kiss bestowed upon
the dead lips. Enough is reported to indicate the depth and the sincerity of Joseph’s
grief. But the manly grief of God’s saints has a certain restraint, for even in the Old
Testament there was the sure hope of life eternal.
2.Then Joseph directed the physicians in his
service to embalm his father Israel. So the
physicians embalmed him,
1. This was a first, for no other in all the Old Testament had ever been embalmed as
far as we know. This process involved the removal of all moisture by means of spices
to close up the pores, and by wrapping so that the skin would be preserved from all
wetness. This was the Egyptian idea of immortality by making the body to defy
decay and thus last forever. In Appendix A there is a long description of the whole
Egyptian experience of embalming and mourning. It is from the commentary by
Adam Clarke. It is both educational and gross, and so some may want to pass on
reading it. That is why it is in the Appendix.
2. Joseph was a part of the Egyptian culture, and so he did what any Egyptian
would do for his father by having him embalmed. It was a part of that culture where
he lived and served, and he conformed to it. Believers all over the world and all
through history have lived in different cultures and they do conform to many
customs that others do not have, and so there is a great variety in the way believers
deal with many issues, such as the care and burial of the dead.
3. Jamison, “In ancient Egypt the embalmers were a class by themselves. The
process of embalmment consisted in infusing a great quantity of resinous substances
into the cavities of the body, after the intestines had been removed, and then a
regulated degree of heat was applied to dry up the humors, as well as decompose the

7. tarry materials which had been previously introduced. Thirty days were alloted for
the completion of this process; forty more were spent in anointing it with spices; the
body, tanned from this operation, being then washed, was wrapped in numerous
folds of linen cloth--the joinings of which were fastened with gum, and then it was
deposited in a wooden chest made in the form of a human figure.
4. Embalming was the customary Egyptian preparation of dignitaries for burial.
For Jacob’s burial this was especially helpful for it was a long way back to Canaan
to the cave where Jacob was to be laid to rest. Perhaps it was due to the same
logistical problem (without the availability of embalmers) that forced Jacob to bury
Rachel along the way rather than to transport her body to the cave of Machpelah
(cf. Genesis 35:16-20).
5. Clarke, “The physicians - רפאים ropheim, the healers, those whose business it was
to heal or restore the body from sickness by the administration of proper medicines;
and when death took place, to heal or preserve it from dissolution by embalming,
and thus give it a sort of immortality or everlasting duration. The original word חנט
chanat, which we translate to embalm, has undoubtedly the same meaning with the
Arabic hanata, which also signifies to embalm, or to preserve from putrefaction by
the application of spices, etc., and hence hantat, an embalmer. The word is used to
express the reddening of leather; and probably the ideal meaning may be something
analogous to our tanning, which consists in removing the moisture, and closing up
the pores so as to render them impervious to wet. This probably is the grand
principle in embalming; and whatever effects this, will preserve flesh as perfectly as
skin. Who can doubt that a human muscle, undergoing the same process of tanning
as the hide of an ox, would not become equally incorruptible? I have seen a part of
the muscle of a human thigh, that, having come into contact with some tanning
matter, either in the coffin or in the grave, was in a state of perfect soundness, when
the rest of the body had been long reduced to earth; and it exhibited the appearance
of a thick piece of well tanned leather.
In the art of embalming, the Egyptians excelled all nations in the world; with
them it was a common practice. Instances of the perfection to which they carried
this art may be seen in the numerous mummies, as they are called, which are found
in different European cabinets, and which have been all brought from Egypt. This
people not only embalmed men and women, and thus kept the bodies of their
beloved relatives from the empire of corruption, but they embalmed useful animals
also. I have seen the body of the Ibris thus preserved; and though the work had been
done for some thousands of years, the very feathers were in complete preservation,
and the color of the plumage discernible. The account of this curious process, the
articles used, and the manner of applying them, I subjoin from Herodotus and
Diodorus Siculus, as also the manner of their mournings and funeral solemnities,
which are highly illustrative of the subjects in this chapter.
“When any man of quality dies,” says Herodotus, “all the women of that family
besmear their heads and faces with dirt; then, leaving the body at home, they go

8. lamenting up and down the city with all their relations; their apparel being girt
about them, and their breasts left naked. On the other hand the men, having
likewise their clothes girt about them, beat themselves. These things being done,
they carry the dead body to be embalmed; for which there are certain persons
appointed who profess this art. These, when the body is brought to them, show to
those that bring it certain models of dead persons in wood, according to any of
which the deceased may be painted. One of these they say is accurately made like to
one whom, in such a matter, I do not think lawful to name; του ουκ ὁσιον ποιουμαι
το ουνομα επι τοιουτῳ πρηγματι ονομαζειν; (probably Osiris, one of the principal
gods of Egypt, is here intended); then they show a second inferior to it, and of an
easier price; and next a third, cheaper than the former, and of a very small value;
which being seen, they ask them after which model the deceased shall be
represented. When they have agreed upon the price they depart; and those with
whom the dead corpse is left proceed to embalm it after the following manner: First
of all, they with a crooked iron draw the brain out of the head through the nostrils;
next, with a sharp Ethiopic stone they cut up that part of the abdomen called the
ilia, and that way draw out all the bowels, which, having cleansed and washed with
palm wine, they again rinse and wash with wine perfumed with pounded odors:
then filling up the belly with pure myrrh and cassia grossly powdered, and all other
odors except frankincense, they sew it up again. Having so done, they salt it up close
with nitre seventy days, for longer they may not salt it. After this number of days
are over they wash the corpse again, and then roll it up with fine linen, all
besmeared with a sort of gum, commonly used by the Egyptians instead of glue.
Then is the body restored to its relations, who prepare a wooden coffin for it in the
shape and likeness of a man, and then put the embalmed body into it, and thus
enclosed, place it in a repository in the house, setting it upright against the wall.
After this manner they, with great expense, preserve their dead; whereas those who
to avoid too great a charge desire a mediocrity, thus embalm them: they neither cut
the belly nor pluck out the entrails, but fill it with clysters of oil of cedar injected up
the anus, and then salt it the aforesaid number of days. On the last of these they
press out the cedar clyster by the same way they had injected it, which has such
virtue and efficacy that it brings out along with it the bowels wasted, and the nitre
consumes the flesh, leaving only the skin and bones: having thus done, they restore
the dead body to the relations, doing nothing more. The third way of embalming is
for those of yet meaner circumstances; they with lotions wash the belly, then dry it
up with salt for seventy days, and afterwards deliver it to be carried away.
evertheless, beautiful women and ladles of quality were not delivered to be
embalmed till three or four days after they had been dead;” for which Herodotus
assigns a sufficient reason, however degrading to human nature: Τουτο δε ποιεουσι
οὑτω τουδε εἱνεκα, ἱνα μη σφι οἱ ταριχευται μισγωνται τῃσι γυναιξι· λαμφθηναι γαρ
τινα φασι μισγομενον νεκρῳ προσφατῳ γυναικος· κατειπαι δε τον ὁμοτεχνον. [The
original should not be put into a plainer language; the abomination to which it
refers being too gross]. “But if any stranger or Egyptian was either killed by a
crocodile or drowned in the river, the city where he was cast up was to embalm and
bury him honorably in the sacred monuments, whom no one, no, not a relation or
friend, but the priests of the ile only, might touch; because they buried one who

9. was something more than a dead man.” - Herod. Euterpe, p. 120, ed. Gale.
Diodorus Siculus relates the funeral ceremonies of the Egyptians more distinctly
and clearly, and with some very remarkable additional circumstances. “When any
one among the Egyptians dies,” says he, “all his relations and friends, putting dirt
upon their heads, go lamenting about the city, till such time as the body shall be
buried: in the meantime, they abstain from baths and wine, and all kinds of delicate
meats; neither do they, during that time, wear any costly apparel. The manner of
their burials is threefold: one very costly, a second sort less chargeable, and a third
very mean. In the first, they say, there is spent a talent of silver; in the second,
twenty minae; but in the last there is very little expense. ‘Those who have the care of
ordering the body are such as have been taught that art by their ancestors. These,
showing each kind of burial, ask them after what manner they will have the body
prepared. When they have agreed upon the manner, they deliver the body to such as
are usually appointed for this office. First, he who has the name of scribe, laying it
upon the ground, marks about the flank on the left side how much is to be cut away;
then he who is called παρασχιστης, paraschistes, the cutter or dissector, with an
Ethiopic stone, cuts away as much of the flesh as the law commands, and presently
runs away as fast as he can; those who are present, pursuing him, cast stones at him,
and curse him, hereby turning all the execrations which they imagine due to his
office upon him. For whosoever offers violence, wounds, or does any kind of injury
to a body of the same nature with himself, they think him worthy of hatred: but
those who are ταριχευται, taricheutae, the embalmers, they esteem worthy of honor
and respect; for they are familiar with their priests, and go into the temples as holy
men, without any prohibition. As soon as they come to embalm the dissected body,
one of them thrusts his hand through the wound into the abdomen, and draws forth
all the bowels but the heart and kidneys, which another washes and cleanses with
wine made of palms and aromatic odors. Lastly, having washed the body, they
anoint it with oil of cedar and other things for about thirty days, and afterwards
with myrrh, cinnamon, and other such like matters, which have not only a power to
preserve it a long time, but also give it a sweet smell; after which they deliver it to
the kindred in such manner that every member remains whole and entire, and no
part of it changed, but the beauty and shape of the face seem just as they were
before; and the person may be known, even the eyebrows and eyelids remaining as
they were at first. By this means many of the Egyptians, keeping the dead bodies of
their ancestors in magnificent houses, so perfectly see the true visage and
countenance of those that died many ages before they themselves were born, that in
viewing the proportions of every one of them, and the lineaments of their faces, they
take as much delight as if they were still living among them. Moreover, the friends
and nearest relations of the deceased, for the greater pomp of the solemnity,
acquaint the judges and the rest of their friends with the time prefixed for the
funeral or day of sepulture, declaring that such a one (calling the dead by his name)
is such a day to pass the lake; at which time above forty judges appear, and sit
together in a semicircle, in a place prepared on the hither side of the lake, where a
ship, provided beforehand by such as have the care of the business, is haled up to
the shore, and steered by a pilot whom the Egyptians in their language called
Charon. Hence they say Orpheus, upon seeing this ceremony while he was in Egypt,

10. invented the fable of hell, partly imitating therein the people of Egypt, and partly
adding somewhat of his own. The ship being thus brought to the lake side, before
the coffin is put on board every one is at liberty by the law to accuse the dead of
what he thinks him guilty. If any one proves he was a bad man, the judges give
sentence that the body shall be deprived of sepulture; but in case the informer be
convicted of false accusation, then he is severely punished. If no accuser appear, or
the information prove false, then all the kindred of the deceased leave off mourning,
and begin to set forth his praises, yet say nothing of his birth, (as the custom is
among the Greeks), because the Egyptians all think themselves equally noble; but
they recount how the deceased was educated from his youth and brought up to
man’s estate, exalting his piety towards the gods, and justice towards men, his
chastity, and other virtues wherein he excelled; and lastly pray and call upon the
infernal deities (τους κατω θεους, the gods below) to receive him into the societies of
the just. The common people take this from the others, and consequently all is said
in his praise by a loud shout, setting forth likewise his virtues in the highest strains
of commendation, as one that is to live for ever with the infernal gods. Then those
that have tombs of their own inter the corpse in places appointed for that purpose;
and they that have none rear up the body in its coffin against some strong wall of
their house. But such as are denied sepulture on account of some crime or debt, are
laid up at home without coffins; yet when it shall afterwards happen that any of
their posterity grows rich, he commonly pays off the deceased person’s debts, and
gets his crimes absolved, and so buries him honorably; for the Egyptians are wont to
boast of their parents and ancestors that were honorably buried. It is a custom
likewise among them to pawn the dead bodies of their parents to their creditors; but
then those that do not redeem them fall under the greatest disgrace imaginable, and
are denied burial themselves at their deaths.” - Diod. Sic. Biblioth., lib. i., cap. 91-93,
edit. Bipont. See also the ecrokedia, or Art of Embalming, by Greenhill, 4th., p.
241, who endeavored in vain to recommend and restore the art But he could not give
his countrymen Egyptian manners; for a dead carcass is to the British an object of
horror, and scarcely any, except a surgeon or an undertaker, cares to touch it.”
6. Gill, “ And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his
father,.... Which he did, not merely because it was the custom of the Egyptians, but
because it was necessary, his father's corpse being to be carried into Canaan to be
interred there, which would require time; and therefore it was proper to make use
of some means for the preservation of it, and these men were expert in this business,
which was a branch of the medicinal art, as Pliny (x) and Mela (y) suggest; and of
these Joseph had more than one, as great personages have their physicians ready to
attend them on any occasion, as kings and princes, and such was Joseph, being
viceroy of Egypt. Herodotus (z) says the Egyptians had physicians peculiar to every
disease, one for one disease, and another for another; and Homer (a) speaks of them
as the most skilful of all men; though the Septuagint render the word by
ενταφιασται, the buriers, such who took care of the burial of persons, to provide
for it, and among the rest to embalm, dry, and roll up the bodies in linen:
and the physicians embalmed him; the manner of embalming, as Herodotus (b)

11. relates, was this,first with a crooked iron instrument they extracted the brain
through the nostrils, which they got out partly by this means, and partly by the
infusion of medicines; then with a sharp Ethiopian stone they cut about the flank,
and from thence took out all the bowels, which, when they had cleansed, they
washed with palm wine (or wine of dates), and after that again with odours,
bruised; then they filled the bowels (or hollow place out of which they were taken)
with pure myrrh beaten, and with cassia and other odours, frankincense excepted,
and sewed them up; after which they seasoned (the corpse) with nitre, hiding (or
covering it therewith) seventy days, and more than that they might not season it; the
seventy days being ended, they washed the corpse, and wrapped the whole body in
bands of fine linen, besmearing it with gum, which gum the Egyptians use generally
instead of glue.''And Diodorus Siculus (c), who gives much the same account, says,
that every part was retained so perfectly, that the very hairs of the eyebrows, and
the whole form of the body, were invariable, and the features might be known; and
the same writer tells us, that the expense of embalming was different; the highest
price was a talent of silver, about one hundred and eighty seven pounds and ten
shillings of our money, the middlemost twenty pounds, and the last and lowest were
very small. The embalmers he calls ταριχευται, and says they were in great esteem,
and reckoned worthy of much honour, and were very familiar with the priests, and
might go into holy places when they pleased, as the priests themselves.
7. Henry, “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.
8. S. Lewis Johnson, “ow that's a rather interesting thing because usually in
mummification, there were certain pagan religious rites involved in it. We have no
indication that that was true here. In fact, Joseph is the one who commands the
physicians to embalm his father. Usually the physicians did not do it, but they did it
in this case and it may have been because Joseph oversaw this. ow it might be
since embalming has been thought at times to be a means of preserving the body so
that the resurrection would be more easily accomplished by God since he could
more easily resurrect a body that had been embalmed and one that had not, it might
have seemed a rather pagan kind of ceremony and you will notice that Jacob is
embalmed and then later Joseph himself is embalmed. Well, after the message this
morning one of the doctors in the congregation came to me and said I think I know
exactly why Jacob was embalmed and particularly why Joseph was embalmed
because after all, they wanted to go back to the land of Canaan and if Joseph had
been buried in the land after several hundred years, his bones could never have
been taken back into the land and so the embalming, the use of this pagan
procedure, the mummification, served the purpose of God in accomplishing

12. Joseph’s burial in the land, so that later on as they made their way out in the
Exodus, they carried that old mummy case with Joseph’s bones in it back into the
land and buried Joseph there. So even the pagan embalming procedure is used by
the Lord God.
9. Leupold, “It might have been misunderstood if we had translated literally, he
gave a charge to his servants, the physicians, as though all his servants were
physicians. So we have rendered: to servants of his who were physicians. o
doubt, the eminence of Joseph’s position called for a very great retinue. Even a
special group of physicians was detailed to watch over his health. These seem to
have been particularly adapted to such a task as embalming the dead, perhaps even
more so than the professional embalmers. The process of embalming, described
already in some detail by Herodotus, involved the removal of the brain through the
nose by a hooked instrument as well as the removal of the entrails through an
incision in the side made with a sharp stone knife. The entrails were placed in a jar.
The cranial cavity was filled with spices, likewise the abdominal cavity; but it as well
as the entire body were thoroughly treated with saltpetre for seven days. Afterward
the whole body was washed with a palm wine. Then it was daubed with pitch or
gums, swathed in many folds of white cloth and laid away in its mummy case. Jacob
and Joseph are the only two Israelites of whom the Scriptures tell that they were
embalmed, chanat, a verb having close Arabic and Ethiopic parallels and
meaning first to ripen then to embalm. In the case of these two Israelites this
distinctly Egyptian type of preparation for burial was resorted to in order to make it
feasible to transport the mummified remains to Canaan.
3. taking a full forty days, for that was the time
required for embalming. And the Egyptians
mourned for him seventy days.
1. From the point of view of the ew Testament this was an excessive amount of
time devoted to preserving the body, and an excessive amount of time devoted to
mourning. ew Testament believers need to mourn, but not as those who have no
hope, said Paul. It would not be a good testimony for a Christian to stay in
mourning for this long, for it would be a sort of denial of our hope in Christ.
2. Calvin wrote, “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

13. 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.” “It is probable that Joseph, in conforming himself to the
Egyptians, whose superfluous care was not free from absurdity; acted rather from
fear than from judgment, or from approval of their method. Perhaps he improperly
imitated the Egyptians, lest the condition of his father might be worse than that of
other men. But it would have been better, had he confined himself to the frugal
practice of his fathers. evertheless though he might be excusable, the same practice
is not now lawful for us. For unless we wish to subvert the glory of Christ, we must
cultivate greater sobriety.”
3. Clarke, “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.
4. Gill, “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

14. 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, thatupon
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.''ow 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 um_20:29.
5. Henry, “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. ote, 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
6. Leupold, “By way of explanation for later generations Moses relates how much
time the entire process entailed. First he tells of their being occupied with the task
a full forty days. The Hebrew idiom is a bit different. It says: And they made full
for him forty days, for thus they fulfil the days of embalming. But the entire
mourning extended over a period of seventy days, including, of course, the forty
days during which the embalming took place. Other writers of antiquity assign a
period of seventy-two days to the entire process, though that may have been a
custom prevalent in another place. The two statements can for all practical purposes
be said to agree. But if Egyptians (Hebrew: mitsrßyim —Egypt) mourn, that is
an indication in what high esteem he was held, both as a prince in his own right as
well as the father of Joseph. Luther remarks that there is no burial recorded in the
Scriptures quite as honourable as this or with such wealth of detail. The imperfect
yimle’û expresses the thing that is customary.

15. 4. When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph
said to Pharaoh's court, If I have found favor in
your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him,
1. Calvin just does not like it that Joseph had to get the permission of the Pharaoh to
bury his father. He feels that Joseph has conformed too much to the way of the
Egyptians. He wrote, “ow, seeing that Joseph did not dare to move his foot, except
by permission of the king, we infer hence, that he was bound by his splendid
fortune, as by golden fetters. And truly, such is the condition of all who are
advanced to honor and favor in royal courts; so that there is nothing better for men
of sane mind, than to be content with a private condition.” Calvin is being forgetful
of the fact that Joseph was being used of God in this position to save his people, and
many others besides. He is speaking against holding a high office in the government
of a pagan people, but fortunately for all concerned, it was God who was directing
the whole thing and not Calvin.
2. DEFFIBAUGH Joseph is said to have asked other Egyptian officials to petition
Pharaoh to leave the land temporarily. This may be due to some kind of ceremonial
defilement that would make Joseph’s personal appearance and appeal offensive to
Pharaoh. A report of Jacob’s instructions that were sworn as an oath was included
in the petition. Joseph reminded Pharaoh that this was Jacob’s strong desire and
that he was sworn to carry through with it. This was to assure that Pharaoh would
not take offense to Jacob’s burial in Canaan rather than Egypt. Without
reservation, Joseph’s request was granted.
3. Clarke, “Speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh - But why did not Joseph apply
himself? Because he was now in his mourning habits, and in such none must appear
in the presence of the eastern monarchs. See Est_4:2.
4. Gill, “And when the days of his mourning were past,.... The forty days before
mentioned, in which both the Egyptians and Jacob's family mourned for him. An
Arabic writer (g) says, the Egyptians mourned for Jacob forty days, which was the
time of embalming; but the text is express for sventy days:
Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh; to the court of Pharaoh, the principal men

16. there; so the Targum of Jonathan and the Septuagint version, to the great men or
princes of the house of Pharaoh: it may seem strange that Joseph, being next to
Pharaoh in the administration of the government, should make use of any to speak
for him to Pharaoh on the following account. It may be, that Joseph was not in so
high an office, and in so much power and authority, as in the seven years of plenty
and the seven years of famine; and it is certain that that branch of his office,
respecting the corn, must have ceased; or this might have been a piece of policy in
Joseph to make these men his friends by such obliging treatment, and by this means
prevent their making objections to his suit, or plotting against him in his absence; or
if it was the custom in Egypt, as it afterwards was in Persia, that no man might
appear before the king in a mourning habit, Est_4:2 this might be the reason of his
not making application in person: moreover, it might not seem so decent for him to
come to court, and leave the dead, and his father's family, in such circumstances as
they were: besides, he might speak to them not in person, but by a messenger, since
it is highly probable he was now in Goshen, at a distance from Pharaoh's court;
unless it can be supposed that these were some of Pharaoh's courtiers who were
come to him in Goshen, to condole his father's death:
saying, if now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of
Pharaoh; however, as these men had the ear of Pharaoh, and an interest in him,
Joseph entreats the favour of them to move it to him:
saying, as follows, in his name.
5. Henry, “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. ote, Modesty is a
great ornament to dignity.
6. KD 4-5, “At the end of this period of mourning, Joseph requested “the house of
Pharaoh,” i.e., the attendants upon the king, to obtain Pharaoh's permission for him
to go to Canaan and bury his father, according to his last will, in the cave prepared
by him there. כָּרָה (Gen_50:5) signifies “to dig” (used, as in 2Ch_16:14, for the
preparation of a tomb), not “to buy,” In the expression לִ י כָּרִיתִי Jacob attributes to
himself as patriarch what had really been done by Abraham (Gen 24). Joseph
required the royal permission, because he wished to go beyond the border with his
family and a large procession. But he did not apply directly to Pharaoh, because his
deep mourning (unshaven and unadorned) prevented him from appearing in the
presence of the king.

17. 7. Leupold, “Joseph asks the household (literally—house, bßyith) to present his
request to Pharaoh. The reason for this roundabout mode of procedure is not the
fact that Joseph was not presentable at court as a mourner, unwashed and
unshaven. For we note that he preferred his request to Pharaoh’s household when
the days of weeping for him (Jacob) were passed. It would have been a simple
matter to wash and to shave and then to go to Pharaoh. Perhaps, then, some
defilement according to the Egyptian conception of death and of mourners may
have stood in the way. But more suggestive is the explanation which says that this
was a wise tactical move on Joseph’s part to allay suspicion as to Joseph’s perhaps
trying to leave Egypt now that his father was dead. In any case, they who had
sponsored such a request at court could hardly be the authors of some suspicion
concerning Joseph’s purpose. If this explanation be correct, Joseph would have
given just one more proof of unusual wisdom in dealing with men. Less to the point
is the explanation which works on the supposition that Joseph must have been in
disfavour at court just at this time. We also reject the opinion which says that
Joseph was careful not to prefer any request in matters pertaining to himself. For he
should hardly have hesitated to ask a favour that pertained more to his father than
to himself. If now I have found favour is an expression of fine courtesy commonly
met with in Genesis and not the property of the author of some one source.
5. My father made me swear an oath and said, I
am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for
myself in the land of Canaan. ow let me go up
and bury my father; then I will return.'
1. Gill, “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,

18. 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.
2. Henry, “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.”
3. Leupold, “The preference of the Hebrew for direct quotation appears in this verse
—a quotation within a quotation within a quotation. A strong point to win his
request for him is that the dying man had exacted an oath of him (Hebrew: he
caused me to swear). or was this oath a rash one, for the man Jacob had made
preparations for burial during his lifetime, for he had digged his grave in the land of
Canaan. It is unwarranted to claim about v. 5 that on any view, the contradiction
to Ge 47:30 remains. What if it was the burying place of the fathers? If they did
acquire it, did they dig out of its sides as many separate tombs as the next
generations needed? Most probably each man during his lifetime made provisions
for himself and his family. So Abraham bought the cave and digged his grave and
Sarah’s. Isaac digged his and Rebekah’s. Jacob digged his and Leah’s. So the
statements of Scripture are in perfect harmony. It is a reprehensible thing
continually to speak of contradictions in Sacred Writ, where a bit of patience could
soon have discerned the underlying harmony. Karîthî means digged and not
bought. The request is to be presented last, Let me go up, pray, and let me bury
my father. Hardly anybody could deny so proper a request. To set all minds at ease
about his purpose Joseph adds the promise, thereafter I shall return. All the three
imperfects used here have the ah hortative added (jaqtul elevatum), a common

19. form with the first person imperfect. The words of the oath are here not introduced
by the customary ’im or îm lo’ but by le’mor saying (K. S. 391 f).
6. Pharaoh said, Go up and bury your father, as
he made you swear to do.
1. Pharaoh was a sensitive guy who gladly cooperated and let Joseph fulfill his
father’s last wish. It is obvious that Joseph was a friend with this Pharaoh, and he
showed that friendship. We have a picture of how a believer and an unbeliever can
work together on a friendly basis. We do not know for sure what this Pharaoh
believed, and possibly he had come to believe in the God of Joseph, but we do know
he cared about God’s people.
2. GILL To Joseph, by the courtiers that waited upon him at Joseph's request, who
having delivered it to him had this answer: go up, and bury thy father, as he made
thee swear; the oath seems to be the principal thing that influenced Pharaoh to
grant the request, it being a sacred thing, and not to be violated; otherwise, perhaps,
he would not have chosen that Joseph should have been so long absent from him,
and might have thought a grave in Egypt, and an honourable interment there,
which he would have spared no cost to have given, might have done as well, or
better.
3. Henry, “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.
4. KD 6-9, “After the king's permission had been obtained, the corpse was carried to
Canaan, attended by a large company. With Joseph there went up “all the servants of
Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,” i.e., the leading
officers of the court and state, “and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's
house,” i.e., all the members of the families of Joseph, of his brethren, and of is deceased
father, “excepting only their children and flocks; also chariots and horsemen,” as an escort
for the journey through the desert, “a very large army.” The splendid retinue of Egyptian
officers may be explained, in part from the esteem in which Joseph was held in Egypt, and
in part from the fondness of the Egyptians for such funeral processions (cf. Hengst. pp. 70,
71).
5. Leupold, “Pharaoh graciously gives his royal permission. Go up (’alah) here as
in v. 5 is naturally used because the mountains of Palestine lie higher than the land

20. of Egypt. On the whole question of Joseph’s asking permission to go and bury his
father there is one more consideration that carries weight. So important a man as
Joseph, ranking second only to the reigning Pharaoh, had to guard himself lest he
create the impression that he no longer needed to consult his king. All important
steps that could be construed as undue self-assertion had to be covered by a very
clear, royal pronouncement. Joseph knew his place also in this respect.
7. So Joseph went up to bury his father. All
Pharaoh's officials accompanied him--the
dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of
Egypt—
1. Barnes 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.” ot 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.
2. Clarke, “The elders of his house - Persons who, by reason of their age, had
acquired much experience; and who on this account were deemed the best qualified
to conduct the affairs of the king’s household. Similar to these were the Eldermen,
or Aldermen, among our Saxon ancestors, who were senators and peers of the
realm. The funeral procession of Jacob must have been truly grand. Joseph, his
brethren and their descendants, the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house,
and all the elders - all the principal men, of the land of Egypt, with chariots and
horsemen, must have appeared a very great company indeed. We have seen Lords,
for their greater honor, buried at the public expense; and all the male branches of
the royal family, as well as the most eminent men of the nation, join in the funeral
procession, as in the case of the late Lord elson; but what was all this in
comparison of the funeral solemnity now before us? Here was no conqueror, no
mighty man of valor, no person of proud descent; here was only a plain man, who

21. had dwelt almost all his life long in tents, without any other subjects than his cattle,
and whose kingdom was not of this world. Behold this man honored by a national
mourning, and by a national funeral! It may be said indeed that “all this was done
out of respect to Joseph.” Be it so; why was Joseph thus respected? Was it because
he had conquered nations, had made his sword drunk with blood, had triumphed
over the enemies of Egypt? o! But because he had saved men alive; because he was
the king’s faithful servant, the rich man’s counsellor, and the poor man’s friend. He
was a national blessing; and the nation mourns in his affliction, and unites to do him
honor.
3. Gill, “And Joseph went up to bury his father,.... According to his request; having
obtained leave of Pharaoh, and being desirous of paying his last respects, and doing
his last office to so dear a parent, with all the honour and decency this service could
be done with:
and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh; a great number of them, some
must be left to wait upon him; who these were the next words explain:
the elders of his house: his senators and counsellors, his courtiers and principal
officers of state:
and all the elders of the land of Egypt; governors of provinces and cities, the chief
officers, civil and military; all which was done by the orders of Pharaoh, out of
respect to Joseph and his family, and to make the funeral procession grand and
honourable.
4. Henry 7-14, “We have here an account of Jacob's funeral. Of the funerals of the
kings of Judah, usually, no more is said than this, They were buried with their fathers
in the city of David: but the funeral of the patriarch Jacob is more largely and fully
described, to show how much better God was to him than he expected (he had
spoken more than once of dying for grief, and going to the grave bereaved of his
children, but, behold, he dies in honour, and is followed to the grave by all his
children), and also because his orders concerning his burial were given and
observed in faith, and in expectation both of the earthly and of the heavenly
Canaan. ow, 1. It was a stately funeral. He was attended to the grave, not only by
his own family, but by the courtiers, and all the great men of the kingdom, who, in
token of their gratitude to Joseph, showed this respect to his father for his sake, and
did him honour at his death. Though the Egyptians had had an antipathy to the
Hebrews, and had looked upon them with disdain (Gen_43:32), yet now, that they
were better acquainted with them, they began to have a respect for them. Good old
Jacob had conducted himself so well among them as to gain universal esteem. ote,
Professors of religion should endeavour, by wisdom and love, to remove the
prejudices which many may have conceived against them because they do not know
them. There went abundance of chariots and horsemen, not only to attend them a
little way, but to go through with them. ote, The decent solemnities of funerals,

22. according to a man's situation, are very commendable; and we must not say of
them, To what purpose is this waste? See Act_8:2; Luk_7:12. 2. It was a sorrowful
funeral (Gen_50:10, Gen_50:11); standers-by took notice of it as a grievous
mourning. ote, The death of good men is a great loss to any place, and ought to be
greatly lamented. Stephen dies a martyr, and yet devout men make great
lamentations for him. The solemn mourning for Jacob gave a name to the place,
Abel-Mizraim, the mourning of the Egyptians, which served for a testimony against
the next generation of the Egyptians, who oppressed the posterity of this Jacob to
whom their ancestors showed such respect.
5. Calvin, “And Joseph went up. Moses gives a full account of the burial. What he
relates concerning the renewed mourning of Joseph and his brethren, as well as of
the Egyptians, ought by no means to be established as a rule among ourselves. For
we know, that since our flesh has no self government, men commonly exceed bounds
both in sorrowing and in rejoicing. The tumultuous glamour, which the inhabitants
of the place admired, cannot be excused. And although Joseph had a right end in
view, when he fixed the mourning to last through seven successive days, yet this
excess was not free from blame. evertheless, it was not without reason that the
Lord caused this funeral to be thus honorably celebrated: for it was of great
consequence that a kind of sublime trophy should be raised, which might transmit
to posterity the memory of Jacob’s faith. If he had been buried privately, and in a
common manner, his fame would soon have been extinguished; but now, unless men
willfully blind themselves, they have continually before their eyes a noble example,
which may cherish the hope of the promised inheritance: they perceive, as it were,
the standard of that deliverance erected, Which shall take place in the fullness of
time. Wherefore, we are not here to consider the honor of the deceased so much as
the benefit of the living. Even the Egyptians, not knowing what they do, bear a torch
before the Israelites, to teach them to keep the course of their divine calling: the
Canaanites do the same, when they distinguish the place by a new name; for hence it
came to pass that the knowledge of the covenant of the Lord flourished afresh.
GILL his senators and counsellors, his courtiers and principal officers of state: and
all the elders of the land of Egypt;
governors of provinces and cities, the chief officers, civil and military; all which was
done by the orders of Pharaoh, out of respect to Joseph and his family, and to make
the funeral procession grand and honourable.
6. Steven Zeisler, “Could it be that nostalgia was the reason Jacob wanted to be
buried in that cave? I doubt it. Many are influenced by nostalgia as they face their
final days. Perhaps they left home as young people and went to work in a city. ow
their approaching death reawakens dreams of returning home. While there may be
some of that sentiment involved in Jacob's decision to return home, I am convinced
that his reason was much more than nostalgia. Jacob had already made Joseph take
a solemn vow to return his remains to Canaan following his death. Here in Gen.
50:5 we discover that Jacob had himself even dug the hole in the cave in which he
wanted to be buried. There in an intensity about his directions that sentiment would

23. not demand.
What were the Egyptians of that era noted for, as indeed they are today?
Monuments to the dead, of course. Just think of the pyramids, which were built to
honor dead leaders. The great pyramids were hundreds of years old by the time of
Joseph's arrival in Egypt. The Egyptian mummification process is marveled at even
today. If you wanted to be remembered after your death, Egypt was the place to die.
Through a promise made to Abraham (Gen.15:13,14), Jacob knew that his family
would remain on in Egypt for hundreds of years. Thus, he could have chosen to
have his remains rest in Egypt, perhaps even to have a monument erected to his
memory. But, as the text illustrates, he was quite explicit in his choosing his own
grave site.
Again, we must ask, why? The reason is that when God promised Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob and their families a particular land, that promise was only one element of a
bigger promise, which was God's commitment to save the human race; to do
something about the thrall and power of sin and death. God had a plan to defeat
what Paul calls the final enemy. Death itself would be dealt a death-blow by God.
The promise of Canaan was part of that greater promise. Jacob's clear directions
for his burial were saying, in effect, my burial in Canaan is a statement that I
believe in the whole promise of God to me and my ancestors; that God is going to
win us back to himself. Death will be defeated. Jacob was declaring his preference
to be buried in a hole in the ground in a cave in Canaan, which he himself had dug,
than to be remembered by means of an Egyptian monument. He was stating his
belief in the promises of God.
Hebrews 11 is a commentary on much of Genesis. What insight the writer had into
the story of the life and death of the patriarchs! Listen to these words:
All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and
welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and
exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking
a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from
which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they
desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be
called their God; for He has prepared a city for them. (Heb.11:13-16)
The writer is pointing out that the history of the wanderings of the Jews, the
promise that one day they would inherit a land, communicated to the patriarchs
that they were not citizens of this earth, but rather that their destination was
heaven. The source of their hope was God who would receive them to himself. They
came to that realization precisely because of their own history of wanderings. Thus,
we find Jacob on his deathbed saying, Yes! Amen. I trust the God who has made

24. those promises to my ancestors and to me.
7. Leupold, “One would hardly have expected so numerous a funeral cortege.
Several classes felt it incumbent upon them to grace the occasion. The monuments
indicate that the Egyptians dearly loved imposing and elaborate funeral processions.
Joseph’s position in itself was so influential that these persons who attended were in
duty and in courtesy bound to do so. They comprised the following classes: All the
servants of Pharaoh (’abhadhim here cannot mean slaves; all chief courtiers
must be meant); the elders of his household — a staff of officers who were
Pharaoh’s personal attendants; all the elders of the land of Egypt —all who held
positions of any consequence as leaders. Besides there was Joseph’s own
household — a considerable number apparently—also his brethren and lastly
his father’s household. One can only venture to suppose how many hundreds
made up this entire retinue. The only ones of Israel left behind were those that were
unable to bear the rigors of such a trip —their little children, flocks and herds.
Since Goshen was practically their own, they could with safety leave these behind in
that land.
8. besides all the members of Joseph's household
and his brothers and those belonging to his
father's household. Only their children and their
flocks and herds were left in Goshen.
1. Gill, “And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house,....
Joseph and his two sons, and his servants, and his eleven brethren and their sons
that were grown up, and as many of his father's domestics as could be spared
attended the funeral:
only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of
Goshen; there must be some servants left, though they are not mentioned, to take
care of the little ones, and of the flocks and herds; and these being left behind,
plainly show they intended to return again, and did not make this an excuse to get
out of the land.
9. Chariots and horsemen also went up with him.
It was a very large company.

25. 1. Here we have a funeral procession that would take first place in Guinness Book of
Records. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the Bible. Officials and dignitaries
galore and all the adults of Jacobs large family marched in order to this most
famous grave site, and chariots and horsemen accompanied them. It was an
enormous event. We would expect such an event for a king or famous warrior, but
who was all this for? It was for Jacob, and who was this Jacob? Adam Clarke
writes, “Here was no conqueror, no mighty man of valor, no person of proud
descent; here was only a plain man, who had dwelt almost all his life long in tents,
without any other subjects than his cattle, and whose kingdom was not of this world.
Behold this man honored by a national mourning, and by a national funeral! It may
be said indeed that all this was done out of respect to Joseph. Be it so; why was
Joseph thus respected? Was it because he had conquered nations, had made his
sword drunk with blood, had triumphed over the enemies of Egypt? O! But
because he had saved men alive; because he was the king's faithful servant, the rich
man's counselor, and the poor man's friend. He was a national blessing; and the
nation mourns in his affliction, and unites to do him honor.”
2. Luther remarks that there is no burial recorded in the Scriptures quite as
honorable as this or with such wealth of detail. (Leupold)
3. Gill, “ And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen,.... Which was
done both for the sake of honour and grandeur, and for safety and defence, should
they be attacked by robbers in the deserts, or opposed by the Canaanites, and be
refused the use of the cave of Machpelah, and the right to it disputed:
and it was a very great company; both for quantity and quality; the attendants at
this funeral were very numerous, and many of them great personages, and upon the
whole was a very honourable company, as the word (k) signifies, and made a very
great figure and grand appearance:
or a very great army (l), consisting of chariots and horsemen fit for war; if there
should be any occasion for it: and the Jews (m) pretend that Esau came out with a
large army, and met Joseph at the cave of Machpelah, and endeavoured to hinder
the burial of Jacob there, where he lost his life, having his head struck off with the
sword of Chushim, the son of Dan: some say it was Zepho, the grandson of Esau,
with the sons of Esau, that made the disturbance there, on which a battle ensued, in
which Joseph was the conqueror, and Zepho was taken captive; see Gill on
Gen_36:11, the Jews (n) give us the order and manner of the above procession thus;
first Joseph, next the servants of Pharaoh, or the princes, then the elders of the
court of Pharaoh, then all the elders of the land of Egypt, then the whole house of
Joseph, next to them the brethren of Joseph, who were followed by their eldest sons,
and after them were the chariots, and last of all the horses.

26. 4. Leupold, “Such a caravan required food and protection. So there went along with
it chariots and horsemen. Somehow the noun rékhebh is usually a collective
singular, whereas parashim (with long a in the antepenult) is not governed by
such usage. Perhaps wagons for rékhebh would be the better rendering. Then
wagons would have carried the provisions, and the horsemen would have
constituted the military protection. With good reason the narrator summarizes,
their company machaneh —originally camp, then also army or company
was a very considerable one. The correlative of v. 9 a is the more uncommon gam
—gam for both—and,
10.When they reached the threshing floor of Atad,
near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and
bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day
period of mourning for his father.
1. Clarke, “The threshing-floor of Atad - As אטד atad signifies a bramble or thorn,
it has been understood by the Arabic, not as a man’s name, but as the name of a
place; but all the other versions and the Targums consider it as the name of a man.
Threshing-floors were always in a field, in the open air; and Atad was probably
what we would call a great farmer or chief of some clan or tribe in that place.
Jerome supposed the place to have been about two leagues from Jericho; but we
have no certain information on this point. The funeral procession stopped here,
probably as affording pasturage to their cattle while they observed the seven days’
mourning which terminated the funeral solemnities, after which nothing remained
but the interment of the corpse. The mourning of the ancient Hebrews was usually
of seven days’ continuance, um_19:19; 1Sa_31:13; though on certain occasions it
was extended to thirty days, um_20:29; Deu_21:13; Deu_34:8, but never longer.
The seventy days’ mourning mentioned above was that of the Egyptians, and was
rendered necessary by the long process of embalming, which obliged them to keep
the body out of the grave for seventy days, as we learn both from Herodotus and
Diodorus. Seven days by the order of God a man was to mourn for his dead, because
during that time he was considered as unclean; but when those were finished he was
to purify himself, and consider the mourning as ended; um_19:11, um_19:19.
Thus God gave seven days, in some cases thirty, to mourn in: man, ever in his own
estimation wiser than the word of God, has added eleven whole months to the term,
which nature itself pronounces to be absurd, because it is incapable of supporting
grief for such a time; and thus mourning is now, except in the first seven or thirty
days, a mere solemn ill-conducted Farce, a grave mimicry, a vain show, that

27. convicts itself of its own hypocrisy. Who will rise up on the side of God and common
sense, and restore becoming sorrow on the death of a relative to decency of garb and
moderation in its continuance? Suppose the near relatives of the deceased were to be
allowed seven days of seclusion from society, for the purpose of meditating on death
and eternity, and after this to appear in a mourning habit for thirty days; every
important end would be accomplished, and hypocrisy, the too common attendant of
man, be banished, especially from that part of his life in which deep sincerity is not
less becoming than in the most solemn act of his religious intercourse with God.
In a kind of politico-religious institution formed by his late majesty Ferdinand
IV., king of aples and the Sicilies, I find the following rational institute relative to
this point: “There shall be no mourning among you but only on the death of a
father, mother, husband, or wife. To render to these the last duties of affection,
children, wives, and husbands only shall be permitted to wear a sign or emblem of
grief: a man may wear a crape tied round his right arm; a woman, a black
handkerchief around her neck; and this in both cases for only two months at the
most.” Is there a purpose which religion, reason, or decency can demand that would
not be answered by such external mourning as this? Only such relatives as the
above, brothers and sisters being included, can mourn; all others make only a part
of the dumb hypocritical show.
2. Gill, “And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad,.... Which was either the name
of a man the owner of it, or of a place so called from the thorns and brambles which
grew here, and with which the threshingfloor was surrounded, as Jarchi says, see
Jdg_9:14 and it was usual to make a hedge of thorns round about a threshingfloor
(o), that it might be preserved; mention is made in the Talmud (p) of the wilderness
of Atad, perhaps so called from the thorns and brambles in it: Jerom says (q) it was
three miles from Jericho and two from Jordan, and was in his time called Bethagla,
the place of a circuit, because there they went about after the manner of mourners
at the funeral of Jacob. This, according to some (r), was two hundred and forty
miles from On, where Joseph was supposed to live, sixteen from Jerusalem, and
forty from Hebron, where Jacob was buried: nay, Austin (s) says it was above fifty
miles from that place, as affirmed by those who well knew those parts:
which is beyond Jordan; as it was to those that came out of Egypt:
and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation; being now entered
into the country where the corpse was to be interred; and perhaps they might
choose to stop here and express tokens of mourning, that the inhabitants might be
apprised of their design in coming, which was not to invade them and make war
upon them, only to bury their dead: this mourning seems to be made chiefly by the
Egyptians, which was done in an external way, and it may be by persons brought
with them for that purpose; since both the name of the place after given was from
their mourning there, and the mourning of Joseph is next observed as distinct from
theirs:

28. and he made a mourning for his father seven days; which was the time of mourning,
afterwards observed by the Jews, see 1Sa_31:13, this Joseph ordered and observed
after he had buried his father, as Aben Ezra says, is affirmed by their ancient
Rabbins, and perhaps might be at this same place upon their return.
3. Jamison, “they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, etc. — “Atad” may be taken
as a common noun, signifying “the plain of the thorn bushes.” It was on the border
between Egypt and Canaan; and as the last opportunity of indulging grief was
always the most violent, the Egyptians made a prolonged halt at this spot, while the
family of Jacob probably proceeded by themselves to the place of sepulture.
4. Leupold, “The place where this funeral train came to a standstill was Goren
Atad. ow góren is a threshing floor, and ’atadh signifies bramble or
buckthorn. Yet the latter may also have come to be the name of a person. In case it
is not, then the bramble will have to be regarded as the type of hedge that
perhaps enclosed the threshing floor. For the threshing floors were level spaces
preferably on hilltops and situated outside of villages, and naturally were not roofed
over. This one is located as across the Jordan. Because of v. Ge 50:13, which
asserts that Jacob’s sons carried their father into the land of Canaan, we are
practically compelled to place Goren Atad on the east bank of the Jordan. For the
expression be’ébher hayyarden, across the Jordan, may signify either side
depending on the speaker’s standpoint. Here, however, it cannot be urged that the
writer must have resided or written in Canaan, because the writer, Moses, may just
as well have written this in the land of Egypt, or, what is equally valid, his mental
point of view may have been Egypt, the starting point of the caravan. Then the
course taken by this long funeral train would have been more to the south than the
usual route along the Mediterranean, then past the land of Philistaea, then over
toward Hebron. Yet this would not have necessitated a route as far south as that
taken later by the Israelites of the Exodus. The reason for this more southerly
course may have been the antagonism of certain nations or groups along the
northern route. Then, of course, the route will have curved around the southern end
of the Dead Sea up to a place like the Plains of Moab (u 22:1). A few writers from
Jerome to this day contend that across the Jordan must mean the west side,
assuming that Moses wrote Genesis while Israel was encamped in the plains of
Moab, or else supporting what seems the wrong location of Goren Atad. The
Egyptian custom of those days apparently required an additional seven days’
lamentation near or at the point of burial. Oriental custom required to make such a
lamentation quite demonstrative—very heavy. Apparently, Joseph himself made
the arrangements required. The Israelites are never known to have indulged their
grief so profusely. For Moses they mourned but thirty days (De 34:8); also for
Aaron (u 20:29).
5. KD 10-11, “Thus they came to Goren Atad beyond the Jordan, as the procession
did not take the shortest route by Gaza through the country of the Philistines,

29. probably because so large a procession with a military escort was likely to meet with
difficulties there, but went round by the Dead Sea. There, on the border of Canaan,
a great mourning and funeral ceremony was kept up for seven days, from which the
Canaanites, who watched it from Canaan, gave the place the name of Abel-mizraim,
i.e., meadow ( אָבֵ ל with a play upon אֵבֶ ל mourning) of the Egyptians. The situation of
Goren Atad (the buck-thorn floor), or Abel-mizraim, has not been discovered.
According to Gen_50:11, it was on the other side, i.e., the eastern side, of the
Jordan. This is put beyond all doubt by Gen_50:12, where the sons of Jacob are said
to have carried the corpse into the land of Canaan (the land on this side) after the
mourning at Goren Atad.
(ote: Consequently the statement of Jerome in the Onam. s. v. Area Atad -
“locus trans Jordanem, in quo planxerunt quondam Jacob, tertio ab Jerico lapide,
duobus millibus ab Jordane, qui nunc vocatur Bethagla, quod interpretatur locus
gyri, eo quod ibi more plangentium circumierint in funere Jacob” - is wrong. Beth
Agla cannot be the same as Goren Atad, if only because of the distances given by
Jerome from Jericho and the Jordan. They do not harmonize at all with his trans
Jordanem, which is probably taken from this passage, but point to a place on this
side of the Jordan; but still more, because Beth Hagla was on the frontier of
Benjamin towards Judah (Jos_15:6; Jos_18:19), and its name has been retained
in the fountain and tower of Hajla, an hour and a quarter to the S.E. of Riha
(Jericho), and three-quarters of an hour from the Jordan, by which the site of
the ancient Beth Hagla is certainly determined. (Vid., Robinson, Pal., ii. p.
268ff.))
11. When the Canaanites who lived there saw the
mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said,
The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of
mourning. That is why that place near the
Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.
1. Gill, “And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites,.... Who were at this
time in the possession of the country where the threshingfloor of Atad was: when
they
saw the mourning in the floor of Atad; for so large a company of people, and such a
grand funeral procession, brought multitudes from all the neighbouring parts to see
the sight; and when they observed the lamentation that was made, saw their
mournful gestures and actions, and heard their doleful moan:

30. they said, this is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians; they concluded they must
have lost some great man, to make such a lamentation for him:
wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan; they
changed the name of the place, and gave it another upon this occasion, which
signifies the mourning of Egypt or of the Egyptians, they being the principal persons
that used the outward and more affecting tokens of mourning; though the whole
company might be taken for Egyptians by the Canaanites, because they came out of
Egypt.
2. Leupold, “So unusual was the display of mourning on the part of an assembly
largely Egyptian, perhaps by this time entirely Egyptian as to appearance, that the
natives who witnessed it, called the inhabitants (yoshebh —singular collective) of
the land and the Canaanites, the general name for all who dwelt in those parts,
remarked about it, calling it a heavy mourning. ’Ebhel signifies mourning;
mispedh signifies lamentation, the public and usually vocal display of the inner
mourning, assuming rather extravagant forms in oriental countries, at least if
judged by our standards. Therefore the thing that the Canaanites noticed was that
the inner grief really appeared to be heavy. As a result of this observation they gave
a name to the meadow on which this Egyptian assembly encamped for at least a
week, calling it the meadow of the Egyptians. This name involved a slight play on
words that we cannot reproduce but which made this new name suggestive.
Mourning is ’ébhel; meadow is ’abhel. aturally the latter term suggested the
former. This explanation follows the pointing of the Hebrew text which appears to
us to follow a very reliable tradition. Because even though the two words have the
same consonants in the unprinted original text, it is yet far more likely that a place
will be called a meadow rather than a mourning, even though some renderings
obliterate this distinction. The Septuagint renders ’abhel as penuov — ’ébhel;
Luther says der Aegypter Klage.
12. 12. So Jacob's sons did as he had commanded
them:
1. Clarke, “And his sons did unto him - This and the thirteenth verse have been
supposed by Mr. Locke and others to belong to the conclusion of the preceding
chapter, in which connection they certainly read more consistently than they do
here.
2. Gill, “And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them. ot only
Joseph, but all the sons of Jacob were concerned in the burial of him, being all

31. charged by him with it, and who were obedient to his commands as follows; see
Gen_49:29.
3. KD 12-13, “There the Egyptian procession probably stopped short; for in
Gen_50:12 the sons of Jacob only are mentioned as having carried their father to
Canaan according to his last request, and buried him in the cave of Machpelah.
4. Leupold, “After this notable display was ended, Jacob’s sons become the chief
actors in the scene. They take in hand very properly the more intimate part of the
burial service, the actual laying of the patriarch in his last resting place. Whether
the Egyptians stayed behind or followed along as persons of secondary importance
is of so little moment to the writer that he says nothing about them. The part of the
sons must be mentioned because their father had laid a strict charge upon them and
the author wishes to describe them as dutiful sons. They personally bore him to the
land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Macpelah. Then follows a
description of the field and an account of the manner of its purchase agreeing
almost verbatim with the charge given by the dying Jacob (Ge 49:29,30). That, then,
is another way of stating the fact that his behest was carried out to the very letter.
Critics cannot believe Moses capable of using such flexibility of style, involving a
formal repetition, so they assign these two verses (Ge 50:12,13) to P, who is
supposed to have written all things that savour of formal statement. Then to bolster
up their contention more firmly they claim that these two verses also fail to agree
with the rest of the account, for the preceding verses, it is claimed, make the
Egyptians the chief actors, whereas these two put Jacob’s sons in the forefront, as if
both could not be true and in perfect harmony with one another. J is said to have
written the rest of v. Ge 50:1-14.
13. They carried him to the land of Canaan and
buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah,
near Mamre, which Abraham had bought as a
burial place from Ephron the Hittite, along with
the field.
1. Gill, “For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan,.... That is, they took care
that he was carried there, as he desired to be; for it cannot be thought that they
carried him on their shoulders thither, in like manner as the devout men carried
Stephen to his burial, Act_8:2.

32. and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, c. the very place where he
chose to be buried, Gen_47:29.
2. ROBERT BROW, “ote: The great importance given to a burial place in the
ancient world contrasts with the quite different view of death in the ew Testament
after the resurrection. When Joseph of Arimathea and icodemus took the corpse
down and put it into the tomb (Matthew 27:57-60, Mark 15:42-46; Luke 23:50-53),
Jesus’ resurrection body was already in Paradise with the penitent thief (Mark16:6;
Luke 23:39-43). When Jesus died the first thing he did in his resurrection body was
to empty sheol, the abode of the dead, of its contents (clearly taught in Matthew
27:52-53; John 5:28; 11:25-26; 1 Peter 3:18-19). This means that like him, instead
of lying in the grave awaiting a future resurrection (as in Judaism and Islam), the
Lord comes for us when we die, and we immediately receive our resurrection body
and go to be with him in heaven (1 Corinthians 15:15- 18, 20-23; 2 Corinthians 5:1-
4, 8; Philippians 1:21-23).
This explains why there is no emphasis in the ew Testament on maintaining the
tombs of those who die, as if the persons were still lying inside. People were buried
and people grieved for their loved ones (as with Stephen, Acts 8:2) but there is no
record of Stephen or James, the Apostle, being buried in an elaborate tomb (Acts
12:2). We do not know where any of the other apostles were buried. Paul knew of
Christians who had died (1 Corinthians 15:6, 18; 2 Peter 3:4) but there is no record
of their tombs being reverenced.
The early Christians did not even mark the place where Jesus’ body lay in the tomb
of Joseph of Arimathea. The location of Jesus’ tomb was of no relevance to
Christians for the first three hundred years of the early church. The present
location of the Holy Sepulcher was “discovered” by the Empress Helena, and a
building over it was erected 326-335 AD. It was destroyed by the Persians in 614,
rebuilt, and again destroyed in 1009 AD by the Caliph El Hakim. The present
building goes back to 1048 AD. But many think the location of the tomb is three
quarters of a mile, 1 km, to the north in the Garden Tomb “discovered” by General
Gordon as a result of his studies in Jerusalem in 1882. othing hangs on the
location of Jesus’ tomb or that of any of the apostles.
Here we see Joseph and all his brothers in the Promised Land, and yet it was not yet
to be their possession. They had to return to Egypt for many generations before they
could go and claim the land. At this point they were not strong enough.”
3. Rabbi Shmuel Weiss, “Our sages see a certain significance in this, hinting at a
number of different closures suggested by the form of the column. Jacob would
die in this portion, and his eyes would be closed by his son Joseph, a sign of respect
for the deceased. A chapter of Jewish life was also closing. For until now, the Torah
discussed the lives of unique, great individuals who guided our destiny. Beginning in
the book of Exodus, however, the focus would be on the Jewish nation.

33. The Midrash adds another idea when it says: The eyes and hearts of the Jewish
people were closed from all the suffering and enslavement which had now begun.
Though physical bondage was still some years off, the death of Jacob signaled the
official start of our slavery in Egypt. We lost our guiding light, our protector, and
we would now be at the mercy of the cruel Egyptians.
14. After burying his father, Joseph returned to
Egypt, together with his brothers and all the
others who had gone with him to bury his father.
1. Gill, “ And Joseph returned into Egypt,.... As he promised he would, Gen_50:5.
he and his brethren; the eleven sons of Jacob; for though they had not made the
same promise, nor Joseph for them, yet they returned, having left their little ones,
flocks and herds, in Egypt:
and all that went up with him to bury his father; the elders and great men of the
land of Egypt, with their attendants:
after he had buried his father; in the land of Canaan, which, though given to the
seed of Jacob, the time was not come for them to possess it, nor the time of their
departure out of Egypt thither, which was to be a good while hence, and after
another manner.
2. Calvin, “And Joseph returned. Although Joseph and the rest had left so many
pledges in Egypt, that it would be necessary for them to return; it is yet probable
that they were rather drawn back thither by the oracle of God. For God never
permitted them to choose an abode at their own will; but as he had before led
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in their journeying, so he held their sons shut up in the
land of Goshen, as within barriers. And there is no doubt that the holy fathers left
that oracle which we have in the fifteenth chapter and the thirteenth verse, Genesis
15:13 to their sons, to be kept in faithful custody as a precious treasure.“And he said
unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not
theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.”
They return, therefore, into Egypt, not only because they were compelled by present
necessity, but because it was not lawful for them to shake off with the hand, the yoke
which God had put upon their necks. But if the Lord does not hold all men bound
by voluntary obedience to himself, he nevertheless holds their minds by his secret