Genesis

Chapter Fifty

Preface

The first book of the Bible, as far as man is concerned, begins with life in the Garden of Eden and ends in death in a coffin in Egypt.  God informed Adam and Eve at the very beginning of their lives that should they eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would in that day surely die (Genesis 2:17).  As recorded in the third chapter, they did in fact eat of the tree; yet, to the spiritually non-discerned, they did not die.  But to the spiritually discerned, who understand God’s Word, spiritual death did occur immediately and physical death (the beginning of the degradation of the human body) did also. 

Of course, there is the interpretation regarding the physical aspect of death that is based on the following two passages of Scripture, which maintains that in “God-days,” both Adam (physically died at age 930 years—Genesis 5:5) and Eve (there is no biblical notation of her physical death) did in fact die that day:

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8)

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4)

This writer suggests that the two verses above do not establish a time-frame that applies to God.  Rather, these are metaphorical phrases that are meant to convey that God is not subject to time constraints, as is man.  God exists outside of any dimensional constraints, such as space and time (this writer understands that particle physicists today now believe that the universe has ten dimensions but only four of them are directly measurable—length, width, depth, and time).  God exists both at the beginning of time, the end of time (which will come), and all points in between.  Nevertheless, God’s Word is true and when the first two human occupants of the Garden of Eden disobeyed His Word and ate of the forbidden tree, they surely died that day.

This last chapter of Genesis covers Jacob's funeral and burial in the Promised Land of Canaan and the death and burial of his dearly beloved son Joseph.  But the two key truths contained in this final chapter of the first book of the Bible are (1) the significance of their faith and (2) the surety of God’s plan and will involving the child of God.

Genesis 50:1-3

Then Joseph fell on his father's face, and wept over him, and kissed him.  And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel.  Forty days were required for him, for such are the days required for those who are embalmed; and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

Although Joseph, a man of profound faith in God, knew that his father was still spiritually alive and would one day be resurrected, he still deeply grieved his passing—a perfectly normal reaction of all human beings when suddenly faced with the absence of a dear loved one.  Even when Christ observed Mary and the Jews that accompanied her, all crying over the death of Lazarus, Jesus groaned in the spirit and was troubled and Jesus wept (John 11:32-35).

Embalming was a process the Egyptians mastered—an elaborate process during which the body was mummified by removing most of the vital organs (some of which were embalmed separately), dehydrating the body, and wrapping it tightly in linen and placed in a wooden case.  The process could take up to 70 days, but in this case it took only forty.  Embalming was typical for Egyptians of high rank but unusual for the lower classes and unheard of for nomadic shepherds.  Believing that the dead went to the next world in their physical bodies, the Egyptians embalmed bodies to preserve them so they could function in the world to come.  Because of the veneration for Joseph, it is believed that the embalming of his father was a sign of respect from the Egyptians to Israel and vice versa.

Since Joseph was a high official, the Egyptians showed great respect for the death of his father by mourning his death for a period of 70 days.  Egyptians took death very seriously and provided the best they could for the departed—including food, clothing, pets, and other items for use in the world of the dead.

Genesis 50:4-6

And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the hearing of Pharaoh, saying, ‘My father made me swear, saying, “Behold, I am dying; in my grave which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me.” Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come back.’”  And Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear.”

The expression “to the household of Pharaoh” may indicate that even Joseph did not always have immediate access to Pharaoh’s presence.  Pharaoh granted the special request by Joseph to bury his father in the land of Canaan in accordance with his father’s wishes.  What is significant is that the promise Jacob (Israel) required of Joseph to have him buried in the Land of Promise demonstrated Jacob’s great faith in the promises of God regarding the covenant God had made with Abraham.  He wanted his body to be resurrected from the land that God had given to Abraham’s seed, and which one day would be the center of Christ’s theocratic kingdom upon earth.  Pharaoh of course trusted Joseph to come back to Egypt—a trust born from many years of experience with Joseph in which Joseph “always kept his word.”

Genesis 50:7-14

So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, as well as all the house of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's house. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds they left in the land of Goshen.  And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great gathering.  Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they mourned there with a great and very solemn lamentation. He observed seven days of mourning for his father.  And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, "This is a deep mourning of the Egyptians." Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.  So his sons did for him just as he had commanded them.  For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite as property for a burial place.  And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who went up with him to bury his father.

Why such detail over the burial of Jacob when the deaths of the other patriarchs are simply recounted in the bare facts that they died and were buried? . . . .

The writer has been focusing on God’s faithfulness to His promise of the land and on the hope of God’s people in the eventual return to the land.  In later prophetic literature, a recurring image of the fulfillment of the promise to return to the land pictures returning Israel accompanied by many from among the nations.  The prophets of Israel saw the return as a time when “all the nations will stream to” Jerusalem, and “many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob’” (Isa 2:2, 3; Zec 8:23).

It is difficult not to see the same imagery at work in the present narrative.  Jacob, in his final return to the Land of Promise, was accompanied by a great congregation of the officials and elders of the land of Egypt.  With him also was the mighty army of the Egyptians.  Thus the story of Jacob’s burial in the land foreshadows the time when God “will bring Jacob back from captivity and will have compassion on all the people of Israel” (Eze 39:25). (Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary, Volume 1:  Old Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, 1994)

At the threshing floor of Atad, east of Jordan and north of the Dead Sea, a formal 7 day period of mourning was carried out.  Since the Egyptians who accompanied the large funeral procession (probably the largest and longest of recorded history) joined in the mourning, the place was called Abel Mizraim, which means “mourning of Egypt.”

Genesis 50:15-21

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.”  So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, “Before your father died he commanded, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to Joseph: “I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin; for they did evil to you.”’ Now, please, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.  Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, “Behold, we are your servants.”  Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.  Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Now that Jacob (Israel) was gone, the true fears of Joseph’s brethren resurfaced.  They could never really free themselves from the guilt they had experienced once they learned that their nefarious deed of selling Joseph into the slave trade to Egypt had been exposed.  In their minds Joseph had every right to inflict harm, even death, upon them for their actions.

The message they conveyed to Joseph purported from their father may have been truthful or it might have been an invention in an attempt to mitigate (their supposition of) Joseph’s anger.  And as another validation of Joseph’s prior predictions in the Canaan, they came before Joseph and bowed in humility and servitude before him.

But Joseph, a man of great faith in God, knew all the time that all that happened was for the purpose of fulfilling God’s plan.  God turned all the evil perpetrated against Joseph to good for him and his family; and eventually, for the entire nation Israel.  Through the window of his wisdom Joseph could entertain no harm to his brethren.  He could only forgive them and bless them.  In this sense, Joseph is a type of Jesus Christ.  For all the evil and rejection man has done to Jesus Christ, He has only forgiveness and blessing—if man will only accept these grace-gifts of God by faith.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Genesis 50:22-26

So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's household. And Joseph lived one hundred and ten years.  Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation. The children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were also brought up on Joseph's knees.  And Joseph said to his brethren, "I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."  Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, "God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here."  So Joseph died, being one hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Joseph and his brethren continued to live in Egypt.  But why then did his brethren continue on in Egypt after Joseph’s death?  There may have been many reasons for this.  Canaan was more on the frontier, less stable politically and perhaps not as fertile.  Since the Israelites lived in Egypt throughout much of Joseph’s lifetime (three generations), they were probably more familiar with Egypt.  They may have had some obligation to Pharaoh.  Of course their situation (favor) there disintegrated in time, since the record in Exodus reveals that they are in slavery.

The phrase “brought up on Joseph’s knees,” may mean that the child was accepted as one’s own.  Here Joseph may be adopting the children of Machir in order to leave an inheritance to them.  Joseph also prophesied to his brethren that the day would come when God would visit them and bring them out of Egypt and to the Promised Land.

Though his words are few, the final statement of Joseph to his brethren gives the clearest expression of his great faith in the promises of God—the kind of great faith that is born from a life of trusting God for even the smallest of details.  His faith was evident in his request that his bones be returned to the Promised Land in the day Israel was to be delivered from Egypt.  And like his father, Joseph was also embalmed and placed in a wooden coffin in Egypt.

The book of Genesis ends with the Israelites “in Egypt.  Their narrative, however, does not end there.  As in earlier segments of the book, the death of the patriarch is followed immediately in the next book (Exodus) by a list of names that begins a narrative of the events in the lives of the next generations.

Genesis in the New Testament