Genesis 50:1-13 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

Genesis 49:28 b - Genesis 50:13. Death and Burial of Jacob.

Genesis 49:28 b - Genesis 49:33; Genesis 50:12 f. are in the main from P; Genesis 50:1-11 in the main from J. The dying charge requires no comment. The body is embalmed simply because burial could not be immediate; the motive for the Egyptian practice was that the body might be preserved for the ka or double to reanimate it. Joseph does not make his request for leave of absence direct to Pharaoh, possibly because as a mourner, he was unclean, hardly because absence might seem to veil some traitorous design, though Joseph explicitly promises to return (Genesis 49:5). To do his father honour, an immense company of Egyptians of high rank accompanies the body. The way to Machpelah did not pass E. of the Jordan, so that if the text of Genesis 49:10 f. is right, it is possible that in one tradition the tomb was located on the E. of Jordan. Abel-mizraim means meadow (not mourning) of Egypt. The actual account of the burial is not preserved in J or E.

Genesis 50:14-26. Joseph Reassures his Brothers. Joseph's Death.

Genesis 49:14 belongs to J, Genesis 49:15-26 to E. The request for pardon put in Jacob's mouth (Genesis 49:17) is not elsewhere recorded. Genesis 49:20 f. suggests that the famine was over. According to P Jacob was in Egypt seventeen years (Genesis 47:28), in Genesis 45:11 we learn that the famine lasted five years after his arrival. Joseph survives to see the great-grandchildren of his younger son, but the VSS read grandchildren. Machir was a powerful Manassite clan; his children are adopted by Joseph. The length of Joseph's life, 110 years, was regarded in Egypt as ideal. Convinced that the Israelites will go back to Canaan, he extracts an oath from them to take his bones with them, that he may participate in the return and rest in the promised land. So he, too, was embalmed and the body placed in a mummy case. The fulfilment of the pledge is recorded in Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32.

Related Commentaries of Genesis 50:1

Genesis 50:1-13

1 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.

3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourneda for him threescore and ten days.

4 And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

5 My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

6 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

7 And 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,

8 And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.

10 And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

11 And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim,b which is beyond Jordan.

12 And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:

13 For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.