All the servants of Pharaoh— All may be put here, as Matthew 3:5 for a great number; the major part; all the principal officers of the court. The elders of his house, i.e.. the persons of first dignity, a title of honour used, 2
Sam. Genesis 12:17. and so in various languages, senator, senior, signior, signeur, are used as titles of distinction: so our first Saxon ancestors gave the name ealder-man to a governor of a province, as we do now to a magistrate of a city. Thus the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of AEgypt, signify, persons of the first authority and dignity, both in court and country. With these went all the family of Jacob, and a numerous cavalcade of chariots and horsemen, Genesis 12:9 a grand procession to travel so great a distance; for it was near three hundred miles. The splendor and magnificence of our patriarch's funeral, says Parker, seems to be without a parallel in history. What hitherto have most affected me in the comparison, were, indeed, the noble obsequies of Marcellus, as Virgil has described them: but how do even these, with all their parade of poetry about them, fall short of the plain and simple narrative before us! for what are the six hundred beds, for which the Roman solemnities, on this occasion, were so famous, in comparison of that national itinerant multitude, which swelled like a flood, and moved like a river;—to all Pharaoh's servants, to the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of AEgypt: i.e.. to the officers of his household, and the deputies of his provinces, with all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house, conducting their solemn sorrow, for near three hundred miles, into a distant country.