And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.
Ver. 2. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians.] Physicians, a it seems, were formerly of no great esteem; perhaps it was because, through ignorance, they many times officiously killed their patients. We know who it was that cried out upon his death bed, Many physicians have killed the emperor. b And it is grown to a proverb, No physician can be his craftsmaster, till he have been the death of thirty men. c The Egyptians, to prevent this mischief, appointed fox every ordinary disease, a several physician; enjoining them to study the cure of that only. And till then, the fashion was to lay the sick man at his door, where every passenger was bound to inquire the nature of his disease; that if either himself or any within his knowledge had recovered of the like, he might tell by what means, or stay to make trial of that skill he had upon the patient. d Physic is, without question, the ordinance of God. Exo 21:19 He styles himself, "Jehovah Rophe," Exo 15:26 the Lord the physician. And a physician is more worth than many others, saith the heathen poet. e Use them we must, when there is need, Mark 2:17 1Ti 4:4 but not idolise them, as 2 Chronicles 16:12 .
And the physicians embalmed Israel.] According to the custom of that country; concerning which, he that will see more, may read in Herodotus and Pliny. f This custom continued also in after ages, as well among Jews as Gentiles. But the devil turned it, in time, into most vain superstition, both among the Greeks, whom Lucian frequently jeers for it, and among the Latins; witness that of Ennius, Tavquinii corpus bona faemina lavit, et unxit. Joseph embalmed his father's corpse, partly to honour 2 Chronicles 16:14 ; 2Ch 21:19 him with this solemnity; and partly to preserve him for so long a journey; but principally to testify his faith of the resurrection, and that incorruption he hoped for at the last day. Some think the apostle hath relation to this, in that 1 Corinthians 15:29, and they read it thus; "Why do they then wash - βαπτιζονται, voce media - over the dead?" Compare Acts 9:37 .
a Yεραπευω, famulor, curo, remedium morbo adhibeo.
b πολλοι ιατροι κατεκτειναν τον βασιλεα. - Adrian Imp.
c Tritum est, nullum medicum esse peritum, nisi triginta homines Orco demiserit. "Farewell, Physic," was Chaucer's motto.
d Olim exponebatur aeger obvio cuilibet sanandus. - Plutarch. Herodot., lib. i.
e Iατηρ δ ανηρ πολλων ανταξιος αλλων. - Hom.
f Herodot., Euierpe. Plin., lib. xi. cap. 27.