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.
They came to the threshing-floor of Atad. "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 proceeded by themselves to the place of sepulture. 'The route taken by Jacob's funeral precession was evidently along the usual caravan road between the Delta and Hebron.' Some have thought, from the expression "beyond Jordan" being applied to Atad, or Abel-mizraim (that is, mourning of the Egyptians), that they crossed the river. Indeed, Jerome ('Onomastican') locates Atad near Jericho: on that supposition, see Relandi, 'Palaestina,' 523. But compare Deuteronomy 3:25. The Egyptian attendants waited somewhere in the neighbourhood of Beer-sheba, while the Hebrews went alone through the winding passes up to the ancestral sepulchre at Hebron (Drew's 'Scripture Lands,' p. 38). Others, however, as Dean Stanley, think that the procession really went by the Jordan ('Jewish Church,' p.
74). 'They came (so the narrative seems to imply) not by the direct road which the Patriarchs had hitherto traversed on their way to Egypt by El-Arish, but around the long circuit by which Moses afterward led their descendants, until they arrived on the banks of the Jordan. Further than this the Egyptian escort came not. But the valley of the Jordan resounded with the loud, shrill lamentations peculiar to their ceremonial of mourning, and with the funeral games with which then, as now, the Arabs encircle the tomb of a departed chief. From this double tradition the spot was known in after-times as the "meadow," or "the mourning" of the Egyptians, Atel-mizraim; and as Beth-hogla "the house of the circling-dance."' The phrase х bª`eeber (H5676) ha-Yardeen (H3383)], the country beyond Jordan, is used sometimes to designate the region east of the Jordan; in others, the country west of the Jordan. (See Joshua 12:1-7, where it is used in both senses.) Colenso fastens upon this phrase as a proof that Moses was not the author of this book. But the expression is too indefinite to ground so grave an objection upon.
And he made a mourning for his father seven days - the time ordinarily spent by the Orientals on occasions of solemn mourning (1 Samuel 31:13; 1 Chronicles 10:12; Job 2:10; Ezekiel 3:15). This, as we learn from various sources, was eminently an Egyptian custom-to make a very solemn mourning for the dead, especially those of high rank, immediately before entombment (Herodotus, book 2:, chapter 85; Diodorus, book 1:, chapter 91).