Genesis 50:1-14
Faith in God’s promises shapes not only how we live but also how we are honored and remembered in death.
1 Joseph fell on his father’s face, wept on him, and kissed him.
2 Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father; and the physicians embalmed Israel.
3 Forty days were used for him, for that is how many the days it takes to embalm. The Egyptians wept for Israel for seventy days.
4 When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s staff, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,
5 ‘My father made me swear, saying, “Behold, I am dying. Bury me in my grave which I have dug for myself in the land of Canaan.” Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come again.’ ”
6 Pharaoh said, “Go up, and bury your father, just like he made you swear.”
7 Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, all the elders of the land of Egypt,
8 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.
9 There went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company.
10 They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and severe lamentation. He mourned for his father seven days.
11 When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.” Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
12 His sons did to him just 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, as a possession for a burial site, from Ephron the Hittite, near Mamre.
14 Joseph returned into Egypt—he, and his brothers, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.
Faith in God’s promises shapes not only how we live but also how we are honored and remembered in death.
To narrate the mourning for Jacob, the honoring of his death in Egypt, and the fulfillment of his burial request in Canaan.
Jacob Is Buried in the Land of Promise, Joseph Reassures His Brothers, and God’s Sovereign Good Stands over Human Evil
At the close of Genesis, Jacob is buried in the land of promise, Joseph interprets his brothers’ evil under God’s sovereign purpose for good, and the covenant family is left waiting in faith for God to visit and bring them up from Egypt.