Honor in Death: Mourning, Procession, and Burial in the Promised Land

¹ Then Joseph fell upon his father’s face, wept over him, and kissed him.

² And Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So they embalmed him,

³ taking the forty days required to complete the embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

⁴ When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s court, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please tell Pharaoh that

⁵ my father made me swear an oath when he said, ‘I am about to die. You must bury me in the tomb that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now let me go and bury my father, and then return.”

⁶ Pharaoh replied, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.”

⁷ Then Joseph went to bury his father, and all the servants of Pharaoh accompanied him—the elders of Pharaoh’s household and all the elders of the land of Egypt—

⁸ along with all of Joseph’s household, and his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children and flocks and herds were left in Goshen.

⁹ Chariots and horsemen alike went up with him, and it was an exceedingly large procession.

¹⁰ When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan, they lamented and wailed loudly, and Joseph mourned for his father seven days.

¹¹ When the Canaanites of the land saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a solemn ceremony of mourning by the Egyptians.” Thus the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim.

¹² So Jacob’s sons did as he had charged them.

¹³ They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave at Machpelah in the field near Mamre, which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site.

¹⁴ After Joseph had buried his father, he returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone with him to bury his father.