Bible Commentaries

And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

Joseph fell upon his father's face ... On him, as the principal member of the family, devolved the duty of closing the eyes of his venerable parent (Genesis 40:4), and imprinting on his forehead the farewell kiss.

And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.

Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. In ancient Egypt, where the state of civilization was so greatly advanced, the medical profession was subdivided into a variety of departments, almost every disease being under the care of a separate class of practitioners, as in western Europe. They were as the sacerdotal order, and a number of them were attached to every high family, such as Joseph's was (Hengstenberg, 'Egypt and Books of Moses,' p. 67). The embalmers were in later times a class by themselves, who performed the double office of apothecaries and undertakers. [ haarop

And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.

Forty days were fulfilled for him. Diodorus says, generally 'upwards of thirty days were allotted for the completion of the process.'

The Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days. This included the whole period of embalming. Both 70 and 72 days are mentioned as the full number, the first being ten weeks of seven days, or seven decades; the other, 12 + 6 = 72, the duodecimal calculation being also used in Egypt. The manner of their mourning was this-`The family mourned at home, singing the funeral dirge, very much as is now done in Egypt; and during this time they abstained from the bath, wine, delicacies of the table, and rich clothing. On the death in any house of a person of consequence, immediately the women plaster their heads, and sometimes even their faces, with mud, and sally forth, wandering through the city, with their dress fastened by a band, and their bosoms bare, beating themselves as they walk. The men, similarly dressed, beat their breasts separately.' In the case of Jacob, it was made a period of public mourning as on the death of a royal personage (Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' book 2:, chapter 86:; Hengstenberg's 'Egypt and Books of Moses').

And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

Joseph spake, ... Care was taken to let it be known that the family grave was provided, before leaving Canaan, and that an oath bound his family to convey the remains there. Besides, Joseph deemed it right to apply for a special leave of absence; and, being unfit as a mourner to appear in the royal presence, as well as from regard to the priestly statutes, he made the request through the medium of others.

And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

No JFB commentary on this verse.

And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,

And Joseph went up to bury his father ... It was a journey of 300 miles. The funeral cavalcade, composed of a large attendance of the nobility and military with their horse-drawn carriages and servants, would exhibit an imposing appearance.

The elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. The one were the attaches of the court, and the others the officers of state. This distinction, so characteristic of Egyptian usage, is noticed by classical authors. The court of the king was composed of the sons of the most distinguished priests; while the state officers were taken from other orders of society ('Heeren Ideen,' sec. 37).

And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

No JFB commentary on these verses.

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 [ b

And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan.

No JFB commentary on these verses.

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 for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

His sons ... buried him in the cave ... of Machpelah - (see the note at Genesis 23:1-20.) The Egyptians could not join in that ceremony, as it was contrary to their usages. Since the mummified body of Jacob was encased in a coffin or sarcophagus, according to Egyptian usage, it is reasonable to believe that it lies undisturbed in the inaccessible recesses of Machpelah, where, doubtless, on the adoption of a more liberal policy by the rulers of Palestine, the discovery will reward the researches of Christian explorers by the interesting information its Egypto-Hebraic inscription must contain.

And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

No JFB commentary on this verse.

And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.

When Joseph's brethren saw ... He was deeply affected by this communication. In endeavouring to dispel their fears, he gave them the strongest assurances of his forgiveness, and exhibited a beautiful trait of his own pious character, as well as appeared an eminent type of the Saviour.

And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.

Joseph dwelt in Egypt. He lived 80 years after his elevation to the chief power, witnessing a great increase in the prosperity of the kingdom, and also of his own family and kindred-the infant congregation of God (see further the note at Genesis 50:26).

And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I die - or, 'I am dying.' The national feelings of the Egyptians would have been opposed to his burial in Canaan; and therefore he said nothing regarding his immediate interment; but he gave the strongest proof of the strength of his faith and full assurance of the promises by "the commandment concerning his bones" (Hebrews 11:22). It is evident from his dying injunction, that he had not allowed himself to be so immersed with the politics, the honours, or the pleasures of a foreign and a pagan capital as to obliterate the memory of, or shake his faith in, the divine promises to Israel.

And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

No JFB commentary on this verse.

So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him,

So Joseph died, being, an hundred and ten years old. Bunsen, whose semi-rationalistic system led him to reduce the longevity of the patriarchs to the present ordinary standard of life, does not allow ('Egypt's Place,'

iii., p. 342) that Joseph, when he died, exceeded 78 years of age, grounding an argument on the circumstance that, had he been as old as the text represents, he must have seen not the children of Machir only, but Machir's grandchildren. Gesenius shows, on critical principles, that Joseph actually did so: for (Genesis 50:23) he saw Ephraim's [ b***