24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, The time of my death has come; but God will keep you in mind and take you out of this land into the land which he gave by his oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you; and to your seed after you I will give the land.
Keep in this land, and I will be with you and give you my blessing; for to you and to your seed will I give all these lands, giving effect to the oath which I made to your father Abraham;
Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt; And I have said, I will take you up out of the sorrows of Egypt into the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, into a land flowing with milk and honey.
Then Israel said to Joseph, Now my death is near; but God will be with you, guiding you back to the land of your fathers.
I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will see that you come back again, and at your death Joseph will put his hands on your eyes.
In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:
And he said to him, I am the Lord, who took you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land for your heritage.
For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your seed for ever.
And the Lord came to Abram, and said, I will give all this land to your seed; then Abram made an altar there to the Lord who had let himself be seen by him.
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, said that the children of Israel would go out of Egypt; and gave orders about his bones.
And because by God's law death comes to men once, and after that they are judged;
And the dust goes back to the earth as it was, and the spirit goes back to God who gave it.
And he is in fear of that which is high, and danger is in the road, and the tree is white with flower, and the least thing is a weight, and desire is at an end, because man goes to his last resting-place, and those who are sorrowing are in the streets;
And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land which he gave his oath to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you; with great and fair towns which were not of your building;
See, all the land is before you: go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them.
And the Lord said to Moses, Go forward from this place, you and the people whom you have taken up out of the land of Egypt, to that land about which I made an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your seed will I give it.
And the people had faith in them; and hearing that the Lord had taken up the cause of the children of Israel and had seen their troubles, with bent heads they gave him worship.
And the Lord came to Sarah as he had said and did to her as he had undertaken.
And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.
But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth. As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place. And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Genesis 50
Commentary on Genesis 50 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 50
Ge 50:1-26. Mourning for Jacob.
1. Joseph fell upon his father's face, &c.—On him, as the principal member of the family, devolved the duty of closing the eyes of his venerable parent (compare Ge 46:4) and imprinting the farewell kiss.
2. Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father, &c.—In ancient Egypt the embalmers were a class by themselves. The process of embalmment consisted in infusing a great quantity of resinous substances into the cavities of the body, after the intestines had been removed, and then a regulated degree of heat was applied to dry up the humors, as well as decompose the tarry materials which had been previously introduced. Thirty days were alloted for the completion of this process; forty more were spent in anointing it with spices; the body, tanned from this operation, being then washed, was wrapped in numerous folds of linen cloth—the joinings of which were fastened with gum, and then it was deposited in a wooden chest made in the form of a human figure.
3. the Egyptians mourned, &c. It was made a period of public mourning, as on the death of a royal personage.
4, 5. Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, &c.—Care was taken to let it be known that the family sepulchre was provided before leaving Canaan and that an oath bound his family to convey the remains thither. 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, he made the request through the medium of others.
7-9. Joseph went up to bury his father—a journey of three hundred miles. The funeral cavalcade, composed of the nobility and military, with their equipages, would exhibit an imposing appearance.
10. they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, &c.—"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 probably proceeded by themselves to the place of sepulture.
15-21. When Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, &c.—Joseph was deeply affected by this communication. He gave them the strongest assurances of his forgiveness and thereby gave both a beautiful trait of his own pious character, as well as appeared an eminent type of the Saviour.
22, 23. Joseph dwelt in Egypt—He lived eighty years after his elevation to the chief power [see on Ge 41:46] witnessing a great increase in the prosperity of the kingdom, and also of his own family and kindred—the infant Church of God.
24. Joseph said unto his brethren, I die—The national feelings of the Egyptians would have been opposed to his burial in Canaan; but he gave the strongest proof of the strength of his faith and full assurance of the promises, by "the commandment concerning his bones" [Heb 11:22].
26. and they embalmed him—[See on Ge 50:2]. His funeral would be conducted in the highest style of Egyptian magnificence and his mummied corpse carefully preserved till the Exodus.