The Burial of Jacob
May 24, 2024
Commentary
The Egyptians were a very demonstrative people. They tore their clothes, smote their breasts, threw dust and mud on their heads and chanted funeral songs with the accompaniment of the tambourine. It was an astonishing sight for the local people. Warren Wiersbe said, “When Jacob died he left behind a great nation and the testimony of what a great God can do with an imperfect man who sought to live by faith.” After weeping over his father’s dead body Joseph commanded his servants to prepare his father for burial (vv. 1-3). In Egypt the period for embalming was seldom less than a month and normally 40 days. When the Egyptians mourned 70 days this showed the great respect they had for him.
After the time of mourning Joseph asked Pharaoh and got permission to go bury his father in Canaan. Joseph left with a large company of servants, family and Egyptian dignitaries to take Jacob’s body back to Canaan (vv. 4-6). Following a seven-day period of mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, which is North of the Dead Sea, Jacob’s body was placed in the cave of Machpelah.
Nowhere else in Scripture do we have such a full description of a burial (vv. 7-14). Except for the smallest children (v. 8), Jacob’s whole family traveled from Egypt to Canaan to pay their last respects to the founder of the family. He was buried with full military honors and not like a nomadic shepherd who had wandered into Egypt late in life.
It is really a shame how so many people will do detailed planning for a vacation or business trip but will literally ignore making any preparation for the last and most important trip to their eternal home in heaven. This is especially true when the trip has already been paid for by the precious blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary.
Application
I pray that I will finish my life well, with a genuine compassion for lost souls, experiencing the power of God on my life as never before and sharing the gospel with simplicity, humility and boldness.
Genesis 50:1– 14 (NET)
1 Then Joseph hugged his father’s face. He wept over him and kissed him. 2 Joseph instructed the physicians in his service to embalm his father, so the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 They took forty days, for that is the full time needed for embalming. The Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.
4 When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s royal court, “If I have found favor in your sight, please say to Pharaoh, 5 ‘My father made me swear an oath. He said, “I am about to die. Bury me in my tomb that I dug for myself there in the land of Canaan.” Now let me go and bury my father; then I will return.’” 6 So Pharaoh said, “Go and bury your father, just as he made you swear to do.”
7 So Joseph went up to bury his father; all Pharaoh’s officials went with him—the senior courtiers of his household, all the senior officials of the land of Egypt, 8 all Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household. But they left their little children and their flocks and herds in the land of Goshen. 9 Chariots and horsemen also went up with him, so it was a very large entourage.
10 When they came to the threshing floor of Atad on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there with very great and bitter sorrow. There Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. 11 When the Canaanites who lived in the land saw them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a very sad occasion for the Egyptians.” That is why its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
12 So the sons of Jacob did for him just as he had instructed them. 13 His sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. This is the field Abraham purchased as a burial plot from Ephron the Hittite. 14 After he buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, along with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to bury his father.