Genesis 50

Joseph threw himself on his father's face, wept over him, and kissed him.

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

2Joseph ordered the doctors who served him to embalm his father, and the doctors embalmed Israel.

2And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.

NoteEmbalming was an Egyptian practice, not an Israelite one; Israelites normally buried their dead quickly and without preserving the body. The Hebrew calls the men "physicians" because Egyptian embalmers were a specialist branch of the medical trade. "Israel" is Jacob's other name, given to him earlier in the book.

3Forty days were used up for him, because that is how many days it takes to embalm a body. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

3And 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.

NoteForty days for the embalming and seventy days of public mourning match what is known of Egyptian practice for a person of high rank; seventy days was close to the mourning given a member of the royal house. The honor paid to Jacob is Egyptian honor, measured in Egyptian time.

4When the days of mourning for him were over, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh's household. He said, "If I have found favor with you, please speak to Pharaoh for me and tell him this:

4And 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,

Note"The house of Pharaoh" means the royal court and its officials, not the building. "If I have found favour in your eyes" is the standard polite formula for opening a request to a superior. Joseph, second in command in Egypt, asks the court to speak for him rather than approaching Pharaoh himself; the text does not say why, though a person in mourning was unshaven and so not fit to appear before the king.

5'My father made me swear an oath. He said, "I am about to die. You must bury me in the grave I dug for myself in the land of Canaan." So please let me go up and bury my father, and then I will come back.'"

5My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

NoteThe oath is the one Jacob made Joseph swear earlier, with Joseph's hand under his thigh. "Go up" is the ordinary way of speaking of travel from Egypt to Canaan, which is higher ground; the reverse journey is always "going down." The verb repeats through the chapter.

6Pharaoh said, "Go up and bury your father, just as he made you swear to do."

6And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

7So Joseph went up to bury his father. All of Pharaoh's servants went up with him, the leading men of Pharaoh's household and all the leading men of the land of Egypt,

7And 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,

8along with all of Joseph's household, his brothers, and his father's household. They left only their little children and their flocks and their herds in the land of Goshen.

8And 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.

NoteGoshen was the district of the eastern Nile delta given to Jacob's family as grazing land when they came to Egypt. Leaving the children and livestock behind kept them in Egypt as an unspoken guarantee that the party would return.

9Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large group.

9And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.

NoteChariots and horsemen were the Egyptian army's elite arm. They served here as an escort of honor and as protection for a large party crossing open country, not as an invading force.

10They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is on the other side of the Jordan River. There they mourned with loud and bitter weeping, and Joseph held a mourning for his father for seven days.

10And 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.

NoteA threshing floor was a flat, hard, open patch of ground, usually on a windy rise, where grain was beaten out and winnowed; because it was the one large clear space near a settlement, it was also used for public gatherings. "Beyond Jordan" normally means the east side of the Jordan River, which is a strange route for a party coming from Egypt; the phrase may instead be written from the standpoint of someone east of the river. The site has never been identified.

11When the people who lived in that land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the floor of Atad, they said, "This is a heavy mourning by the Egyptians." That is why the place was named Abel-mizraim. It is on the other side of the Jordan.

11And 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.

NoteThe name Abel-mizraim plays on two Hebrew words that sound alike: 'abel, "mourning," and 'abel, "meadow." Mizraim is the Hebrew name for Egypt. So the name means both "the mourning of Egypt" and "the meadow of Egypt."

12So Jacob's sons did for him exactly what he had told them to do.

12And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:

13His sons carried him into the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. Abraham had bought that field from Ephron the Hittite to own it as a burial place.

13For 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.

NoteMachpelah was the field and cave near Hebron that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a family burial plot, the one piece of land in Canaan the family actually owned. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and Leah were already buried there. Mamre was the nearby place where Abraham had camped. The Hittites here are a local Canaanite group, not the empire of the same name in Asia Minor.

14After Joseph had buried his father, he went back to Egypt, along with his brothers and everyone who had gone up with him to bury his father.

14And 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.

15When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and he will certainly pay us back for all the evil we did to him."

15And 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.

NoteThe brothers' words can be read either as a statement or as a question, "what if Joseph is still holding it against us?" The evil they did was selling Joseph into slavery and telling their father he had been killed by an animal.

16So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, "Before your father died, he gave this command:

16And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,

17'This is what you are to say to Joseph: Please forgive the wrong your brothers did and their sin, because they treated you badly.' So now, please forgive the wrong done by the servants of your father's God." When they spoke to him, Joseph wept.

17So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.

NoteThe brothers report a command from Jacob that the narrative never records him giving; the reader is left to decide whether Jacob said it privately or the brothers invented it. Calling themselves "the servants of the God of your father" appeals to the family's shared religious loyalty rather than to Joseph's goodwill.

18His brothers also came and bowed down in front of him, and they said, "Look, we are your servants."

18And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.

NoteThe word translated "servants" is the ordinary word for slaves. Bowing face to the ground was the gesture of a subject before a ruler, and the brothers are offering themselves as Joseph's property.

19Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

19And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?

NoteThe question is open in Hebrew and can be taken two ways: "am I in God's place, to punish you?" or "am I standing in for God?" Either way it declines the role of judge.

20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about what has happened today, so that many people would be kept alive.

20But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

NoteThe same Hebrew verb is used of the brothers and of God: it means to plan, calculate or weave a design. The sentence sets the two intentions side by side, using one word for both.

21So do not be afraid. I will provide food for you and your little children." And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

21Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

22Joseph lived in Egypt, he and his father's household. Joseph lived a hundred and ten years.

22And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.

NoteA hundred and ten years was the Egyptian ideal lifespan, the round number an Egyptian text would use to say a man's life had been complete and blessed. Joseph's age is recorded in Egyptian terms.

23Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation. The children of Machir son of Manasseh were also born on Joseph's knees.

23And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph’s knees.

NoteEphraim and Manasseh are Joseph's own sons, born in Egypt. To have a child "brought up on" or "born on" someone's knees was a formal gesture of acknowledging the child as belonging to the family line, a recognition, not a description of the birth itself. Machir's descendants later hold territory east of the Jordan.

24Joseph said to his brothers, "I am dying, but God will surely come to you and bring you out of this land to the land he promised with an oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."

24And 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.

Note"Visit" translates a Hebrew verb meaning to attend to, look in on, or take action about someone, here in the sense of coming to their aid. The same phrase opens the exodus story generations later.

25Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He said, "God will surely come to you, and you must carry my bones up from this place."

25And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

NoteUnlike Jacob, Joseph is not to be buried in Canaan now; his body is to wait in Egypt until the whole family leaves. Moses takes Joseph's bones out of Egypt at the exodus, and they are buried at Shechem after the land is settled.

26So Joseph died at a hundred and ten years old. They embalmed him, and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

26So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

NoteThe coffin is an Egyptian mummy case; the Hebrew word is used of a chest or box, and this is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where it refers to a coffin. The book of Genesis ends with an embalmed Israelite in an Egyptian box, unburied.