Genesis Fifty

by Dr. Henry M. Morris

(taken from the Defender's Study Bible)

Genesis 50:1 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

Genesis 50:2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.

embalm his father. Both Jacob and later Joseph (Genesis 50:26) were embalmed in the manner of the Egyptians, and the remains of both were ultimately carried back for permanent burial in the promised land.

Genesis 50:3 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.

Genesis 50:4 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,

Genesis 50:5 My 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.

Genesis 50:6 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

Genesis 50:7 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,

Genesis 50:8 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.

Genesis 50:9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.

Genesis 50:10 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.

Genesis 50:11 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.

Genesis 50:12 And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:

Genesis 50:13 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.

Genesis 50:14 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.

Genesis 50:15 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.

Genesis 50:16 And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,

Genesis 50:17 So 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.

Genesis 50:18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.

Genesis 50:19 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?

Genesis 50:20 But 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.

Genesis 50:21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

Genesis 50:22 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.

Genesis 50:23 And 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.

Genesis 50:24 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.

Genesis 50:25 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.

Genesis 50:26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

an hundred and ten years old. Joseph lived some fifty-four years after Jacob died, but his life-span was considerably shorter than Jacob's 147 years. Longevity was still declining as a result of the traumatic changes in earth's climatology and biology during the Flood. Although Joseph was buried in Egypt, the Israelites under Moses eventually reburied him in Canaan as he had requested (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32).

coffin in Egypt. Note the dramatic significance of this ending. The book of Genesis begins with the magnificent words: “In the beginning God created.” But sin and the curse intervened, and it ends with the sad testimony of God's people away from the land of promise, and their leader “in a coffin in Egypt.”