Deaths of Jacob and Joseph
The Deaths of Jacob and Joseph
Jacob’s Death
Then Jacob commanded them, “I’ll soon be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite. The cave is in the field in Machpelah, on the outskirts of Mamre in the land of Canaan. Abraham bought the field from Ephron the Hittite to be a burial site. Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried there. Isaac and his wife Rebekah are buried there. And I buried Leah there in the field and cave acquired from the Hittites.”
When Jacob finished giving instructions to his sons, he pulled his feet back up into bed. Then he died and was gathered to his people.
Joseph embraced his father, wept over him, and kissed him. Then he commanded the healers in his service to embalm his father. So the healers embalmed Israel. This took forty days, the usual time required for embalming. The Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.
When Jacob finished blessing his sons, he gave them one last command. He had already made Joseph swear to bury him with his fathers in Canaan.1 Now he repeated the request in the hearing of all his sons. Jacob considered it vitally important that he return to the land God had promised him. Even in death, he expected to inherit it.2
Jacob lay back down in bed and soon died. As God promised, he died in peace with Joseph by his side.3 Joseph mourned deeply for his father. He then began preparing for his father’s burial by ordering his servants to embalm Jacob. A uniquely Egyptian practice, embalming honored the culture of their hosts and preserved the body until they could transport it to Canaan. Normally, priests performed the procedure, which had significant religious implications for the Egyptians.4 By having his personal physicians do the embalming, Joseph avoided associating his father with Egyptian religious rituals.
The Egyptians greatly respected Jacob because he was Joseph’s father. So they held a seventy-day period of national mourning. This likely included the forty days it took to embalm him plus a month of mourning rites. Over a decade after the famine, the Egyptians remained grateful and treated Jacob with honor.
Funeral Procession
When the time of mourning had passed, Joseph spoke to the pharaoh’s officials, “Please favor me by speaking to the pharaoh on my behalf. My father made me swear an oath. ‘See, I’m about to die. Bury me in the grave I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ So please allow me to go bury my father. Then I’ll return.”
The pharaoh answered, “Go. Bury your father just as he made you swear to do.”
So Joseph left to bury his father. All the pharaoh’s officials, the elders of his household and the elders of the land of Egypt, went with him. All of Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household went. They left only their small children, flocks, and herds in the land of Goshen. Both chariots and horsemen went with Joseph—an immense entourage!
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
Because Joseph still served the pharaoh, he couldn’t leave Egypt to bury his father without permission. But he also couldn’t approach the pharaoh himself due to his recent contact with a corpse, which rendered him unclean according to both Israelite and Egyptian custom. So he asked some other officials to petition the pharaoh on his behalf.
Joseph tactfully worded his request in Egyptian cultural terms, focusing on his own oath and the tomb Jacob “dug” in Canaan. Though Jacob didn’t literally dig in the rocky hills like the Egyptians dug in the sandy desert, Jacob had chosen and prepared his burial site before moving to Egypt. The Egyptians stocked their graves with personal belongings to enjoy during the afterlife.5 So they would relate to Jacob’s desire to be buried in the tomb he had prepared for himself more than to his desire to be buried in Canaan.
With Joseph’s promise to return, the pharaoh gave his permission. Joseph, his brothers, and the adults in their households left for Canaan. The pharaoh further honored Jacob by sending along his high-ranking officials from both the palace and all over Egypt. This necessitated a military escort of chariots and horsemen. Jacob received the grandest funeral procession in all of Scripture.
Jacob’s Burial
When they arrived at the threshing floor of Atad on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there deeply and grievously. Joseph decreed seven days of mourning for his father. The Canaanites who lived in the land saw them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad. “What a deep mourning this is for the Egyptians!” So they called it Abel Mizraim. It’s on the other side of the Jordan.
Jacob’s sons did just as he had commanded them. They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field in Machpelah. Abraham bought the field on the outskirts of Mamre from Ephron the Hittite to be a burial site. After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and everyone who had left with him.
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
The funeral procession traveled until they reached “the other side of the Jordan.” They found an open area the local Canaanites used for threshing grain and camped there. For seven days, they observed a second mourning period. This followed Israelite customs, while the first period followed Egyptian customs. Seeing this multitude of high-ranking Egyptians so distraught left an impression on the Canaanites. They commemorated the event by naming the area around the threshing floor Abel Mizraim, which means “mourning of the Egyptians.”
The most direct route between Egypt and Hebron wouldn’t have taken the mourners to the Jordan. For some reason, they decided to circle around the Dead Sea and enter Canaan by crossing the river from the east. Crossing the Jordan near the southern end would put them close to Jericho. Jacob’s return to Canaan from Egypt foreshadowed the future return of his descendants, who also entered by crossing the Jordan near Jericho.6
As their father had commanded them, Jacob’s sons buried him in the cave in Machpelah, near Mamre (Hebron). Then they returned to Egypt, as Joseph had promised the pharaoh. They knew the time had not yet come for Yahweh to give them the promised land. None of that generation would see Canaan again.
For Good
As Joseph’s brothers processed their father’s death, they said, “What if Joseph resents us and repays us for how horribly we treated him?” So they sent this command to Joseph: “Before he died, your father commanded us to say to you, ‘Please forgive your brothers’ crimes and sins, though they treated you horribly.’ Now please forgive the crimes committed by the servants of your father’s God.”
Joseph wept when he heard this.
Then his brothers also went and bowed down before him. “We are your servants!”
But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid. Can I take God’s place? Though you planned to harm me, God planned it for good—to save many lives, as he has now accomplished. Now don’t be afraid. I’ll provide for you and your little ones.”
Joseph comforted them and spoke reassuringly to them. And he remained in Egypt with his father’s household.
Image by Vicki Nunn from Pixabay
As Joseph’s ten oldest brothers processed life without their father, their old feelings of guilt and fear reemerged. Esau had plotted to avenge himself on Jacob after their father died.7 Now the brothers feared Joseph might have also waited for Jacob’s death to exact his revenge. So they sent Joseph a message saying Jacob commanded him to forgive them. While this was likely a lie, the brother’s admitted how horribly they had treated Joseph and asked for forgiveness. But Joseph had long since forgiven them and wept to learn they still didn’t trust him.
Joseph’s brothers approached him much the same way Jacob approached Esau, a reunion they had all witnessed as children.8 First, they sent the message ahead. Then they approached Joseph as servants bowing before their master. They may have intended to remind Joseph of their uncle’s loving reception of his brother. Joseph needed no such reminder. He loved them. He encouraged them to let go of their fear and promised to continue providing for them and their families.
In forgiving his brothers, Joseph refused to play God. He didn’t excuse their sin. They had planned to harm him. But he recognized that if they had not sold him to Egypt, their entire family would likely have died in the seven-year famine. From the beginning, God intended for the brothers to sell Joseph. But God planned it for good—to save their lives and the lives of countless others who survived because of Joseph. If Joseph avenged himself on his brothers, he would undo the good God had done.
God’s Place
“Can I take God’s place? Though you planned to harm me, God planned it for good.”
The story of Genesis ends with Joseph’s complete submission to God’s plan for his life despite the pain it caused him. This profound statement of faith represents a reversal of the rebellion in Eden at the beginning of Genesis. Adam and Eve had never suffered any pain, yet they sought the power to judge right and wrong like God.9 Joseph had that power and a just reason to use it. But he refused to do so.10
In accepting God’s sole right to judge, Joseph became what Adam should have been. God gave Joseph authority over Egypt as he had given Adam authority over the earth. But while Adam introduced death into the world, Joseph wielded his authority to preserve life.11 He led God’s people to settle in “the best of the land.”12 Egypt and the rest of the Mediterranean world also shared the good God planned.13 Because of Adam’s sin, humanity lost Eden. Because of Joseph’s obedience, his generation reclaimed a semblance of that ideal.
The Edenic scene at the end of Genesis wouldn’t last, however. Joseph only foreshadowed the one who would undo the curse of death and restore Eden forever.14 Jesus submitted to God’s plan even to the point of his own death.15 He endured the full horror of human evil. But instead of exacting just revenge, he accepted that God planned it for good—the salvation of the very ones who wronged him.16
Because of Jesus’s obedience, God raised him from the dead and gave him authority over all creation.17 On the last day, Jesus will raise God’s people and restore the earth to the paradise God created it to be.18 He will reign in righteousness over a new earth freed from Adam’s sin forever.19 Humanity will finally fulfill God’s original blessing to fill and rule over the earth.20
Joseph’s Death
Joseph lived 110 years. He saw three generations of Ephraim’s children, and the children of Manasseh’s son Makir were considered Joseph’s.
Joseph said to his family, “I’ll die soon, but God will certainly come to you and lead you out from this land to the land he promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Then Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath. “God will certainly come to you, and you must take my bones from this place.”
Joseph died at the age of 110. He was embalmed and placed in a sarcophagus in Egypt.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Joseph spent the rest of his life with his family in Egypt. He lived to see Manasseh’s grandchildren and Ephraim’s great-grandchildren. Joseph adopted the children of Makir, Manasseh’s firstborn, in the same way Jacob had adopted Ephraim and Manasseh.21
Like his father, Joseph split the rights of the firstborn between two sons. Jacob had given Ephraim, the younger brother, the blessing of the firstborn, and his descendants led the northern tribes.22 But through Makir, Joseph gave Manasseh the double portion of the inheritance. Later, Manasseh’s descendants inherited two portions of land, one in Canaan and another east of the Jordan.23
Joseph died at the age of 110, cited in ancient Egyptian documents as the ideal lifespan.24 On his deathbed, he gathered the Israelites together and assured them once again that God would one day come to them to take them back to their home in Canaan. Joseph made them swear to take his bones with them. Embalming preserved his remains for later burial in the promised land. He still expected to inherit Canaan and wanted to be buried there like his father.
Jacob promised the Israelites, “God will be with you.”25 But Joseph promised them, “God will certainly come to you.” This subtle difference reflects the transition to the story of Exodus and the next phase of God’s plan to redeem humanity. Yahweh was with the patriarchs, and he would be with Jacob’s descendants as they waited in Egypt.26 But his coming to bring them out from Egypt would bring a new level of intimacy. He would come to live among them!27
- See Joseph’s Oath.
- See A Burial Site.
- See Seeking Yahweh.
- Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 18–50, 691–692; Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, Genesis 50:1–3.
- World History Encyclopedia, “Ancient Egyptian Burial,” by Joshua J. Mark, January 19, 2013, https://www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian_Burial/.
- Joshua 4:1–19; see Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 489.
- Genesis 27:41.
- Genesis 33:5–7.
- See The Forbidden Tree.
- Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 18–50, 705.
- See The Curse of Death; Innocent Suffering.
- Genesis 47:6.
- See The Famine.
- See Typology.
- Philippians 2:8.
- Isaiah 53:4–6; Acts 2:36–39.
- Matthew 28:5–7, 18; Ephesians 1:20–21.
- Isaiah 65:17; John 6:39–40; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 21:1–4.
- 2 Peter 3:13.
- Genesis 1:28.
- Joshua 17:1; see The Double Portion.
- See Great and Greater.
- Numbers 32:28–40; Joshua 17:7–13.
- Kidner, Genesis, 235; Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Bible Background Commentary, Genesis 50:26.
- Genesis 48:21.
- Genesis 21:22; 26:3, 24; 28:15; 31:3.
- Exodus 29:46.