CHAPTER 50

(1689 B.C.)

BURIAL OF JACOB

¹And Joseph fell upon his fathers face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. (Joseph closed his fathers eyes, as predicted by the Lord to Jacob [46:4]. Verse 1 is a picture of Christ weeping over Israel. Jacob was dead physically, and alive spiritually. Israel was alive physically, and dead spiritually.)

²And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel (Jacobs body was embalmed, but his soul and spirit went into Paradise, there to be with his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac, and every other Believer who had lived up until this time).

³And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed (it took that long for the process): and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days (death is an enemy; it is the last enemy which will be defeated [I Cor. 15:26]; Jesus took the sting out of death at the Cross but, at the end of the Kingdom Age, death will then be totally defeated, and forever [Rev., Chpt. 20]).

⁴And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke 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 (the fact that Joseph did not speak personally to Pharaoh accords with discoveries which show that mourners at that time did not shave and, therefore, could not enter into the royal presence),

⁵My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have dug for me in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray you, and bury my father, and I will come again (as stated, Joseph was speaking to Pharaoh through members of the royal court).

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

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 (the grandeur of Jacobs funeral procession must have been a wonder to behold; it is amazing to think of this great Patriarch, a pilgrim all his life, being carried to his final resting place by the grandeur of mighty Egypt; it is one of the few times in history that the world recognized the greatness that was among them),

⁸And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his fathers house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

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

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 (they were now in the land of Canaan; seven is Gods perfect number; as such, it speaks of a perfect Salvation, which will ultimately lead to the Resurrection).

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 Abel-mizraim, which is beyond Jordan. (The Canaanites had no understanding of what Joseph was doing, thinking this was some type of ritual concerning the Egyptians.)

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

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 (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were very wealthy in flocks, gold, and silver; however, when they died, as all, the only thing they took with them was their Faith).

JOSEPH

¹⁴And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brothers, and all who went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

¹⁵And when Josephs brothers 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. (Josephs brothers never did quite understand who their brother was, or what he was. Now that Jacob was dead, they expected evil of Joseph. They did not, and even perhaps could not, understand that Joseph, being a Type of Christ, would deal with them, not with judgment, but with Mercy and Grace.)

¹⁶And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Your father did command before he died, saying (they claimed that Jacob had said before he died that they should ask Joseph to forgive them of their great sin against him),

¹⁷So shall you say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray you now, the trespass of your brothers, and their sin; for they did unto you evil: and now, we pray you, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father (they are quoting the words to Joseph which Jacob had told them to say). And Joseph wept when they spoke unto him. (Concerning this, Williams says, The incurable unbelief of the heart is illustrated by the cruel thoughts of Josephs brothers as to his affection for them. This unbelief moved Joseph to tears; and in his action and language he once more stands forth as, perhaps, the most remarkable Type of Christ in the entirety of the Bible.)

¹⁸And his brothers also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be your servants. (This Verse records the last of five times the brothers bowed before Joseph, fulfilling the dreams [37:5-11]. One day, in its greater fulfillment, which will be in the latter days, Israel will fall down at the Feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom Joseph was a Type.)

¹⁹And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? (The question of Joseph, in effect, says, I am not the Judge and, therefore, I do not punish. If any punishment is meted out, it will be God Who does it, and not me. You have nothing to fear from me.)

²⁰But as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. (This Verse holds one of the greatest Promises found in the entirety of the Word of God. God can take the evil which is planned against the Believer, that is, if the Believer will fully trust, and turn it to good, until there is nothing left but good.)

²¹Now therefore do not fear: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke kindly unto them (a perfect Type of Christ).

JOSEPHS DEATH

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

²³And Joseph saw Ephraims children of the third generation; the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Josephs knees. (Joseph was 110 years old when he died. He lived in Egypt 93 years, and his fathers descendants lived there 215 years. This man who was sold as a slave into Egypt became a viceroy of the most powerful and richest nation on the face of the Earth. He was without a doubt one of the most beautiful Types of Christ who ever lived.)

²⁴And Joseph said unto his brothers, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Joseph using the names of his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father portrays the fact that when the torch of Faith was passed to him, he did not allow it to dim.)

²⁵And Joseph took an oath of the Children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from hence. (When the Children of Israel left out of Egypt, some 3 million strong, which they would do approximately 122 years later, Moses was careful to take the bones of Joseph with him [Ex. 13:19]. Wandering some 40 years in the wilderness, making a total of approximately 162 years from when Joseph died, Joshua, no doubt, attended the burial of those sacred bones sacred because of Faith.)

²⁶So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. (The Book of Genesis begins with life and ends with death. It starts with Creation and ends with a coffin. It begins with a living God and ends with a dead man, and all because of the Fall.)