Illus: Many times when a person plans for their funeral, they want to:
• Select certain songs they want sung
• Select certain passages of scriptures they want read
• Select a pastor and a church building where they want their funeral to be held
And when they die, the family does everything they can to carry out those wishes.
This is what Joseph and his brother did, in Genesis chapter 50, concerning their father’s death. In Genesis 50:1-13, Jacob’s burial wishes were honored. To carry out Jacob’s last wishes, they had to leave Egypt and go back to Canaan where Jacob wished to be buried.
We see . . .
I. THEIR LEAVING
This is one of the most detailed accounts of a burial in Scriptures. Notice how carefully Joseph saw that his father’s burial instructions were carried out. The moment Jacob died, Joseph leaned over his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. Look at Genesis 50:1, we read, “And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.”
This shows the great love and tenderness of Joseph for his father. Jacob by no means had lived a perfect life. But Joseph loved his father despite his past failings.
Joseph saw that his father was buried according to custom of that time. Notice Joseph had his own physicians embalm his father. Look at verse 2, we read, “And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.”
Notice, the embalming took forty full days. Look at Genesis 50:3, we read, “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.”
I like this custom among the Egyptians. The Bible says they, “Mourned for him threescore and ten days.” (Forty days) Today, when we attend a funeral service we see people laughing, passing out business cards, talking sports and politics. Then they have a big meal and pass the potato salad and go home as if this person never existed.
Yes, I like this Egyptian custom of having a long period of mourning over the death of a loved one.
Now evidently embalming was not done for everyone in those days.
Illus: Bill Shives, of Shives Funeral home, was dealing with a family that just had a death. The woman whose husband died stated she did not want her husband to be embalmed but to remain at the funeral home for a couple of days. But Bill, in his very tactful way, said “We can do that, but when the body begins to become odorous, we will have to bring him to your house.”
Today, it is customary for all bodies to be embalmed. But evidently this was not the case during this time for the Egyptians. For the Egyptians, embalming was customary preparation of dignitaries for burial.
The Bible tells us that Joseph got his personal physician to take care of his father’s embalming.
The embalming was necessary for Jacob’s burial because he was going to be carried back to Canaan, which was between 250 to 300 miles away. This would take many weeks of traveling to the cave Machpelah where Jacob was to be laid to rest.
Perhaps the same logistical problem (without the availability of embalmers) forced Jacob to bury Rachel along the way rather than to transport her body to the cave of Machpelah in Genesis 35:16-20.
But before they could take Jacob to Canaan, they had to get permission to leave. Look at Genesis 50:4-5, we read, “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, 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.”
Why didn’t Joseph make the request himself? There are two reasons:
(1) This may be due to some kind of ceremonial defilement that would make Joseph’s personal appearance and appeal offensive to Pharaoh.
(2) This was to assure that Pharaoh would not take offense to Jacob’s burial in Canaan rather than Egypt.
Without reservation, Joseph’s request was granted. This probably seems like a reasonable request, because many when they die like to be carried to their homeland to be buried.
By having other of?cials present, the request would assure Pharaoh that Joseph was not secretly plotting to leave Egypt but would return after the funeral.
Note that Joseph actually told Pharaoh that he would return to Egypt. Look again at verse 5, we read, “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.”
Joseph secured the royal permission from Pharaoh. He and his family could travel to Canaan to bury their father. Joseph unashamedly organized a large funeral procession to demonstrate his father’s faith.
A Christian’s funeral should be a time to reflect how a man of God lived his life.
In verses 7-9 we read, “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, 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. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.”
Joseph was accompanied by a large delegation of high-ranking Egyptian officials, many, if not all of whom, were subordinate to Joseph.
• Verse 7 seems to indicate that men of various rank and offices went with Joseph to bury Jacob. We read, “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,”
• Verse 8 tells us all of Jacob’s adult family went along. We read, “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.”
• Verse 9 says a company of horsemen and charioteers also went. Providing transportation and security seems to have been their assignment. We read, “And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.”
Upon reaching Canaan, the ceremony was so awesome it made a profound impression on the inhabitants of the land. This was no ordinary funeral procession.
Look at Genesis 50:10-11, we read, “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. 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 Abel-mizraim, which is beyond Jordan.”
This was seven more days of mourning. Joseph completed his father’s request: he buried him in the promised land of Canaan.
Moses reminds us that in so doing, the charge of Jacob to his sons were carried out. Look at Genesis 50:12-14, we read, “And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them: 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. 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.”
They buried their father just as he had requested: in Canaan, in the cave of Machpelah, the very cave that Abraham had bought.
Remember, Abraham had bought the burial site as a testimony to his faith in the great promises of God. This is where Abraham was brought to the promise land and he bought the land as a testimony that this was where God’s people were to live and to die.
Look at Gen. 25:7-10, we read, “And these are the days of the years of Abraham’s life which he lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years. Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre; The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.”
Jacob was buried with Abraham, that great Father of Faith.
One of the things we as Christians can learn from this passage of scripture is of the love and respect that Joseph and his brothers had for their father. But notice, once Joseph and his brothers buried their father, they kept their word and went back to Egypt.
We see THEIR LEAVING and . . .
II. THEIR RETURN
Look at Genesis 50:14, we read, “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.”
Jacob was the glue that held this family together, and once Jacob had died, Joseph’s brothers wondered if Joseph would continue to be nice to them.
LOOK AT THE FEAR THEY HAD. Look at Genesis 50:15, we read, “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.”
Notice, between 20 and 30 years have gone by after what they did to Joseph. But they still live with the guilt of what they did.
WHAT DID THEY DO? They sent a message to Joseph, saying, in verses 16-17, “Thy father did command before he died, saying, 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.”
They wanted to remind Joseph that their father had asked him to forgive them for what they had done. The Bible tells us that when Joseph got the message, he wept. He wept because it hurt him to think how little his brothers thought of him. And now, since Jacob is dead, they fear the worst.
Look at Verses 18-19, we read, “And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?”
Notice, Joseph had nothing to do with bringing up the past; they are the ones who brought it up. Between 20 and 30 years they have been living with this guilt. But notice how Joseph handled the problem, in verse 20, he said, “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.”
And what a great comfort it must have been when he said in verse 21, “Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.”
As we come to the close of Genesis, we see another death that is to take place … THE DEATH OF JOSEPH.
More than 50 years elapsed between verses 21 and 22. Look at verses 22-26, we read, “And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. 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. 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. 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. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
Conclusion:
The Book of Genesis does not close at the death of Jacob. It closes at the death of Joseph. Moses, in the writing of Genesis, was intent upon placing the deaths of Jacob and Joseph side by side. Irrelevant details are therefore set aside, to take us directly to the death bed of Joseph, and thus to parallel the death of Jacob.
The scripture tells us, in Genesis 50:22-26, “And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. 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. 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. 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. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
After returning, he lived fifty more years and got to see his family and some of his nephews and nieces grow up and sit on his knees. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.”
Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50:22-26).
Knowing that the day of his death drew near, Joseph like Jacob, charged his brothers concerning his burial. He did not wish his body to be carried back to Canaan, as Jacob had insisted.
While the burial of Jacob and Joseph are quite different, they are both reflective of the same faith and hope. Both believed that Israel’s blessings in the future would be realized in the land of promise.
Both were embalmed; Jacob, so his body could be carried on the long journey to Canaan by his sons, and Joseph so his body could wait for the exodus, at which time his bones would be returned to Canaan, borne by the Israelites.
Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.” (Exodus 13:19)
Jacob was returned to Canaan, where the Israelites once again beheld the land of promise to which they (in their offspring) would return at the Exodus. The burial of Jacob reminded his descendants of their final home, and that Egypt was only a place of sojourn.
Joseph’s coffin spoke of Israel’s future and Joseph’s faith. And day after weary day, the Israelites trudged through the wilderness carrying the casket of Joseph. Both men, Jacob and Joseph, determined that their death and burial would be a testimony to their faith and a stimulus to the faith of their offspring.
And so we come to the end of an era and to the end of a magnificent book. But two funerals do not seem to be a very bright ending for a book.
• Genesis, the Book of Man’s origin, begins in the garden of perfection and beauty in paradise.
• It ends in two coffins, one in Canaan, the other in Egypt. What a dismal conclusion.
Moses could never make it as a writer in our times. But wait a moment; that is just the point. Genesis chapter 50 is not the end of the story; it is only the end of the Book of Genesis. Moses has yet four books to write, before the final chapter is written. And in the final chapters of the book of the Revelation we once again return to paradise.
We see . . .
I. THEIR LEAVING
II. THEIR RETURN
