< Genesis 50 >
1 Joseph leaned close to his father’s face and cried over him and kissed him.
2 Joseph commanded his servants who were morticians to (embalm his father’s body/put spices on his father’s body) to (preserve it/keep it from decaying), and then wrap it with strips of cloth.
3 So the morticians did that. It took 40 days to embalm Jacob’s body, because that is the amount of time that was always required for them to embalm a body. And the people of Egypt mourned for 70 days because of Jacob’s death.
4 When the time of mourning was finished, Joseph said to the king’s officials, “If you are pleased with me, please take this message to the king:
5 ‘When my father was about to die, he told me to solemnly promise that I would bury his body in Canaan, in the tomb that he himself had prepared. So please let me go up to Canaan and bury my father’s body. Then I will return.’”
6 After they gave the king the message, he replied, “Tell Joseph, ‘Go up and bury your father’s body, as you (swore/solemnly promised) that you would do.’”
7 So Joseph went [up to Canaan] to bury his father’s body. All of the king’s officials, all the king’s advisors, and all the elders in Egypt went with him.
8 His own family’s small children and their sheep and goats and their cattle stayed in the Goshen region. But all the rest of Joseph’s family and his [older] brothers [and younger brother] and his father’s family went with him.
9 Men riding in chariots [MTY] and on horses also went along. It was a huge group.
10 They went to the east side of the Jordan [River] and arrived at Atad. There was a place there where people (threshed/beat the grain to separate the wheat from the chaff.) There they mourned loudly for Jacob for a long time. Joseph performed mourning ceremonies for his father for seven days.
11 When the Canaan people-group who lived there saw them mourning like that, they said, “This is a sad mourning place for the people of Egypt!” So they named the place Abel-Mizraim, [which sounds like the Hebrew words that mean ‘mourning of the Egyptians].’
12 Then Jacob’s sons did for him what their father had commanded.
13 They [crossed the Jordan River and] carried Jacob’s body to Canaan. They buried it in the cave in the field at Machpelah, east of Mamre [town]. That was the field that Abraham had bought from Ephron, who was one of the Heth people-group, to use as a burial place.
14 After he had buried his father, Joseph and his [older] brothers [and younger brother] and all the others who had gone up to Canaan with him for the funeral returned to Egypt.
15 After Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers became worried. They realized what might happen. They said, “Suppose Joseph hates us and tries to get revenge for all the evil things that we did to him many years ago?”
16 So they sent someone to tell this to Joseph for them: “Before our father died, he told us this:
17 ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive your [older] brothers for the evil thing that they did to you, for their terrible sin against you, because what they did to you was very wrong.”’ So now we, who are servants of your father’s God, ask you, please forgive us for what we did to you.” But Joseph just cried when he received their message.
18 Then his [older] brothers themselves came and threw themselves on the ground in front of Joseph, and one of them said, “Please listen. We will just be your servants.”
19 But Joseph replied to them, “Do not be afraid! [God is the one who punishes people]; (am I God?/I am not God!) [RHQ]
20 As for you, yes, you wanted to do something very evil to me. But God caused something good to come from it! He wanted to save many people from dying of hunger, and that is what happened! Today they are alive!
21 So I say [again], do not be afraid! I will make sure that you and your children have enough to eat.” In that way he reassured them and made made them feel much better.
22 Joseph lived with his father’s family in Egypt until he was 110 years old.
23 He lived long enough to see Ephraim’s children and grandchildren. The children of Joseph’s grandson Machir, who was Manasseh’s son, were born before Joseph died, and were adopted by Joseph to be his own children [IDM].
24 One day Joseph said to his [older] brothers, “I am about to die. But God will certainly (help/take care of) you. And [some day] he will lead your [descendants] up out of this land and take them to Canaan, the land that he solemnly promised to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
25 Then Joseph said, “When God enables you to do that, you must take my body back to Canaan.” He made his older brothers solemnly promise to do that.
26 So Joseph died in Egypt when he was 110 years old. His body was embalmed and put in a coffin there.
