Genesis 50

1 Joseph leaned close to his father’s face and cried over him and kissed him.

And Joseph falls on his father’s face, and weeps over him, and kisses 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.

and Joseph commands his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father, and the physicians embalm Israel;

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.

and they fulfill for him forty days, for so they fulfill the days of the embalmed, and the Egyptians weep for him seventy days.

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:

And the days of his weeping pass away, and Joseph speaks to the house of Pharaoh, saying, “Now if I have found grace in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

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.’”

My father caused me to swear, saying, Behold, I am dying; in my burying-place which I have prepared for myself in the land of Canaan, there you bury me; and now, please let me go up and bury my father, then I 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.’”

and Pharaoh says, “Go up and bury your father, as he caused you to swear.”

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.

And Joseph goes up to bury his father, and all [the] servants of Pharaoh go up with him, [the] elderly of his house, and all [the] elderly of the land of Egypt,

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.

and all the house of Joseph, and his brothers, and the house of his father; only their infants, and their flock, and their herd, have they left in the land of Goshen;

9 Men riding in chariots [MTY] and on horses also went along. It was a huge group.

and there go up with him both chariot and horsemen, and the camp is very great.

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.

And they come to the threshing-floor of Atad, which [is] beyond the Jordan, and they lament there, a lamentation great and very grievous; and he makes for his father a mourning 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].’

and the inhabitant of the land, the Canaanite, sees the mourning in the threshing-floor of Atad and says, “A grievous mourning [is] this to the Egyptians”; therefore [one] has called its name “The mourning of the Egyptians,” which [is] beyond the Jordan.

12 Then Jacob’s sons did for him what their father had commanded.

And his sons do to him so as he commanded them,

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.

and his sons carry him away to the land of Canaan, and bury him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a burying-place, from Ephron the Hittite, on the front of Mamre.

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.

And Joseph turns back to Egypt, he and his brothers, and all who are going up with him to bury his father, after his burying his father.

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?”

And the brothers of Joseph see that their father is dead, and say, “Perhaps Joseph hates us, and certainly returns to us all the evil which we did with him.”

16 So they sent someone to tell this to Joseph for them: “Before our father died, he told us this:

And they give a charge for Joseph, saying, “Your father commanded before his death, saying,

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.

Thus you say to Joseph: Ah, now, please bear with the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they have done you evil; and now, please bear with the transgression of the servants of the God of your father”; and Joseph weeps in their speaking to him.

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.”

And his brothers also go and fall before him, and say, “Behold, we [are] to you for 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]

And Joseph says to them, “Do not fear, for [am] I in the place of God?

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!

As for you, you devised evil against me, [but] God devised it for good, in order to do as [at] this day, to keep alive a numerous people;

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.

and now, do not fear: I nourish you and your infants”; and he comforts them, and speaks to their heart.

22 Joseph lived with his father’s family in Egypt until he was 110 years old.

And Joseph dwells in Egypt, he and the house of his father, and Joseph lives one hundred and ten years,

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].

and Joseph looks on Ephraim’s sons of a third [generation]; sons also of Machir, son of Manasseh, have been born on the knees of Joseph.

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.”

And Joseph says to his brothers, “I am dying, and God certainly inspects you, and has caused you to go up from this land, to the land which He has sworn to Abraham, to Isaac, and to 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.

And Joseph causes the sons of Israel to swear, saying, “God certainly inspects you, and you have brought up my bones from this [place].”

26 So Joseph died in Egypt when he was 110 years old. His body was embalmed and put in a coffin there.

And Joseph dies, a son of one hundred and ten years, and they embalm him, and he is put into a coffin in Egypt.