Genesischapter 50
26 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Then Joseph fell upon his father’s face, wept over him, and kissed him.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Genesis Overview.
This is the last chapter of Genesis, and it closes a book that began in a garden. Two deaths frame it, and both men ask to be buried in a land they never held. Israel heard it carrying Joseph's bones out of Egypt, so the ending was their own story. Listen for the brothers' fear once their father is gone, and for Joseph's answer about what God intended. Notice how the book ends, since it leaves a promise open. The next book begins where this one stops.
Context
- Who
- Israel in the wilderness, carrying Joseph's bones with them out of the country
- What
- A narrative of Jacob's burial in Canaan, Joseph's reassurance of his brothers, and Joseph's death.
- Where
- Egypt, the road up to Canaan and the cave at Machpelah, and then Egypt again.
- When
- About 1859 BC for Jacob's burial and about 1805 BC for Joseph's death, on the traditional chronology.
- Why
- To close Genesis with God's good purpose over human evil stated plainly and the promise of the land still waiting.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Joseph, who buries his father and then dies himself, and it is the last chapter of the book. The time covers Jacob's funeral and the years of Joseph's old age, and the places are the embalming halls of Egypt, the road up to Canaan, the cave at Machpelah, and Egypt again.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The occasion is a funeral conducted in two customs at once. Jacob is embalmed by physicians, and the timings are Egyptian, forty days for the embalming and seventy days of national mourning, and seventy days of mourning was the honour given to royalty.
What a first hearer saw in the procession is the state behind it. The elders of Pharaoh's house, the elders of Egypt, chariots and horsemen go up, which is why the Canaanites at the threshing floor call it the mourning of Egypt. Only the sons carry the body into the cave, because that ground is family ground.
Joseph dies at a hundred and ten, which John D. Currid notes was the ideal lifespan in Egyptian texts and appears there as the mark of a life fully blessed.
Significance
The generation hearing this had those bones in the camp. Moses took them out of Egypt at Exodus 13:19 and they travelled with the nation until Joshua 24:32 buried them at Shechem in the plot Jacob had bought.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
Joseph's summary of the whole account was already theirs to use, that his brothers intended evil against him and God intended it for good, to keep many people alive.
Genesis ends in a coffin, with a promise still owed.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The chapter's own account of a burial is where the classical readers put the rules of one. Sforno explains why Joseph sent word to Pharaoh through others rather than going himself: "he used intermediaries as a mourner in garments of mourning is not allowed to appear so before the King" (Sforno on Genesis 50:4:1, translated by Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY). Rashi, on the carrying of the bier, hands on Jacob's own instruction as the rabbis preserved it, that the sons and not the grandsons were to carry him, "His sons and not his grandsons", and that no Egyptian was to bear it (Rashi on Genesis 50:13:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain). Of the embalming itself he says only what it was, "Embalming is a matter of using a mixture of aromatic spices", and that the days of it ran to forty (Rashi on Genesis 50:2:1 and 50:3:1).
How it is read
Rashi reads the chapter as the brothers' fear answered twice, once by Joseph's words and once by his conduct. On Pharaoh's permission he notices the king's reluctance, "For except for that oath I would not permit you to do so", and that Pharaoh did not dare tell Joseph to break the oath (Rashi on Genesis 50:6:1). The threshing floor he explains by the thorn hedge around it and adds that the rabbis read the name another way (Rashi on Genesis 50:10:1). The brothers' seeing that their father was dead he takes as a change they noticed in Joseph's conduct rather than a fact they learned. Joseph's answer to their plea he reads as a question they should answer themselves, "Am I perhaps (do you think that I am) in His stead?" (Rashi on Genesis 50:19:1), and his comfort he fills out with what Joseph could say and no one else could: "Before you came down hither people spread rumours about me that I was born a slave", and their coming had put that to rest (Rashi on Genesis 50:21:1). Radak reads the opening fall upon the face as standing for all of them: Joseph is named "Seeing that he was the most highly placed of the brothers the Torah mentions him", and the rest wept with him (Radak on Genesis 50:1:1, translated by Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY). Malbim comments here at 50:1:1 and 50:22:1 and Ibn Ezra at 50:2:1, 50:7:1, 50:9:1, 50:20:1 and 50:26:1, and the corpus holds no English of either under a licence permitting quotation, so they stand as citations, the last of them on the closing verse of the book.
What the rabbis say
The corpus records forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, thirty-eight of them Midrash and two Talmud. Bereshit Rabbah closes the book with its own hundredth chapter and is cited at 100:1, 100:3, 100:4, 100:5, 100:8, 100:9, 100:10 and 100:12, with 84:6 drawn in at the embalming. Bereshit Rabbati is cited at Parashat Vayechi 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 and 50 and at Parashat Vayetze 38, Midrash Sekhel Tov at Bereshit 50:4:1, 50:6:1 and 50:8:1, Midrash Aggadah at Genesis 50:2:1, 50:11:1 and 50:15:1, and Midrash Lekach Tov at Genesis 50:8:1 and 50:11:1. Aggadat Bereshit is cited at 29:3, 37:2, 47:1 and 52:1, Bamidbar Rabbah at 2:8, 13:3, 14:5 and 14:12, and Devarim Rabbah at 5:15. The Ein Yaakov collection is cited four times, at Sotah 7:22 and 1:38 and at Sotah 1:32 and 1:48 in the Glick edition, all of them on the funeral procession. The two Talmud locators are Avot DeRabbi Natan 36:3 at Jacob's charge about the grave and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 1:3 at the mourning at the threshing floor. Rashi hands on further sayings with their locators, among them Sotah 13a on the digging of the grave.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Genesis 50:2:1, 50:3:1, 50:5:1, 50:6:1, 50:10:1, 50:12:1, 50:13:1, 50:14:1, 50:15:1, 50:16:1, 50:17:1, 50:18:1, 50:19:1, 50:21:1 and 50:23:1, the Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929 to 1934, public domain; Sforno, Sforno on Genesis 50:4:1, translated by Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Genesis 50:1:1, translated by Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on Genesis 50:1:1 and 50:22:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus under a licence permitting quotation; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Genesis 50:2:1, 50:7:1, 50:9:1, 50:20:1 and 50:26:1, cited only; Midrash, Bereshit Rabbah 84:6, 100:1, 100:3, 100:4, 100:5, 100:8, 100:9, 100:10 and 100:12; Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 and 50 and Parashat Vayetze 38; Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 50:4:1, 50:6:1 and 50:8:1; Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 50:2:1, 50:11:1 and 50:15:1; Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 50:8:1 and 50:11:1; Aggadat Bereshit 29:3, 37:2, 47:1 and 52:1; Bamidbar Rabbah 2:8, 13:3, 14:5 and 14:12; Devarim Rabbah 5:15; Ein Yaakov, Sotah 7:22 and 1:38; Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:32 and 1:48; Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 13a, as Rashi cites it at Rashi on Genesis 50:5:1; Avot DeRabbi Natan, Avot DeRabbi Natan 36:3; Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 1:3.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Mourning and Burial in Canaan
Genesis 50:1-3
Joseph fell upon his father’s face: Joseph falls on his father's face, weeps over him, and kisses him. The body goes to Egyptian physicians, and the verse calls the dead man Israel. The embalming takes forty days, and Egypt mourns him for seventy. The man who wrestled for a new name is preserved by Egyptian craft.
Genesis 50:1
“The departed soul is out of the reach of our tears and kisses, but with them it is proper to show our respect to the poor body, of which we look for a glorious and joyful resurrection. Thus Joseph showed his faith in God, and love to his father, by kissing his pale and cold lips, and so giving an affectionate farewell.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the physicians in his service to embalm: The word embalm appears only in this chapter of Scripture, for Jacob and for Joseph at verse 26. The body had to last through many days of travel to the cave at Machpelah. Jacob had asked at 49:29 to be buried there with his fathers.
Genesis 50:2
“The physicians - רפאים ropheim, the healers, those whose business it was to heal or restore the body from sickness by the administration of proper medicines; and when death took place, to heal or preserve it from dissolution by embalming, and thus give it a sort of immortality or everlasting duration. The original word חנט chanat, which we translate to embalm, has undoubtedly the same meaning with the Arabic hanata, which also signifies to embalm, or to preserve from putrefaction by the application of spices, etc., and hence hantat, an embalmer.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 50:2
“Thirty days were alloted for the completion of this process; forty more were spent in anointing it with spices; the body, tanned from this operation, being then washed, was wrapped in numerous folds of linen cloth--the joinings of which were fastened with gum, and then it was deposited in a wooden chest made in the form of a human figure.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days: Egypt mourns a foreign shepherd for seventy days, close to the seventy-two days the historian Diodorus reports for a king. Israel later mourns Moses and Aaron thirty days each, at Deuteronomy 34:8 and Numbers 20:29. Egypt honours Joseph through his father.
Genesis 50:3
“Forty days - The body it appears required this number of days to complete the process of embalming; afterwards it lay in natron thirty days more, making in the whole seventy days, according to the preceding accounts, during which the mourning was continued.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Genesis 50:4-6
When the days of mourning had passed: Joseph sends his request through Pharaoh's court. Adam Clarke notes that a man in mourning dress did not come before an eastern king. The request is leave to go up, bury his father, and return. A later Pharaoh is asked for the same leave at Exodus 5:1 and refuses it.
Genesis 50:4
“Speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh - But why did not Joseph apply himself? Because he was now in his mourning habits, and in such none must appear in the presence of the eastern monarchs. See Est 4:2.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the tomb that I dug for myself: Joseph cites the oath of 47:29 to 31, so Pharaoh hears a promise made to a dying man. The words about a tomb Jacob dug suggest he had prepared his own place inside the family cave. Joseph promises to come back.
Genesis 50:5
“My father made me swear, saying, lo, I die,.... Having reason to believe he should not live long, he sent for Joseph, and took an oath of him to do as follows; this Joseph would have observed to Pharaoh, to show the necessity of his application to him, and the reasonableness of his request.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 50:5
“It was not from pride or humour, but from his regard to an indispensable duty, that he desired it. All nations reckon that oaths must be performed, and the will of the dead must be observed. (4.) He promised to return: I will come again.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Pharaoh grants the leave on the strength of the oath. Go up is the verb the Bible uses for travel from Egypt to Canaan, and Exodus 13:18 uses it for Israel leaving Egypt. Joseph's procession up to Canaan rehearses the exodus on a small scale.
Genesis 50:7-9
Then Joseph went to bury his father: The servants of Pharaoh and the elders of Egypt head the list, and Joseph's household follows. The children and the flocks stay behind in Goshen, which holds the company to its return. Chariots and horsemen go up with them toward Canaan. Exodus reverses both, with the little ones and the flocks going out at 10:9 and the chariots following at 14:6.
Genesis 50:7
“The elders of his house - Persons who, by reason of their age, had acquired much experience; and who on this account were deemed the best qualified to conduct the affairs of the king’s household. Similar to these were the Eldermen, or Aldermen, among our Saxon ancestors, who were senators and peers of the realm. The funeral procession of Jacob must have been truly grand.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
his brothers, and his father’s household: At 37:14 Joseph went out alone to find his brothers and was sold by them. Now they travel with him under his protection. The family that split at Dothan goes up as one to bury its father.
it was an exceedingly large procession: Procession translates machaneh, a camp. Jacob used the word at 32:2 when he met the angels of God and named the place Mahanaim. The man who once split his company into two camps in fear of Esau is carried home by a vast one.
Genesis 50:10-11
the threshing floor of Atad: Seven days of mourning are kept at the threshing floor of Atad, across the Jordan. The Canaanites who watch call it a ceremony of the Egyptians. The family carrying the promise is read by the people of the land as a company of foreigners. Adam Clarke sets out the old question whether Atad is a man's name or the thornbush the word means, and the place keeps the name Abel-mizraim, the mourning of Egypt.
Genesis 50:10
“The threshing-floor of Atad - As אטד atad signifies a bramble or thorn, it has been understood by the Arabic, not as a man’s name, but as the name of a place; but all the other versions and the Targums consider it as the name of a man. Threshing-floors were always in a field, in the open air; and Atad was probably what we would call a great farmer or chief of some clan or tribe in that place. Jerome supposed the place to have been about two leagues from Jericho; but we have no certain information on this point.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim: The Canaanites name the place for what they saw. In place names such as Abel-meholah, abel means a meadow, and here its sound is heard as the Hebrew word for mourning. A pagan people leaves a name on the map that remembers Jacob.
Genesis 50:12-13
So Jacob’s sons did as he had charged them: The sons do exactly as their father charged them. Twelve brothers carry one body into Canaan together. The book that opened with a brother killing a brother in a field closes with all of them at one grave. The writer names the purchase again, the field Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite.
Genesis 50:12
“And his sons did unto him - This and the thirteenth verse have been supposed by Mr. Locke and others to belong to the conclusion of the preceding chapter, in which connection they certainly read more consistently than they do here.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
buried him in the cave at Machpelah: His sons carry Jacob into Canaan and bury him in the cave with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah, the names he listed at 49:31. Rachel lies alone by the road to Bethlehem. In death Jacob rests beside the wife he loved less.
Genesis 50:13
“For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan,.... That is, they took care that he was carried there, as he desired to be; for it cannot be thought that they carried him on their shoulders thither, in like manner as the devout men carried Stephen to his burial, Act 8:2. and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, &c. the very place where he chose to be buried, Gen 47:29.”
he returned to Egypt with his brothers: Joseph buries his father in Canaan and returns to Egypt with his brothers. The household goes up to the land carrying a body and comes back down alive. Genesis ends with the sons of Israel in Egypt. The land promised to Abraham on oath is still ahead of them.
You Meant Evil; God Meant Good
Genesis 50:15-17
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead: The brothers still believe Joseph was waiting for their father to die. They send word ahead instead of coming themselves, and Adam Clarke takes the charge they report as one Jacob did give. The word forgive stands here for the first time in Scripture, in a brother's mouth asking a brother. Joseph weeps when the message reaches him.
Genesis 50:15
“Saw that their father was dead - This at once argues both a sense of guilt in their own consciences, and a want of confidence in their brother. They might have supposed that hitherto he had forborne to punish them merely on their father’s account; but now that he was dead, and Joseph having them completely in his power, they imagined that he would take vengeance on them for their former conduct towards him. Thus conscience records criminality; and, by giving birth to continual fears and doubtfulness, destroys all peace of mind, security, and confidence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The Hebrew says the brothers commanded Joseph, the same verb they then put in their father's mouth. They lean on Jacob's authority even after his death. Genesis records no such charge in Jacob's final words of chapter 49.
Genesis 50:16
“Thy father did command - Whether he did or not we cannot tell. Some think they had feigned this story, but that is not so likely. Jacob might have had suspicions too, and might have thought that the best way to prevent evil was to humble themselves before their brother, and get a fresh assurance of his forgiveness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 50:16
“Thy father did command - Thus in humbling ourselves to Christ by faith and repentance, we may plead that it is the command of his father and our father we should do so. We are the servants of the God of thy father - Not only children of the same Jacob, but worshippers of the same Jehovah.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the transgression and sin of your brothers: The brothers name their wrong with two words, transgression and sin, the pair David uses at Psalm 32:1 and 5. They call themselves servants of their father's God, sheltering under the faith they share with Joseph. Joseph hears his own God named in the plea.
Genesis 50:17
“The servants of the God of thy father - These words were wonderfully well chosen, and spoken in the most forcible manner to Joseph’s piety and filial affection. No wonder then that he wept when they spake to him.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
bowed down before him: The brothers come themselves, bow down before Joseph, and call themselves his slaves. John Gill marks this as the finish of Joseph's dream at Genesis 37:9. What they hated him for telling is what they now do. They bow before their brother and ask for their lives, afraid of what he will do.
Genesis 50:18
“And his brethren also went,.... The messengers being returned to them, and acquainting them with what Joseph had said, they took courage and went from Goshen to Joseph's house or palace, be it where it may: and fell down before his face; in an humble suppliant manner: and they said, behold, we be thy servants; they were content to be so, would he but forgive their sin, and not resent their ill behaviour to him; thus they further fulfilled his dream of the eleven stars making obeisance to him, Gen 37:9.”
Am I in the place of God?: Joseph tells them to stop being afraid. He refuses the place of God, which the brothers were offering him. Adam Clarke reads the line either as a question or as a statement that the matter now lies between them and God. Ephrem the Syrian puts it that their father has died and the God of their father is living.
Genesis 50:19
“Joseph wept and said, "Do not be afraid of me, for although your father has died, the God of your father, on account of whom I will never strike you, is still alive.”
Ephrem the Syrian · written before 373 · COMMENTARY ON GENESIS 44:2patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 50:19
“Am I in the place of God? - These words may be understood either as a question, or an affirmative proposition. How should I take any farther notice of your transgression? I have passed it by, the matter lies now between God and you.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Genesis 50:20-21
God intended for good: One Hebrew verb stands behind both intentions, chashab, to plan or reckon. The brothers planned evil against him, and God planned the same act for good, to keep many people alive. R. C. Sproul holds both true at once, the brothers answerable for their motive and God working His own end through it. Joseph then feeds them and their little ones.
Genesis 50:20
“Joseph's brothers meant his suffering for evil, and insofar as this was their motivation, they were culpable before God.”
ConnectionsActs 2:23
spoke kindly to them: Spoke kindly renders spoke to their heart. Isaiah 40:2 uses the phrase when God tells His messengers to comfort Jerusalem. Joseph's promise of food repeats his pledge at 45:11, and his tenderness answers their fear.
Genesis 50:21
“25 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. 26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joseph's Bones and a Sure Promise
Genesis 50:22-23
Joseph lived to the age of 110: Joseph lives to a hundred and ten and sees Ephraim's sons to the third generation. Machir's sons are brought up on Joseph's knees, the sign of a child received into the family. Ephraim's line is counted first here, as Jacob set him first. Numbers 32:40 gives Machir's clan Gilead.
Genesis 50:22
“Joseph dwelt in Egypt - Continued in Egypt after his return from Canaan till his death; he, and his father’s house - all the descendants of Israel, till the exodus or departure under the direction of Moses and Aaron, which was one hundred and forty-four years after.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
He saw Ephraim’s sons to the third generation: Seeing children's children is the blessing Psalm 128:6 asks for the man who fears the LORD. Joseph, sold by his brothers at seventeen, lives to see the sons of Ephraim and Manasseh multiply. Machir's line later sends commanders to Deborah's battle at Judges 5:14.
Genesis 50:23
“Were brought up upon Joseph’s knees - They were educated by him, or under his direction; his sons and their children continuing to acknowledge him as patriarch, or head of the family, as long as he lived.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Genesis 50:24-25
God will surely visit you: Joseph names the going up before Exodus is written. He ties it to the oath sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He binds the sons of Israel by oath to carry his bones up from this place. Hebrews 11:22 counts that order about his bones as his act of faith, and Moses carries them out at Exodus 13:19.
Genesis 50:24
“Joseph said - I die - That is, I am dying; and God will surely visit you - he will yet again give you, in the time when it shall be essentially necessary, the most signal proof of his unbounded love towards the seed of Jacob. And bring you out of this land - Though ye have here every thing that can render life comfortable, yet this is not the typical land, the land given by covenant, the land which represents the rest that remains for the people of God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 50:24
“Joseph said unto his brethren, I die--The national feelings of the Egyptians would have been opposed to his burial in Canaan; but he gave the strongest proof of the strength of his faith and full assurance of the promises, by "the commandment concerning his bones" [Heb 11:22].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Joseph repeats the promise with a doubled Hebrew verb, surely attend. God tells Moses to give the elders these same words at Exodus 3:16. Israel in Egypt would recognise the promise when it came.
Genesis 50:25
“Ye shall carry up my bones - That I may finally rest with my ancestors in the land which God gave to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and which is a pledge as it is a type of the kingdom of Heaven. Thus says the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb 11:22: “By Faith Joseph, when he died, (τελευτων, when dying), made mention of the departure (εξοδου, of the Exodus) of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 50:25
“In Egypt they buried their great men very honourably and with abundance of pomp; but Joseph prefers a significant burial in Canaan, and that deferred too almost 200 years, before a magnificent one in Egypt. Thus Joseph, by faith in the doctrine of the resurrection and the promise of Canaan, gave commandment concerning his bones, Heb. xi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
placed it in a coffin in Egypt: The Hebrew word for the coffin is aron, the same word used of the ark of the covenant. Genesis ends with an embalmed man in a box in Egypt. Matthew Henry notes that Joseph chose a burial in Canaan long deferred over a splendid one in Egypt. The coffin holds the promise open.
Genesis 50:26
“So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old,.... The exact age assigned him by Polyhistor (x), from Demetrius an Heathen.”
1 more voice on this verse
Genesis 50:26
“Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old - בן מאה ועשר שנים ben meah vaeser shanim; literally, the son of a hundred and ten years. Here the period of time he lived is personified, all the years of which it was composed being represented as a nurse or father, feeding, nourishing, and supporting him to the end.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, a funeral procession, a last reckoning between brothers and a death that leaves the book unfinished on purpose, as Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Forty days and seventy days | Verse 3 gives the embalming forty days and the mourning of Egypt seventy, and verse 10 adds seven days of mourning at the threshing floor of Atad. The counts are Egyptian and the seven days are the household's own, so the chapter carries a funeral in two customs at once.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Genesis 50:3. | Genesis 50:3, Genesis 50:10 |
| You intended evil, God intended good | Verse 20 sets two intentions over one act in the same sentence, and the Hebrew uses the same verb for both, chashab, to plan or reckon. R. C. Sproul holds both halves true together, the brothers answerable for what they meant and God working His own end through the same event. Joseph had said it in other words at 45:5 to 8, before their father died.R. C. Sproul, How Can God Bring Good Out of Evil?, on Genesis 50:20. | Genesis 50:20, Genesis 45:5 |
| The eleven bowing | The brothers fall down before Joseph at verse 18 and call themselves his slaves, which John Gill sets beside the dream of eleven stars at 37:9. They had bowed at 42:6 without knowing him and at 43:26 with a gift, and here they bow knowing exactly who he is and expecting him to repay them.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Genesis 50:18. | Genesis 50:18, Genesis 42:6, Genesis 43:26 |
| Carry my bones up from this place | Joseph's last words at verses 24 and 25 tie the going up to the oath sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and bind the sons of Israel to carry his bones out when God visits them. Hebrews 11:22 counts that order as the act of faith Joseph is remembered for. Moses carries the bones out at Exodus 13:19 and Joshua 24:32 buries them at Shechem.Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on Genesis 50:25. | Genesis 50:24, Genesis 50:25 |
The historical value
10 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter records Egyptian burial practice as a foreign thing observed from inside. Physicians rather than priests embalm the body at verse 2, the embalming takes forty days and the national mourning seventy, and the party that goes up to Canaan is made of Pharaoh's own officials with chariots and horsemen. The Canaanites at the threshing floor of Atad see it and name it the mourning of Egypt, which is the view from outside. Adam Clarke sets out the old question whether Atad is a man's name or the thornbush the word means.
The debated concept
What the brothers report at verses 16 and 17 is disputed. They say their father left instructions that Joseph should forgive them, and Genesis records no such instruction anywhere. Adam Clarke takes the charge as one Jacob really gave, which the book did not report. The plain alternative is that the brothers, still afraid, spoke in their father's name to a man who now held everything. Genesis gives their words and Joseph's tears and passes no verdict, and the tears are the only reaction the text records.
Verse 19 carries a smaller question. Adam Clarke reads Joseph's line either as a question, am I in the place of God, or as a statement that the matter now stands between them and God. On either reading he refuses the place they are offering him, which is the place of the man who settles the account.
How the rest of Scripture reads this chapter
Hebrews 11:22 takes Joseph's last order as the act of faith he is remembered for, that when his end was near he spoke about the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions about his bones. Exodus 13:19 has Moses taking the bones out under that oath, and Joshua 24:32 buries them at Shechem in the plot Jacob had bought, which is the ground given to Joseph at 48:22.
The sentence at verse 20 is the Old Testament's fullest statement of the thing Romans 8:28 says of God, that He works all things together for the good of those who love Him. Genesis states it about one act, one family and one famine, and leaves the general case to the rest of Scripture.
The divine connection
The chapter closes the promise of 15:13 by leaving it open. God had told Abram that his descendants would be strangers in a land not their own and would come out of it. Joseph names that promise at verse 24, saying God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land He promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is speaking as the second man in Egypt, in the best country available to his family, and what he asks for is a grave in Canaan.
The word forgive stands once in the whole book of Genesis in the Berean text and it stands at verse 17, counted in the store, so the first forgiveness asked for in the Bible is asked by ten brothers of the one they sold.
Keep studying
Words12
Subjects1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Genesis 50:17; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Genesis 50:26 and R. C. Sproul, How Can God Bring Good Out of Evil?, on Genesis 50:20.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and R. C. Sproul, How Can God Bring Good Out of Evil?.