Embalming

How Nave’s arranged it

• Of JacobGenesis 50:2Genesis 50:3
• Of JosephGenesis 50:26
• Of Asa2 Chronicles 16:14
• Of JesusMark 15:46Mark 16:1

The passages, in Bible order (6)

The same references, sorted Genesis to Revelation. The first 6 are quoted in full; the rest are one click beneath them, book by book.

1. Genesis 50:2

   And Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So they embalmed him,

   ›Commentary on Genesis 50:22 voices

   “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.

   “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.

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2. Genesis 50:3

   taking the forty days required to complete the embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

   ›Commentary on Genesis 50:31 voice

   “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.

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3. Genesis 50:26

   So Joseph died at the age of 110. And they embalmed his body and placed it in a coffin in Egypt.

   ›Commentary on Genesis 50:262 voices

   “So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old,.... The exact age assigned him by Polyhistor (x), from Demetrius an Heathen.

   “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.

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4. 2 Chronicles 16:14

   And he was buried in the tomb that he had cut out for himself in the City of David. They laid him on a bier that was full of spices and various blended perfumes; then they made a great fire in his honor.

   ›Commentary on 2 Chronicles 16:142 voices

   “And laid him in the bed - It is very likely that the body of Asa was burnt; that the bed spoken of here was a funeral pyre, on which much spices and odoriferous woods had been placed; and then they set fire to the whole and consumed the body with the aromatics. Some think the body was not burned, but the aromatics only, in honor of the king. How the ancients treated the bodies of the illustrious dead we learn from Virgil, in the funeral rites paid to Misenus.

   “Note, The eminent piety and usefulness of good men ought to be remembered to their praise, though they have had their blemishes. Let their faults be buried in their graves, while their services are remembered over their graves. He that said, There is not a just man that doeth good and sinneth not, yet said also, The memory of the just is blessed; and let it be so.

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5. Mark 15:46

   So Joseph bought a linen cloth, took down the body of Jesus, wrapped it in the cloth, and placed it in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.

   ›Commentary on Mark 15:462 voices

   “The death of our Lord Jesus Christ is the most important fact in Christianity. On it depend the hopes of all saved sinners both for time and eternity. We need not therefore to be surprised to find the reality of His death carefully placed beyond dispute. Three kinds of witnesses to the fact are brought before us in the verses we have now read. The Roman centurion, who stood near the cross, — the women, who followed our Lord from Galilee to Jerusalem, — the disciples, who buried Him. All were all witnesses that Jesus really died.

   “IT was a very dark day with the Church of God and with the cause of Christ, for the Lord Jesus was dead, and so the sun of their souls had set. "All the disciples forsook Him, and fled." "You shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone," were the sad words of Jesus—and they had come true. He was dead upon the Cross and His enemies hoped that that was the end of Him—while even His friends feared that it was so.

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6. Mark 16:1

   When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could go and anoint the body of Jesus.

   ›Commentary on Mark 16:12 voices

   “See this passage explained in the notes at Mat 28:1-8. Mar 16:1 Sweet spices - “Aromatics.” Substances used in embalming. The idea of sweetness is not, however, implied in the original. Many of the substances used for embalming were “bitter” - as, for example, myrrh - and none of them, perhaps, could properly be called “sweet.” The word “spices” expresses all that there is in the original. Anoint him - Embalm him, or apply these spices to his body to keep it from putrefaction.

   “We may well believe that it required great courage to do this. To visit the grave in the dim twilight of an eastern day-break, would try most women, under any circumstances. But to visit the grave of one who had been put to death as a common malefactor, and to rise early to show honor to one whom their nation had despised, this was a mighty boldness indeed. Yet these are the kind of acts which show the difference between weak faith and strong faith — between weak feeling and strong feeling towards Christ.

   Everything gathered on Mark 16:1→

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