Mourning and Burial for Jacob
Joseph mourns his father with tears and kisses, then has him embalmed. Egypt joins the grief, and the long mourning marks Jacob’s death with unusual honor.
T1hen Joseph fell upon his father’s face, wept over him, and kissed him. 2And Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So they embalmed him, 3taking the forty days required to complete the embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.
After the mourning period, Joseph appeals through Pharaoh’s court for leave to bury Jacob in Canaan, according to the oath he swore. Pharaoh grants the request.
4When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s court, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please tell Pharaoh that 5my father made me swear an oath when he said, ‘I am about to die. You must bury me in the tomb that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now let me go and bury my father, and then return.” 6Pharaoh replied, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.”
Joseph travels with his family and a large Egyptian escort, and the mourning at Atad is so great that the place receives a name from it. The funeral becomes visible to the whole land.
7Then Joseph went to bury his father, and all the servants of Pharaoh accompanied him — the elders of Pharaoh’s household and all the elders of the land of Egypt — 8along with all of Joseph’s household, and his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children and flocks and herds were left in Goshen. 9Chariots and horsemen alike went up with him, and it was an exceedingly large procession. 10When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan, they lamented and wailed loudly, and Joseph mourned for his father seven days. 11When the Canaanites of the land saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a solemn ceremony of mourning by the Egyptians.” Thus the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim.
Jacob’s sons do what he commanded, burying him at Machpelah in Canaan. When the burial is finished, Joseph and the others return to Egypt.
12So Jacob’s sons did as he had charged them. 13They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave at Machpelah in the field near Mamre, which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site. 14After Joseph had buried his father, he returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone with him to bury his father.