1 The mourning for Jacob.
4 Joseph gets leave of Pharaoh to go to bury him.
7 The funeral.
15 Joseph comforts his brethren, who crave his pardon.
22 His age.
23 He sees the third generation of his sons.
24 He prophesies unto his brethren of their return.
25 He takes an oath of them concerning his bones.
26 He dies, and is put into a coffin.

fell. 46:4 De 6:7,8 Eph 6:4

wept. 23:2 2Ki 13:14 Mr 5:38,39 Joh 11:35-38 Ac 8:2 1Th 4:13

2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.

the physicians. The Hebrew {ropheim,} from {rapha,} to heal, is literally the healers, those whose business it was to heal, or restore the body from sickness, by administering proper medicines; and when death took place, to heal or preserve it from decomposition by embalming. The word {chanat,} to embalm, is also used in Arabic to express the reddening of leather; somewhat analogous to our tanning; which is probably the grand principal in embalming.

embalmed. 26 2Ch 16:14 Mt 26:12 Mr 14:8 16:1 Lu 24:1 Joh 12:7 19:39,40

3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.

forty days. We learn from the Greek historians, that the time of mourning was while the body remained with the embalmers, which Herodotus says was seventy days. During this time the body lay in nitre, the use of which was to dry up all its superfluous and noxious moisture: and when, in the space of 30 days, this was sufficiently effected, the remaining forty, the time mentioned by Diodorus, were employed in anointing it with gums and spices to preserve it, which was properly the embalming. This sufficiently explains the phraseology of the text.

mourned. Heb. wept. three-score. Nu 20:29 De 21:13 34:8

4 And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

the days. 10

Joseph. Es 4:2

found grace. 18:3

5 My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

made me. 47:29-31

Lo, I die. 24 48:21 49:29,30 De 4:22 1Sa 14:43

I have. 2Ch 16:14 Isa 22:16 Mt 27:60

bury me. 3:19 Job 30:23 Ps 79:3 Ec 6:3 12:5,7

let me go. Mt 8:21,22 Lu 9:59,60

6 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

as he made. 48:21

7 And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,

and with him. 14:16

8 And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

only their. Ex 10:8,9,26 Nu 32:24-27

9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.

chariots. 41:43 46:29 Ex 14:7,17,28 2Ki 18:24 So 1:9 Ac 8:2

10 And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

the threshingfloor. This place was situated, according to Jerome, between the Jordan and the city of Jericho, two miles from the former, and three from the latter, where Bethagla was afterwards built. Procopius of Gaza states the same. As {aataad} signifies thorns, the place might have been remarkable for their production; though all the versions except the Arabic consider it as a proper name. As Moses wrote or revised his history on the east side of Jordan, the term beyond Jordan, in his five books, means westward of Jordan; but in other parts of Scripture it generally means eastward.

beyond. 11 De 1:1

seven days. 4 Nu 19:11 De 34:8 1Sa 31:13 2Sa 1:17 Job 2:13 Ac 8:2

11 And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan.

the Canaanites. 10:15-19 13:7 24:6 34:30

Abel-mizraim. i.e., The mourning of the Egyptians. 1Sa 6:18

beyond Jordan. 10 De 3:25,27 11:30

12 And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:

47:29-31 49:29-32 Ex 20:12 Ac 7:16 Eph 6:1

13 For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

the cave. 23:16-18 25:9 35:27,29 49:29-31 2Ki 21:18

14 And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

15 And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.

their father. 27:41,42

Joseph. 42:17 Le 26:36 Job 15:21,22 Ps 14:5 53:5 Pr 28:1 Ro 2:15

16 And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,

sent. Heb. charged. Pr 29:25

17 So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.

Forgive. Mt 6:12,14,15 18:35 Lu 17:3,4 Eph 4:32 Col 3:12,13

they did. 20 Job 33:27,28 Ps 21:11 Pr 28:13 Jas 5:16

servants. 31:42 49:25 Mt 10:42 25:40 Mr 10:41 Ga 6:10,16 Phm 8-20

wept. 42:21-24 45:4,5,8

18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.

fell. 27:29 37:7-11 42:6 44:14 45:3

19 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?

fear not. 45:5 Mt 14:27 Lu 24:37,38

for am I. It belongs to God to execute vengeance, and Joseph did not intend to usurp his prerogative. Thus he instructed his brethren not to fear him, but to fear God; to humble themselves before God, and to seek his forgiveness.

30:2 De 32:35 2Ki 5:7 Job 34:19-29 Ro 12:19 Heb 10:30

20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

ye thought. 37:4,18-20 Ps 56:5

God meant. 45:5-8 Ps 76:10 105:16,17 119:71 Isa 10:7 Ac 2:23 3:13-15,26 Ro 8:28

21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

I will nourish. 45:10,11 47:12 Mt 5:44 6:14 Ro 12:20,21 1Th 5:15 1Pe 3:9

kindly unto them. Heb. to their hearts. 34:3 Isa 40:2*marg.

22 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.

an hundred. Joseph's life was the shortest of all the patriarchs; for which Bp. Patrick gives this reason, he was the son of his father's old age.

22

23 And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph's knees.

the children. 48:19 49:12 Nu 32:33,39 Jos 17:1 Job 42:16 Ps 128:6

brought up. Heb. born. Joseph's. 30:3

24 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

I die. 5 3:19 Job 30:23 Ec 12:5,7 Ro 5:12 Heb 9:27

visit you. 21:1 Ex 4:31

you out. 15:14-16 26:3 35:12 46:4 48:21 Ex 3:16,17

sware. 12:7 13:15,17 15:7,18 17:8 26:3 28:13 35:12 46:4 Ex 33:1 Nu 32:11 De 1:8 6:10

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.

took an. 5 47:29-31

and ye. Ex 13:19 Jos 24:32 Ac 7:16 Heb 11:22

26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

being an hundred and ten years old. {Ben meah wediser shanim;} the son of an hundred and ten years; the period he lived being personified.

22 47:9,28 Jos 24:29

they embalmed. 2,3

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

Thus terminates the Book of Genesis, the most ancient record in the world; including the History of two grand and stupendous subjects, Creation and Providence; of each of which it presents a summary, but astonishingly minute and detailed accounts. From this Book, almost all the ancient philosophers, astronomers, chronologists, and historians have taken their respective data; and all the modern improvements and accurate discoveries in different arts and sciences, have only served to confirm the facts detailed by Moses, and to shew, that all the ancient writers on these subjects have approached, or receded from, truth and the phenomena of Nature, in exactly the same proportion as they have followed or receded from, the Mosaic history. The great fact of the deluge is fully confirmed by the fossilised remains in every quarter of the globe. Add to this, that general traditions of the deluge have veen traced among the Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindoos, Burmans, ancient Goths and Druids, Mexicans, Peruvians, Brazilians, North American Indians, Greenlanders, Otaheiteans, Sandwich Islanders, and almost every nation under heaven; while the allegorical turgidity of these distorted traditions sufficiently distinguishes them from the unadorned simplicity of the Mosaic narrative. In fine, without this history the world would be in comparative darkness, not knowing whence it came, nor whither it goeth. In the first page, a child may learn more in an hour, than all the philosophers in the world learned without it in a thousand years.