Genesis 50
50
1Joseph threw himself on his father, wept over him, and kissed him.
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2-3Joseph then instructed the physicians in his employ to embalm his father. The physicians embalmed Israel. The embalming took forty days, the period required for embalming. There was public mourning by the Egyptians for seventy days.
4-5When the period of mourning was completed, Joseph petitioned Pharaoh’s court: “If you have reason to think kindly of me, present Pharaoh with my request: My father made me swear, saying, ‘I am ready to die. Bury me in the grave plot that I prepared for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Please give me leave to go up and bury my father. Then I’ll come back.”
6Pharaoh said, “Certainly. Go and bury your father as he made you promise under oath.”
7-9So Joseph left to bury his father. And all the high-ranking officials from Pharaoh’s court went with him, all the dignitaries of Egypt, joining Joseph’s family—his brothers and his father’s family. Their children and flocks and herds were left in Goshen. Chariots and horsemen accompanied them. It was a huge funeral procession.
10Arriving at the Atad Threshing Floor just across the Jordan River, they stopped for a period of mourning, letting their grief out in loud and lengthy lament. For seven days, Joseph engaged in these funeral rites for his father.
11When the Canaanites who lived in that area saw the grief being poured out at the Atad Threshing Floor, they said, “Look how deeply the Egyptians are mourning.” That is how the site at the Jordan got the name Abel Mizraim (Egyptian Lament).
12-13Jacob’s sons continued to carry out his instructions to the letter. They took him on into Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah facing Mamre, the field that Abraham had bought as a burial plot from Ephron the Hittite.
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14-15After burying his father, Joseph went back to Egypt. All his brothers who had come with him to bury his father returned with him. After the funeral, Joseph’s brothers talked among themselves: “What if Joseph is carrying a grudge and decides to pay us back for all the wrong we did him?”
16-17So they sent Joseph a message, “Before his death, your father gave this command: Tell Joseph, ‘Forgive your brothers’ sin—all that wrongdoing. They did treat you very badly.’ Will you do it? Will you forgive the sins of the servants of your father’s God?”
When Joseph received their message, he wept.
18Then the brothers went in person to him, threw themselves on the ground before him and said, “We’ll be your slaves.”
19-21Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid. Do I act for God? Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. Easy now, you have nothing to fear; I’ll take care of you and your children.” He reassured them, speaking with them heart-to-heart.
22-23Joseph continued to live in Egypt with his father’s family. Joseph lived 110 years. He lived to see Ephraim’s sons into the third generation. The sons of Makir, Manasseh’s son, were also recognized as Joseph’s.
24At the end, Joseph said to his brothers, “I am ready to die. God will most certainly pay you a visit and take you out of this land and back to the land he so solemnly promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
25Then Joseph made the sons of Israel promise under oath, “When God makes his visitation, make sure you take my bones with you as you leave here.”
26Joseph died at the age of 110 years. They embalmed him and placed him in a coffin in Egypt.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Genesis 50
50
1 Joseph, realizing this, fell upon his father's face, weeping and kissing him.
2 And he instructed his servant physicians to embalm his father with aromatics.
3 And while they were fulfilling his orders, forty days passed. For this was the method of embalming dead bodies. And Egypt wept for him for seventy days.
4 And when the time for mourning was fulfilled, Joseph spoke to the family of Pharaoh: "If I have found favor in your sight, speak to the ears of Pharaoh.
5 For my father made me swear, saying: 'See, I am dying. You shall bury me in my sepulcher which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.' Therefore, I shall go up and bury my father, and then return."
6 And Pharaoh said to him, "Go up and bury your father, just as he made you swear."
7 So as he went up, all the elders of the house of Pharaoh went with him, along with every patriarch in the land of Egypt,
8 and the house of Joseph with his brothers, except their little ones and flocks and also the herds, which they left behind in the land of Goshen.
9 Likewise, he had in his company chariots and horsemen. And it became a crowd without restraint.
10 And they arrived at the threshing place of Atad, which is situated beyond the Jordan. There they spent seven full days celebrating the funeral rites with a great and vehement lamentation.
11 And when the inhabitants of the land of Canaan had seen this, they said, "This is a great Lamentation for the Egyptians." And for this reason, the name of that place was called, "The Lamentation of Egypt."
12 And so, the sons of Jacob did just as he had instructed them.
13 And carrying him into the land of Canaan, they buried him in the double cave, which Abraham had bought along with its field, from Ephron the Hittite, as a possession for burial, opposite Mamre.
14 And Joseph returned into Egypt with his brothers and all those of his company, having buried his father.
15 Now that he was dead, his brothers were afraid, and they said to one another: "Perhaps now he may remember the injury that he suffered and requite us for all the evil that we did to him."
16 So they sent a message to him, saying: "Your father instructed us before he died,
17 that we should say these words to you from him: 'I beg you to forget the wickedness of your brothers, and the sin and malice that they practiced against you.' Likewise, we petition you to release the servants of the God of your father from this iniquity." Hearing this, Joseph wept.
18 And his brothers went to him. And reverencing prostrate on the ground, they said, "We are your servants."
19 And he answered them: "Do not be afraid. Are we able to resist the will of God?
20 You devised evil against me. But God turned it into good, so that he might exalt me, just as you presently discern, and so that he might bring about the salvation of many peoples.
21 Do not be afraid. I will pasture you and your little ones." And he consoled them, and he spoke mildly and leniently.
22 And he lived in Egypt with all his father's house; and he survived for one hundred and ten years. And he saw the sons of Ephraim to the third generation. Likewise, the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were born onto Joseph's knees.
23 After these things happened, he said to his brothers: "God will visit you after my death, and he will make you ascend from this land into the land which he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
24 And when he had made them swear and had said, "God will visit you; carry my bones with you from this place,"
25 he died, having completed one hundred and ten years of his life. And having been embalmed with aromatics, he was laid to rest in a coffin in Egypt.
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