Gen 50.1-26 tells us that Joseph asks for permission to bury his father Jacob in Canaan and their route anticipates the route of the Exodus; Jacob is buried in Machpelah; Joseph comforts his brothers because they thought that with their father gone Joseph might retaliate now; the death of Joseph.
There are many similarities between Jacob’s burial and the Exodus, as we will see. In the same way, there are differences. How will the choices, made by Pharaoh in Joseph’s day, differ from the choices made by the Pharaoh in the time of Moses? Joseph’s Pharaoh created a precedent for how to deal with a child you thought was yours and he expresses a loyalty to another father? Joseph’s Pharaoh did what was right and we see how that turned out. What if the Pharaoh with Moses did the right thing and allowed Israel to show their loyalty to their Father, a Father he didn’t know? What would that have looked like? The idea of a creator God was foreign to Pharaoh. What if the Pharaoh with Moses asked for a sign? Well, Moses was given a sign. His staff became a serpent (Exo 7.9), and this sign would surely impress Pharaoh enough to let them go, right? No, Pharaoh’s magicians duplicated it, but Aaron’s rod devoured the other serpents. In reality, that was the sign. Now, what if Pharaoh looked at this with some unbiased logic and decided that the sign Yehovah gave was proof that he was the Lord God? He would have realized that there are many powers, but there was one power that was over everyone, including himself. Had Pharaoh realized that, what would he have done? He would know that there was a creator, a God greater than himself, and it was to that God that Israel wanted to serve.
This revelation would have changed everything. He would have let them go. This God of Israel was the creator of all people, even Pharaoh and Egypt. Had Pharaoh understood this truth and all its implications, he would have wanted to be a part of it. He would have escorts with Israel to Canaan, just like Joseph’s Pharaoh will do, his predecessor, centuries before. There would have been chariots and archers, a military honor guard. It would have been hard for a god-king like Pharaoh to acknowledge any “higher power” than himself, but it would not have been impossible. Joseph’s Pharaoh Amenemhat III was not afraid to acknowledge this fact. He was being honest with himself, he knew he was powerless over the famine. He knew there was the God of Joseph and he was not afraid to let the Hebrews embrace the customs associated with this God. Joseph’s Pharaoh actually wanted to be a part of Jacob’s burial and wanted everyone to know it. It didn’t matter to him that the people of Jacob did things differently than the Egyptians. Moses’s Pharaoh could have done that, there was a precedent for it, but he was unable to do it. Pride got in his way. He could not accept the fact that there was a God that was greater than he was. When Israel went into the wilderness, Pharaoh was against it, which is the opposite reaction to what Joseph’s Pharaoh felt. Egypt was not participating in this at all. They went into the wilderness alone. This departure was a mere glimpse into what could have been had Pharaoh acted like Joseph’s Pharaoh.
Pharaoh was stubborn and was not going along with the program, unlike Joseph’s Pharaoh did. The word for stubborn is “kaved” and the word for “honor” is “ikavdah. As you can see, they have the same Hebrew root (kvd). Pharaoh’s stubbornness (kaved) would be turned to honor (ikavdah). God would strengthen Pharaoh’s heart by giving him the courage, after all he has seen and gone through with the ten plagues, to follow through with his stubbornness. God would use the pursuing army of the Egyptians as his tool, for his own ends, not Pharaoh’s. When God said he would be honored through Pharaoh and his army in Exo 14.17 and he means that Pharaoh thought his chariot force was there to pursue Israel and to bring them back, but that was not their purpose. The Lord was going to use those chariots as an “honor” guard just like Amenemhat III did. He was going to have a military escort for Israel as they left, one way or another.
v 1…Then Joseph fell on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him (taking his farewell).
v 2…And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father (preparing his father’s body for the long trip back to Canaan). So the physicians embalmed Israel.
v 3…Now forty days were required for it, for such is the period required for embalming.(this alludes to the fact that Israel will be “preserved” and be brought back to the land when Messiah comes). And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days (40 for embalming and another 30 for weeping).
v 4…And when the days of mourning for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your sight, please speak to Pharaoh,saying,
v 5…’MY father made me swear saying, “Behold, I am about to die; in my grave which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me (Joseph had not told him about Jacob’s request; how would Pharaoh feel about this).” Now therefore, please let me go and bury my father, then I will return.”
v 6…Then Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear.”
v 7…So Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of the household and all the elders of the land of egypt (a very important entourage out of respect for Joseph and his family);
v 8…and all the household of Joseph and his brothers and his father’s household (his brothers and their sons who were old enough, his two sons and servants); they left only their little ones and their flocks and their herds in the land of Goshen (the Pharaoh of Moses will use this in their negotiations-Exo 10.9-11).
v 9…There also went up with him both chariots and horsemen (it was an honor guard, unlike the chariots and horsemen that will pursue Israel in the Exodus); and it was a very great company.
v 10…And when they came to the threshing floor of Atad which is beyond the Jordan (Hebrew “goren ha Atad; this was on the eastern side of the Jordan, and their route anticipates the route of the Exodus; a funeral procession many times took a more circular route so that the onlookers may join in; they wanted to avoid the Philistines, and the Canaanites may have denied Egypt passage in the more direct route from Egypt to Hebron), they lamented there with a very great and sorrowful lamentation; and he observed seven days of mourning for his father.
v 11…Now when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites (made up of various tribes) saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad (who were in possession of that area), they said, “This is a grievous mourning for the Egyptians.” Therefore it was named, “Abel-mizraim” (mourning of Egypt), which is beyond the Jordan (this also alludes to the mourning of Egypt in another “exodus”).
v 12…And the sons did for him as he had charged them;
v 13…for his sons (not the Egyptians) carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre, which Abraham had bought with the field for a burial site from Ephron the Hittite.
v 14…And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers, and all who had gone with him to bury his father.
v 15…When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pay us back in full for the wrong which we did to him (an example of a never to be silenced guilty conscience)!”
v 16…So they sent a message to Joseph (did not want to come in person), saying, “Your father charged before he died (there was no such message because Jacob never suspected Joseph to retaliate), saying,
v 17…’Thus you shall say to Joseph, “Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong. ” ‘ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they (the messengers) spoke to him (that they still don’t trust him).
v 18…Then his brothers also came to him (in person) and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.”
v 19…But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place (to execute vengeance)?”
v 20…And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive (what all his dreams really meant; the Egyptians, Canaanites and many others were saved (a picture of the second redemption through Yeshua).
v 21…So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them (they are assured of forgiveness, just like we should be assured that Yeshua will not exact vengeance against his “brethren” and that we are truly forgiven).
v 22…Now Joseph stayed in Egypt, he and his father’s household, and Joseph lived one hundred and ten years (he ruled Egypt for 80 years).
v 23…And Joseph saw the third generation of ephraim’s sons; also the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, who were born on Joseph’s knees (grew up during his lifetime and spiritual guidance).
v 24…And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit (Hebrew “pakod yifkod” meaning “visit, visit”; this alludes to the first redemption with Moses out of Egypt, and it also alludes to the second redemption with the coming of Yeshua-Luke 1.68; 19.44) you, and bring you up from this land to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and to Jacob.”
v 25…Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit (Hebrew “pakod yifkod” or “visit, visit”) you and you shall carry my bones up from here (by “my bones” it means he is not requesting that they bury him immediately in Canaan like his father).
v 26…So Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin (Hebrew “aron” or ark and remaining above ground so that in later generations Moses could recognize it and could take it out of Egypt; he would be buried in a mortuary temple, not a pyramid, in the Faiyum).
Leave a Reply