Genesis 50
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.
Then ... hugged <05307> [fell.]
wept <01058> [wept.]
physicians ........... physicians <07495> [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.
embalm ....... embalmed <02590> [embalmed.]
forty days ....... time ........... days <03117 0705> [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.
<01058> [mourned. Heb. wept. three-score.]
days <03117> [the days.]
Joseph <03130> [Joseph.]
found favor <02580 04672> [found grace.]
swear <07650> [made me.]
die <02009 04191> [Lo, I die.]
dug <03738> [I have.]
Bury ...................... bury <06912> [bury me.]
go <05927> [let me go.]
swear <07650> [as he made.]
up ......... went <05927> [and with him.]
little children <02945> [only their.]
Chariots <07393> [chariots.]
threshing floor <01637> [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.
side <05676> [beyond.]
seven day <07651 03117> [seven days.]
Canaanites <03669> [the Canaanites.]
Abel Mizraim <067> [Abel-mizraim. i.e., The mourning of the Egyptians.]
beyond ... Jordan <03383 05676> [beyond Jordan.]
cave <04631> [the cave.]
father <01> [their father.]
Joseph's ............. Joseph <03130> [Joseph.]
So ... sent .......... instructions <06680> [sent. Heb. charged.]
forgive .................... forgive <05375> [Forgive.]
treated <01580> [they did.]
servants <05650> [servants.]
wept <01058> [wept.]
threw <05307> [fell.]
afraid ........ God <03372 0430> [fear not.]
God <0430> [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.
meant ....... intended <02803> [ye thought.]
meant ...... God intended <0430 02803> [God meant.]
provide <03557> [I will nourish.]
kindly <03820> [kindly unto them. Heb. to their hearts.]
110 <03967> [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.
descendants ............ children ..... son <01121> [the children.]
special inheritance rights <03205> [brought up. Heb. born. Joseph's.]
die <04191> [I die.]
surely ...... lead ... up <06485 05927> [visit you.]
up <05927> [you out.]
swore <07650> [sware.]
oath <07650> [took an.]
come .... Then ....... up <05927> [and ye.]
110 <03967 06235 08141 01121> [being an hundred and ten years old.]
{Ben meah weÆ’iser shanim;} "the son of an hundred and ten years;" the period he lived being personified.
embalmed <02590> [they embalmed.]
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.
