Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and
kissed him. Then Joseph told the physicians who served him to embalm his
father’s body; so Jacob was embalmed. The embalming process took the usual
forty days. And the Egyptians mourned his death for seventy days.
When the period of mourning was over, Joseph approached
Pharaoh’s advisers and said, “Please do me this favor and speak to Pharaoh on
my behalf. Tell him that my father made me swear an oath. He said to me,
‘Listen, I am about to die. Take my body back to the land of Canaan, and bury
me in the tomb I prepared for myself.’ So please allow me to go and bury my
father. After his burial, I will return without delay.”
Pharaoh agreed to Joseph’s request. “Go and bury your father, as
he made you promise,” he said. So Joseph went up to bury his father. He
was accompanied by all of Pharaoh’s officials, all the senior members of
Pharaoh’s household, and all the senior officers of Egypt. Joseph also
took his entire household and his brothers and their households. But they left
their little children and flocks and herds in the land of Goshen. A great
number of chariots and charioteers accompanied Joseph.
When they arrived at the threshing floor of Atad, near the
Jordan River, they held a very great and solemn memorial service, with a
seven-day period of mourning for Joseph’s father. The local residents, the
Canaanites, watched them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad. Then they
renamed that place (which is near the Jordan) Abel-mizraim, for they said,
“This is a place of deep mourning for these Egyptians.”
So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them. They carried
his body to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of
Machpelah, near Mamre. This is the cave that Abraham had bought as a permanent
burial site from Ephron the Hittite.
After burying Jacob, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers
and all who had accompanied him to his father’s burial. But now that their
father was dead, Joseph’s brothers became fearful. “Now Joseph will show his anger
and pay us back for all the wrong we did to him,” they said.
So they sent this message to Joseph: “Before your father died,
he instructed us to say to you: ‘Please forgive your brothers for
the great wrong they did to you—for their sin in treating you so cruelly.’ So
we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive our sin.” When
Joseph received the message, he broke down and wept. Then his brothers
came and threw themselves down before Joseph. “Look, we are your slaves!” they
said.
But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can
punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many
people. No, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your
children.” So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.
So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live
in Egypt. Joseph lived to the age of 110. He lived to see three
generations of descendants of his son Ephraim, and he lived to see the birth of
the children of Manasseh’s son Makir, whom he claimed as his own.
“Soon I will die,” Joseph told his brothers, “but God will
surely come to help you and lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring
you back to the land he solemnly promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob.”
Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said,
“When God comes to help you and lead you back, you must take my bones with
you.” So Joseph died at the age of 110. The Egyptians embalmed him, and
his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.
~ Source
: Genesis 50:1-26 [Holy Bible -NLT] taken from https://www.biblegateway.com
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