So great was the respect of the Egyptians for Joseph and his family that they embalmed Jacob's body and mourned his death for 70 days (Gen 50:1-3). God had promised to make Abraham's name great (Gen 12:2), and we see here further fulfillment of this promise.
Even so, Joseph's request that he go to Canaan to bury his father was a sensitive one (vv 4-6). Some interpreters--e.g., Rashi---have proposed that Jacob had Joseph swear to take his body to Machpelah (Gen 47:31) in order to give Joseph more leverage with Pharaoh. It has also been proposed that this request caused the Egyptians to begin to question the loyalties of Joseph and his family, a first step toward the enslavement that came later. The request reminds us of the later even more difficult requests that Moses and Aaron made to a later Pharaoh.
An impressive funeral procession, including Egyptian dignitaries along with Israel's children, traveled to Canaan for the burial. We are reminded of prophesied times when the nations will accompany Israel to Zion to worship the true God (Isa 2:1-4; Zech 8:20-23; Zech 14:16).
The procession was also a sort of Exodus, with Egyptian horsemen and chariots as part of the entourage. We do not know the location of the threshing floor of Atad---which side of the Jordan it was on depends on the vantage point of the writer---but if Atad was near the Jordan, then the route followed by the procession bore some resemblance to the actual exodus route.
With Jacob gone, Joseph's brothers worried about what steps he might take against them. They still felt guilty about selling Joseph into slavery. They needn't have worried. Joseph had always shown himself to be concerned about what God thought (Gen 39:9), not about what any human being might think. Joseph repeated what he had told his brothers 17 years before (Gen 45:5-8). God had worked out events in order to save many lives and further his plan.
Early in the book of Genesis, brothers Cain and Abel had been unable to get along. At the end of the book of Genesis, we see reconciliation among brothers.
Joseph was about 56 years old when his father died. He went on to live another 54 years. Commentators point out that in ancient Egyptian culture, 110 is considered to be an ideal lifespan.
We might imagine that since the patriarchs lived long lives---Abraham lived to be 175, Isaac 180, Jacob 147, Joseph 110---that people typically lived longer lives then. But that doesn't seem to be the case. In his commentary on Genesis, John Walton points out that evidence from Egyptian mummies indicates a life expectancy of 40 to 50. The long lives enjoyed by the patriarchs were part of God's blessing to them.
When Joseph died, he asked that his bones be taken back to Canaan when the Israelites returned there. In doing so, he showed faith in God's promises (Heb 11:22). This time there was no big funeral procession to Canaan, a possible indication that Joseph's influence and prestige had already waned a great deal by then.
Kyle Kettering gave a message on Seder 44 at Church of the Messiah on Feb 13, 2021.
No comments:
Post a Comment