Genesis 50 - Summary

Historical setting

This chapter concludes the book of Genesis and the story of Joseph in Egypt. The time is uncertain but traditionally placed in the second millennium before Christ. Jacob has just died in Egypt after spending seventeen years there with Joseph, who rose to prominence during a famine and became the vizier or chief administrator under Pharaoh. Joseph and his family are settled in Goshen, the northeastern part of Egypt, granted to them as a foreign population serving the crown. Egypt at this period was a centralized power under Pharaoh's absolute rule, and Joseph's high rank gives him access to Pharaoh's court and the ability to command resources and personnel.

Life and customs

Embalming was an Egyptian religious practice reserved for important people; the text specifies that the process took forty days, which matches what is known of Egyptian mummification. Mourning periods were formal and lengthy: the Egyptians observed seventy days of mourning for Jacob. For a patriarch like Jacob, a great funeral procession with Egyptian officials would be both a mark of respect and a public display of the deceased's importance and connections. The journey to Canaan to bury Jacob in his family's ancestral tomb at Machpelah followed the Hebrew custom of burial in the homeland, even when death occurred abroad. An oath sworn before death, as Jacob made Joseph swear, carried binding force in ancient Near Eastern culture and was understood to obligate the living.

What the text says

Joseph weeps over his dead father and commands that he be embalmed in the Egyptian manner (verses 1-2). The embalming takes forty days; the Egyptians mourn for seventy days (verse 3). Joseph then requests permission from Pharaoh's court to go to Canaan to bury Jacob as Jacob had made him swear (verses 4-5). Pharaoh grants this (verse 6). A vast procession accompanies Joseph, including Egyptian officials and Joseph's own household, though they leave their livestock and small children in Goshen (verses 7-9). They mourn at the threshingfloor of Atad with great lamentation for seven days; the Canaanites who see this name the place Abelmizraim (verses 10-11). Joseph's sons carry Jacob to Canaan and bury him in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham had purchased (verses 12-13). Joseph returns to Egypt (verse 14).

After Jacob's death, Joseph's brothers fear he will now take revenge for what they did to him years earlier (verse 15). They send a message claiming Jacob commanded them to ask Joseph's forgiveness (verses 16-17). Joseph weeps at their words and his brothers prostrate themselves before him (verses 17-18). Joseph tells them not to fear, saying that though they meant evil against him, "God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive" (verses 19-20). He promises to provide for them and speaks kindly to them (verse 21).

Joseph lives in Egypt with his father's household, living to 110 years old and seeing his great-grandchildren (verses 22-23). Before his death, he tells his brothers that God will visit them and bring them out of Egypt to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and makes them swear to carry his bones from Egypt when that happens (verses 24-25). Joseph dies at 110, is embalmed, and is placed in a coffin in Egypt (verse 26).

Takeaways

• Joseph's forgiveness rests on the belief that God can work good even through human wickedness.
• The elaborate funeral rites and Joseph's command over resources demonstrate how fully he has become part of Egypt while remaining bound to his Hebrew family and homeland.
• Joseph's dying instruction to carry his bones out of Egypt becomes a symbolic connection between the patriarchs' generation and the future exodus of Israel.