Genesis 50King James Version
Joseph weeps over his father's face and kisses him. The Egyptians mourn for seventy days. Joseph and his brothers carry Jacob back to Canaan and bury him in the cave of Machpelah. The brothers, terrified that Joseph will now take revenge, beg his forgiveness. Joseph weeps and tells them, 'Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.' Joseph dies at one hundred and ten, and the book ends with his coffin in Egypt, awaiting the day his bones will go home.
Joseph falls on his father's face weeping. The Egyptians embalm Jacob for 70 days. A great procession goes to Canaan to bury him at Machpelah. After the burial, the brothers fear Joseph will now take revenge. They fabricate a message from Jacob asking forgiveness. Joseph weeps at the request and tells them: do not fear. You meant evil against me; God meant it for good. He lives until 110, sees his great-grandchildren, and asks his descendants to carry his bones to Canaan when God brings them there. He dies, is embalmed, and is put in a coffin in Egypt.
Genesis ends not with resolution or arrival but with a coffin in Egypt and a promise: the bones will go home when the time comes, which means the story is not finished.
20: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." The whole arc of the Joseph story, and arguably of Genesis, is compressed into this sentence.
Egyptian embalming took 40 days; the national mourning period was 70 days. The burial procession to Hebron was a major state event: chariots, horsemen, Egyptian officials. The Canaanites watching see it and name the place Abel Mizraim, meadow of Egypt. Joseph's own burial in a coffin in Egypt is the last image of Genesis, the same coffin that will be carried in the wilderness for 40 years, waiting to come home.
Joseph, forgiving again and dying well; the brothers, afraid to the end that the forgiveness was temporary; Ephraim and Manasseh, who grow to children's children in Joseph's sight; the Egyptian court, which mourns Jacob.
The book ends with a coffin, which is deliberately open-ended: Exodus will begin with the bones still there and the promise still owed. Joseph's request echoes Abraham's purchase of Machpelah and points forward to the Exodus. His final act is a covenant gesture: swear you will take my bones. Moses honors the request in Exodus 13.
For when you are not sure the forgiveness was real, and you test it after the common threat is gone. The brothers send a message after Jacob dies because they wonder if the protection dies with him. Joseph's response is tears at being doubted, not anger. He has already said what he means.
1And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.
2And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.
3And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.
4And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,
5My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.
6And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.
7And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,
8And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.
9And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.
10And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.
11And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan.
12And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:
13For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.
14And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.
15And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.
16And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
17So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.
18And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
19And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
20But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
21Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.
22And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.
23And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph's knees.
24And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
25And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.
26So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.