50:1-3
Joseph mourns the loss of his father, and Jacob is given great honour in Egypt. The embalming and mourning followed Egyptian practices. Genesis ends with Israel being honoured in Egypt, with Egypt having been blessed through Joseph. In the next book we will find a very different situation.
50:4-14
While Jacob had been given the equivalent of a state funeral, Joseph knew that Jacob wanted to be buried in Canaan. The embalming would play a part in enabling this to happen. For without the embalming the body would have decayed and not been able to make the journey, but the embalming probably made the body resistant to this decay. So Joseph went to Pharaoh to make known Jacob’s wishes, and to request that he be allowed to take Jacob’s body to Canaan. Pharaoh readily agrees, sending a number of Egyptian officials with Joseph. There was a very impressive funeral procession and burial in Canaan. So Jacob’s requests had all been fulfilled, and he was buried in the land that Abraham had bought. So even in death he was declaring his faith. In the funerals of believers we declare our faith in the resurrection.
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