Context No. 2897 of 4322 · Genesis

Genesis 50:6-14: in context

6Pharaoh said, “Go up, and bury your father, just like he made you swear.” 7Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, all the elders of the land of Egypt, 8all the house of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s house. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. 9Both chariots and horsemen went up with him. It was a very great company. 10They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and severe lamentation. He mourned for his father seven days. 11When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.” Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan. 12His sons did to him just 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, as a possession for a burial site, from Ephron the Hittite, near Mamre. 14Joseph returned into Egypt—he, and his brothers, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

With Pharaoh's blessing, Joseph goes up to bury his father Jacob in Canaan, accompanied by a great company of Egyptian officials, elders, and chariots. They stop at the threshing floor of Atad and mourn seven days, so deeply that the watching Canaanites name the place for the grief of the Egyptians. Then Jacob's sons carry him to the cave of Machpelah, and Joseph returns to Egypt.

Jacob had made Joseph swear to bury him not in Egypt but in the land of promise, in the cave where Abraham and Isaac lay. Even after a life largely spent in Egypt, Jacob's heart was fixed on the promise, and he wanted his bones laid in the land God had sworn to give. The burial in Machpelah is an act of faith, a claim staked on a future inheritance he would never live to see. His grave itself says: my hope is not here in Egypt, but there in what God promised.

Where is my hope finally anchored, in the Egypt where I have lived, or in the promise where I want to be laid to rest?

Sources

Genesis 50:13: "His sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah."
Hebrews 11:22: "By faith, Joseph, when his end was near, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel; and gave instructions concerning his bones."
Genesis 49:29: "Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite."