Genesis 49:29-50:14

Evangelical Heritage Version

²⁹ He instructed them and said to them, “I am going to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰ in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, which is near Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham purchased along with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a burial place. ³¹ There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah. ³² The field and the cave that is in it was purchased from the descendants of Heth.”^[a]

The Death and Burial of Jacob

³³ When Jacob finished instructing his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, breathed his last breath, and was gathered to his people.

50 Joseph put his face against his father’s face, wept over him, and kissed him. ² Joseph commanded the physicians who served him to embalm his father, so the physicians embalmed Israel. ³ Forty days were set aside for him, for that is how many days it takes to embalm. The Egyptians mourned for him for seventy days.

⁴ When the days of mourning for Jacob were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh. He said, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak directly to Pharaoh for me and say ⁵ that my father made me take an oath. He said to me, ‘Look, I am dying. Bury me in my tomb that I have dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will return here again.”

⁶ Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, just as he made you swear to do.”

⁷ Joseph went up to bury his father, and all the officials of Pharaoh went up with him: the senior officials of Pharaoh’s household, all the elders of the land of Egypt, ⁸ all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. ⁹ Both chariots and horsemen went up with him. It was a very great entourage.

¹⁰ They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is on the other side of the Jordan, and there they mourned with a very loud and bitter lament. Joseph mourned for his father seven days. ¹¹ When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, witnessed the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a very solemn mourning by the Egyptians.” That is why they named the place Abel Mizraim.^[b] It is beyond the Jordan. ¹² His sons did for him just what he commanded them to do: ¹³ They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field at Machpelah, which Abraham had purchased along with the field. He purchased it from Ephron the Hittite, as a piece of property for a burial site near Mamre. ¹⁴ After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt—he and his brothers, and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.