Commentaria in Genesim
Chapter Fifty. Synopsis of the Chapter
Joseph, with his brethren and the Egyptians, mourns his dead father, and buries him in Hebron. Secondly, verse 15, he comforts his brethren, fearful on account of their crime. Thirdly, verse 22, he dies, and desires to be buried in Chanaan.
1. Which when Joseph saw, he fell upon his father’s face, weeping and kissing him. 2. And he commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father with spices. 3. And while they were fulfilling his commands, there passed forty days: for this was the manner with bodies that were embalmed, and Egypt mourned for him seventy days. 4. And when the time of mourning was expired, Joseph said to the family of Pharao: If I have found favour in your sight, speak in the ears of Pharao: 5. For my father made me swear to him, saying: Behold I die: in my sepulchre which I have dug for myself in the land of Chanaan, thou shalt bury me. I will go up therefore, and bury my father, and return. 6. And Pharao said to him: Go up and bury thy father, as he made thee swear. 7. So he went up, and there went with him all the ancients of Pharao’s house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt: 8. The house of Joseph with his brethren, except their little ones, and the flocks, and herds, which they left in the land of Gessen. 9. He had also in his train chariots and horsemen: and it was a great company. 10. And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is situated beyond the Jordan: where celebrating the exequies with a great and vehement lamentation, they spent full seven days. 11. And when the inhabitants of Chanaan saw it, they said: This is a great mourning to the Egyptians. And therefore the name of that place was called, The mourning of Egypt. 12. So the sons of Jacob did as he had commanded them. 13. And carrying him into the land of Chanaan, they buried him in the double cave, which Abraham had bought with the field, for a possession of a burying place, of Ephron the Hethite, over against Mambre. 14. And Joseph returned into Egypt with his brethren, and all that were in his company, after he had buried his father. 15. Now he being dead, his brethren were afraid, and talking one with another: Lest perhaps he should remember the wrong he suffered, and requite us all the evil that we did him, 16. They sent a message to him, saying: Thy father commanded us before he died, 17. That we should say this to thee from him: I beseech thee to forget the wickedness of thy brethren, and the sin and malice they practised against thee: and we also pray thee to forgive the servants of the God of thy father this wickedness. And when Joseph heard this, he wept. 18. And his brethren came to him: and falling down before him on the ground, said: We are thy servants. 19. And he answered them: Fear not: can we resist the will of God? 20. You thought evil against me: but God turned it into good, that he might exalt me, as at present you see, and might save many people. 21. Fear not: I will feed you and your children: and he comforted them, and spoke gently and mildly. 22. And he dwelt in Egypt with all his father’s house; and lived a hundred and ten years. 23. And he saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasses were born on Joseph’s knees. 24. After which he said to his brethren: God will visit you after my death, and will make you go up out of this land, to the land which he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25. And when he had made them swear to him, saying: God will visit you, carry my bones with you out of this place: 26. He died, being a hundred and ten years old. And being embalmed with spices, he was laid in a coffin in Egypt.
Verse 2. THE PHYSICIANS, TO EMBALM HIS FATHER WITH SPICES,—that is, with aromatics, which also preserve the corpse from putrefaction: namely with balsam, myrrh, cassia and other spices, and give it a pleasant smell. The Egyptians were singular in this art of embalming bodies; this is attested even today by mummies, that is, bodies buried many hundreds of years ago, which are now dug up and sold, and serve apothecaries for medicines: for these are brought from Egypt. The Egyptian manner of embalming is related by Herodotus, book 2, and Diodorus, book 1.
Anagogically, Rabanus says: “Happy is that soul which, embalmed with the spices of virtues, while it dwells in the coffin of the body is reserved for everlasting life” (1).
Verse 5. WHICH I DUG.—“I dug” means I bought. So Osee “dug,” that is, bought a wife for himself, Osee 3:2. Whence this phrase has sprung, I have said there.
You will say: In verse 13 it is said that not Jacob but Abraham bought this sepulchral cave. I answer: Abraham bought it; but when afterwards a dispute about it was raised against Jacob by the Hethites, Jacob was forced to buy it a second time. Others explain thus: “which I dug,” or bought, that is, which Abraham my grandfather bought, whose son and heir I am.
But I say that “dug” is here taken simply; for in this double and spacious cave various sepulchres could be dug out; Jacob therefore dug his own for himself. So Vatablus, Pererius and others.
Verse 10. THE THRESHING-FLOOR OF ATAD.—This floor is called in Hebrew Atad, from the multitude of thorns. The place is situated, says Procopius, near Jericho; its name now is “Betagla,” that is, the house of the circle. For when they mourned the dead Jacob there, they stood round the corpse in the manner of a circle and crown. So St. Jerome, except that he says they went round the corpse, which was the custom of the ancient Gentiles, as is plain from Homer and Virgil; and then they called out to the dead Hail and Farewell, and prayed for them that the earth be light, and for peace and rest, as Kirchmann teaches, book 3
BEYOND THE JORDAN.—For those coming from Chanaan; for to those coming from Egypt Atad is on this side of the Jordan.
Note: Joseph with his people made this mourning at Atad, not at Hebron where his father was to be buried, lest, if they remained so long at Hebron, in the inmost part of Chanaan, they should rouse some suspicion of treachery among the Chananites, or bring upon themselves quarrels or war with them. At Atad, therefore, Joseph with all his company mourned his father seven days; thence he went on to Hebron, and having buried his father there, returned home at once. So St. Augustine (2).
Verse 15. The Hebrew is: perhaps Joseph may hold us in hatred
Verse 16. THEY SENT WORD.—They sent a messenger, or envoy, perhaps Benjamin, who was innocent and Joseph’s brother by the same mother, to ask this of Joseph in the name not so much of himself as of the dead father. The brethren seem to lie here, and to abuse their father’s name, so that, being ill at ease in conscience, they may shelter themselves by it. For the father, being certain by experience of Joseph’s virtue, mildness and charity shown to his brethren, feared nothing evil from him for his brethren; and if he had feared it, he would, while living, have told Joseph so, and obtained for them full pardon and forgetfulness of the past.
Verse 17. TO THE SERVANTS—(so it should be read with the Hebrews, OF THE GOD OF THY FATHER,—that is, that you forgive the iniquity we have committed against you to us who are the servants of God, the true God and God of our ancestors, whom your father worshipped.
JOSEPH WEPT—grieving that his brethren were anxious and distrusted his reconciliation.