Genesis 50 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Genesis 50:1-14

1 Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. 2 Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, 3 taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

4 When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s court, ‘If I have found favour in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him, 5 “My father made me swear an oath and said, ‘I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.”’

6 Pharaoh said, ‘Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.’

7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him – the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt – 8 besides all the members of Joseph’s household and his brothers and those belonging to his father’s household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. 9 Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.

10 When they reached the threshing-floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. 11 When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, they said, ‘The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning.’ That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.

12 So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them: 13 they carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. 14 After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father.

A. Find Out:

1. What was done at Joseph’s command? v.2,3
2. What did Joseph request of Pharaoh? v.5
3. Who went with Joseph? v.7-9
4. What was done near the Jordan? v.10
5. Where was Jacob buried? v.13
6. Then what did they do? v.14

B. Think:

1. What does Joseph’s action tell us about him?
2. What does Pharaoh’s response tell us about Joseph?
3. What does the whole thing say about Jacob?

C. Comment:

Jacob had made Joseph promise that when he died Joseph would take him back to Canaan to bury him. Joseph (by the way he asked) wondered how Pharaoh would feel about him leaving the country but, to honor his father, he risks asking.  Perhaps this is the reason why Joseph and the rest of the family remained on in Egypt and didn’t return to live in Canaan, perhaps Pharaoh realised that blessing accompanied this man, and didn’t want to let him go.

He grants Jacob what we would call today a “State Funeral” accompanied by all the top people, all the way up to Canaan (to ensure Joseph comes back perhaps?). When they got there, there was a full week’s state mourning. What was Pharaoh doing? Well perhaps it was a combination of his gratefulness to Joseph together with a bribe to continue to hold his loyalty and overcome any temptation to stay in his homeland.  In it all Joseph very clearly honors his father.  His initial anguish, the mourning for seventy days, the returning his father to Canaan, and his mourning for a further seven days, all reveal the extent of his love for his father. There is nothing halfhearted about his love and his feelings for his father or about this funeral!  Honoring his father is just another example of this man’s righteousness.

D. Application?

1. Above all else this passage shows us Joseph honoring his father. Do we honor our parents with such feeling as Joseph did?
2. Thank the Lord for your parents today.

Passage: Genesis 50:15-21

15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?’ 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, ‘Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 “This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.” Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.’ When their message came to him, Joseph wept.

18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. ‘We are your slaves,’ they said.

19 But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

A. Find Out:

1. What did the brothers fear? v.15
2. What did they say Jacob had asked? v.16,17
3. What was Joseph’s response? v.17c
4. What did they say they were? v.18
5. What did Joseph say they had intended? v.20a
6. But what had God purposed in it? v.20b

B. Think:

1. What did the brothers now realize?
2. Why do you think Joseph wept?
3. What understanding did Joseph have?

C. Comment:

Within this passage is one of the most wonderful statements of the Old Testament. Verse 20 ought to be memorized, so wonderful is it. The brothers rightly realize their protection, their father, is no longer there.  They are completely at Joseph’s mercy, and he has every reason to want to get his own back for what they did to him, selling him into slavery and years of life in prison.  Whether their story about Jacob’s request is true or not is not clear. Quite possibly it is just the brothers’ way of trying to get round Joseph. When Joseph hears the message, he is moved to tears, either by his father’s concern or even perhaps by his sadness at his brothers’ fear which is now groundless.

He shares with them his understanding: they had done what they had done out of wrong motives, but God had planned it for good to save many lives. Psalm 105:17 says “he (God) sent a man before them”. God who knows men’s hearts, knows what provocation will be necessary to set things in motion, and in this case a couple of dreams would do the job! In Jesus’ case, truth and miracles would do it. Acts 2:23 shows that Jesus’ death, like Joseph’s “death” (to his father at least) was all within God’s plan [see “How to Build a Church” in this Series].

D. Application?

1. Do we give forgiveness, by understanding the heart of God?
2. Ask the Lord to give you that understanding.

Passage: Genesis 50:22-26

22 Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father’s family. He lived a hundred and ten years 23 and saw the third generation of Ephraim’s children. Also the children of Makir son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph’s knees.

24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ 25 And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, ‘God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.’

26 So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

A. Find Out:

1. How long did Joseph live? v.22
2. Of what was he aware? v.24a
3. What did he prophesy? v.24b
4. What did he want them to do? v.25b
5. When would that happen? v.25a
6. Where was he placed in a coffin? v.26

B. Think:

1. What does this passage tell us about Joseph in his last days?
2. Look up Exodus 13:19 to see how Joseph was honored.
3. Look up Hebrews 11:22 Why was Joseph commended?

C. Comment:

The end is near; Joseph senses it. He has lived long and seen his family grow up around him and have their own children and even grandchildren. The years have been good to him but the end is near. In his last days he gathered his brothers together (?those that were left?) and told them that God WOULD deliver them OUT of this land and INTO the land of their fathers that had been promised to them.

In doing this, this man who had been through so much, stretches forth in faith to what God has already said about their future (see: to Abram, Genesis 15:13-16; to Isaac, Genesis 26:3,4; to Jacob, Genesis 35:12). Joseph has learned that when God says something He means it and He WILL fulfil it.  In making this declaration of faith Joseph earns himself a place in the list of men and women of faith in Hebrews 11.

Note also that some hundreds of years later Moses honors Joseph’s death request and takes his bones with them as they finally leave Egypt.   He is a man to be honored, for he has preserved the nation!  He has been through much to be in the place where God can use him, and be the sort of man God can use. This has been the story of an apparently spoilt brat who becomes a great man!

D. Application?

1. May we be people of faith like Joseph who hold to God’s word to the very end!
2. Thank the Lord for the account of Joseph.