Genesis 50:13, commentary and pictures

Jacob's sons carried his body from Egypt into the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, fulfilling his request to be buried in Canaan and completing the account of his death and burial. The burial place was the cave with the field of Machpelah before Mamre at Kirjath-arba, which is Hebron, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace. It was first bought to bury Sarah. That family burial place held the remains of the patriarchs and their wives and became the revered final resting-place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah, with Rachel alone of the patriarchal family buried elsewhere.

The verse stands in Genesis 12-50, which records God's dealings with the chosen race, distinct from Genesis 1-11, which records God's dealings with the human race. The burial is part of the story of God's care in preserving the ancestors of the promised Seed. It shows the regard paid to Jacob in Egypt. Jacob's request to be buried there showed his attachment to his family's promised homeland and his pilgrim spirit.

The carrying of Jacob out of Egypt for burial in Canaan proves Israel never gave up its ownership of Canaan even after famine forced refuge in Egypt. Ancestral tombs are titles to possession of land, and keeping the sepulchres of the fathers in sight kept their title alive. Carrying Jacob back was therefore a continuing act of ownership that maintained and perpetuated Israel's right. Joseph assured Israel of return to that inheritance, and their Egyptian oppressors, kindred to the peoples then occupying Palestine, refused to let them go for fear they would claim the inheritance of their fathers.

Jacob's children honored their father by carrying his body to Canaan and burying him at Machpelah beside his ancestors, and this funeral and the care shown illustrate the fifth commandment's authority in patriarchal family life. The sons' funeral march with his body to a distant and foreign land into Canaan to place his mortal form beside the dust of his father was an act of respect, care, and burial that honors father by children and continues the domestic pattern of God's chosen servants. It proves that honor to parents was not new at Sinai but was already God's subsisting law from the beginning, afterward written as the fifth commandment, controlling the patriarchs for twenty-five hundred years before its consecration at Sinai.

The verse belongs to the life of Joseph that contains underlying principles designed to guide dealing with the various contingencies of life. It gives a counterpart to human experience whose practical lessons should be as familiar as one's own name for the good of the soul and for giving counsel to others in similar difficulties, with the Bible as the guidebook to be trusted with confidence to the very end. The verse belongs to Joseph's history, which illustrates that God can lead a person by a winding path and still bring him to the destination God intends. The surrounding passage of Genesis 50:7-14 is Joseph's splendid funeral procession, presenting the patriarchal past as vivid human history preserved in the Old Testament.