Chapter 50
Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Joseph fell on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him.
2Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel.
3Forty days were required for him, for that is how many days embalming takes, and the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.
4When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh. “If I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh and say,
5‘My father made me swear. He said, I am about to die. In the grave I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me. Now please let me go up and bury my father, and I will return.’”
6Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear.”
7Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went all Pharaoh’s servants, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,
8and all Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds they left in the land of Goshen.
9Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very great company.
10They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they lamented there with a very great and heavy lamentation, and he observed seven days of mourning for his father.
11The inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, and they said, “This is a heavy mourning for the Egyptians.” Therefore it was named Abel-mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
Notes (1)Hide notes
- Translation
Abel-mizraim can be heard as “mourning of Egypt.” Abel is also a word for a meadow. The name is printed, and the Canaanites’ remark is what the verse gives as the reason.
12His sons did for him just as he had commanded them.
13His sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, the field facing Mamre, which Abraham had bought as a burial holding from Ephron the Hittite.
14After 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.
15Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, and they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge against us and repays us for all the harm we did to him?”
16So they sent a message to Joseph: “Your father gave a command before he died.
17‘This is what you shall say to Joseph: Please forgive the crime of your brothers and their sin, for they did you harm.’ Now please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
18His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Here we are, your slaves.”
19Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?
20You planned harm against me. God planned it for good, in order to do as it is this day, to keep many people alive.
21So now, do not be afraid. I myself will provide for you and for your little ones.” He comforted them and spoke to their hearts.
22Joseph lived in Egypt, he and his father’s household. Joseph lived one hundred and ten years.
23Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children of Machir son of Manasseh were also born on Joseph’s knees.
24Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
25Joseph made the sons of Israel swear. He said, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry my bones up from here.”
26Joseph died, being one hundred and ten years old. They embalmed him, and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.