Genesis Chapter 50

Jacob is embalmed, mourned, and buried at Machpelah; Joseph reassures his fearful brothers that God meant their evil for good, and dies trusting God’s promised visitation.

Genesis 50:1-6

Mourning and Embalming in Egypt

Genesis 50:7-14

The Funeral Journey to Machpelah

Genesis 50:15-21

Fear Answered by Forgiveness

Genesis 50:22-26

Joseph’s Last Charge and Death

Genesis 50:1

The chapter division falls awkwardly, for the verse continues straight from 49:33, where Jacob gathered up his feet into the bed and breathed his last. Before anything is said about funerals, courtiers, or Pharaoh, the narrator shows a son bent over his father’s body. Joseph “fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.” The three verbs are simple and physical. God had told Jacob at Beersheba that Joseph would “put his hand upon thine eyes” (46:4), and the promise is kept in this scene: the son Jacob had mourned as torn by beasts is the one who closes his eyes.

Only Joseph’s grief is described, which need not mean the other sons felt nothing. Joseph is the most openly emotional figure in Genesis; he has wept on meeting his brothers, on seeing Benjamin, on revealing himself, and on embracing his father in Goshen (42:24; 43:30; 45:2, 14; 46:29). Here his tears are those of bereavement. The kiss is the gesture of farewell, the same that Laban gave his daughters and grandchildren when he parted from them (31:55).

Scripture never treats grief at death as a failure of faith. Abraham came “to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her” (23:2), and Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus while knowing he would raise him (John 11:35). Paul does not forbid believers to sorrow; he asks them not to sorrow “as others which have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Joseph’s tears and his later insistence on burial in Canaan belong together: he grieves a real loss and still holds to the promise his father died believing.

Study Links

Cross References

Genesis 46:4Genesis 23:2

Word / Phrase Notes

וַיֵּבְךְּ עָלָיו וַיִּשַּׁק־לוֹ (vayyevk ‘alayw vayyishshaq-lo) — and wept upon him, and kissed him

Bakah is the ordinary verb for weeping aloud, and it marks the turning points of Joseph’s story. The preposition “upon” pictures him bent over the body. Nashaq, “to kiss,” is used for greeting and for farewell; Joseph had kissed his brothers when he made himself known (45:15), and Orpah kissed Naomi when she parted from her (Ruth 1:14). Here it is the last kiss given to the dead.

Genesis 45:15Genesis 31:55