The Death of Joseph. 

Genesis 50:1-26

Bible Stories

Genesis 50:1 Joseph, realizing this, fell upon his father’s face, weeping and kissing him.

Genesis 50:2 And he instructed his servant physicians to embalm his father with aromatics.

Genesis 50:3 And while they were fulfilling his orders, forty days passed. For this was the method of embalming dead bodies. And Egypt wept for him for seventy days.

Genesis 50:4 And when the time for mourning was fulfilled, Joseph spoke to the family of Pharaoh: “If I have found favor in your sight, speak to the ears of Pharaoh.

Genesis 50:5 For my father made me swear, saying: ‘See, I am dying. You shall bury me in my sepulcher which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Therefore, I shall go up and bury my father, and then return.”

Genesis 50:6 And Pharaoh said to him, “Go up and bury your father, just as he made you swear.”

Genesis 50:7 So as he went up, all the elders of the house of Pharaoh went with him, along with every patriarch in the land of Egypt,

Genesis 50:8 and the house of Joseph with his brothers, except their little ones and flocks and also the herds, which they left behind in the land of Goshen.

Genesis 50:9 Likewise, he had in his company chariots and horsemen. And it became a crowd without restraint.

Genesis 50:10 And they arrived at the threshing place of Atad, which is situated beyond the Jordan. There they spent seven full days celebrating the funeral rites with a great and vehement lamentation.

Genesis 50:11 And when the inhabitants of the land of Canaan had seen this, they said, “This is a great Lamentation for the Egyptians.” And for this reason, the name of that place was called, “The Lamentation of Egypt.”

Genesis 50:12 And so, the sons of Jacob did just as he had instructed them.

Genesis 50:13 And carrying him into the land of Canaan, they buried him in the double cave, which Abraham had bought along with its field, from Ephron the Hittite, as a possession for burial, opposite Mamre.

Genesis 50:14 And Joseph returned into Egypt with his brothers and all those of his company, having buried his father.

Genesis 50:15 Now that he was dead, his brothers were afraid, and they said to one another: “Perhaps now he may remember the injury that he suffered and requite us for all the evil that we did to him.”

Genesis 50:16 So they sent a message to him, saying: “Your father instructed us before he died,

Genesis 50:17 that we should say these words to you from him: ‘I beg you to forget the wickedness of your brothers, and the sin and malice that they practiced against you.’ Likewise, we petition you to release the servants of the God of your father from this iniquity.” Hearing this, Joseph wept.

Genesis 50:18 And his brothers went to him. And reverencing prostrate on the ground, they said, “We are your servants.”

Genesis 50:19 And he answered them: “Do not be afraid. Are we able to resist the will of God? 

Genesis 50:20 You devised evil against me. But God turned it into good, so that he might exalt me, just as you presently discern, and so that he might bring about the salvation of many peoples.

Genesis 50:21 Do not be afraid. I will pasture you and your little ones.” And he consoled them, and he spoke mildly and leniently.

Genesis 50:22 And he lived in Egypt with all his father’s house; and he survived for one hundred and ten years. And he saw the sons of Ephraim to the third generation. Likewise, the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were born onto Joseph’s knees.

Genesis 50:23 After these things happened, he said to his brothers: “God will visit you after my death, and he will make you ascend from this land into the land which he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Genesis 50:24 And when he had made them swear and had said, “God will visit you; carry my bones with you from this place,”

Genesis 50:25 he died, having completed one hundred and ten years of his life. And having been embalmed with aromatics, he was laid to rest in a coffin in Egypt.