Mourning and Burial for Jacob

50 Then Joseph fell upon his father’s face, wept over him, and kissed him.

2 And Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So they embalmed him, 3 taking the forty days required to complete the 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 favor in your eyes, please tell Pharaoh that 5 my father made me swear an oath when he said, ‘I am about to die. You must bury me in the tomb that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.’ Now let me go and bury my father, and then return.”

6 Pharaoh replied, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.”

7 Then Joseph went to bury his father, and all the servants of Pharaoh accompanied him—the elders of Pharaoh’s household and all the elders of the land of Egypt— 8 along with all of Joseph’s household, and his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children and flocks and herds were left in Goshen.

9 Chariots and horsemen alike went up with him, and it was an exceedingly large procession. 10 When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan, they lamented and wailed loudly, and Joseph mourned for his father seven days.

11 When the Canaanites of the land saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a solemn ceremony of mourning by the Egyptians.” Thus the place across the Jordan is called Abel-mizraim.[fn]

12 So Jacob’s sons did as he had charged them. 13 They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave at Machpelah in the field near Mamre, which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site.

14 After Joseph had buried his father, he returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone with him to bury his father.