Genesis 50:4-26

13th February 2011 Off By Derek Buckthorpe

Sermon References :

Genesis50v4t26

 

4: The Egyptians mourned Israel for seventy days.

5: When the period of mourning was over, Joseph spoke to members of Pharaoh’s household; “May I ask a favour – please speak for me to Pharaoh. Tell him that my father on his deathbed made me swear that I would bury him in the grave that he had bought for himself in Canaan. Ask Pharaoh to let me go up and bury my father; and afterwards I shall return.

6: Pharaoh ‘s reply was: “Go and bury your father in accordance with your oath.”

7: So Joseph went up to bury his father and with him went all Pharaoh’s officials, the elders of his household, and all the elders of Egypt,

8: as well as all Joseph’s own household, his brothers, and his father’s household; only their children, with the flocks and herds, were left at Goshen.

9: Chariots as well as horsemen went up with him, a very great company.

10: When they came to the threshing-floor of Atad beside the river Jordan, they raised a loud and bitter lamentation; and Joseph observed seventy days’ mourning for his father.

11: When the Canaanites who lived there saw this mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, they said, “How bitterly the Egyptians are mourning!” So they named the place beside the Jordan Abel-mizraim.

12: This Jacob’s sons did to him as he instructed them:

13: they took him to Canaan and buried him in the cave on the plot of land at Machpelah, the land which Abraham had bought as a burial place form Ephron the Hittite, to the east of Mamre.

14: After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him for the burial.

15: Now that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers were afraid, for they said, “What if Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pay us back for all the harm we did to him?”

16: They therefore sent a messenger to Joseph to say, ‘In his last words to us before he died, your father gave us this message:

17: “Say this to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers’ crime and wickedness; I know they did you harm.” So now we beg you: forgive our crime, for we are servants of your father’s God.’ Joseph was moved to tears by their words.

18: His brothers approached and bowed to the ground before him. ‘We are your slaves,” they said.

19: But Joseph replied, “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

20: You meant to do me harm; but God meant to bring good out of it by preserving the lives of many people, as we see today.

21: Do not be afraid. I shall provide for you and your dependants.” Thus he comforted them and set their minds at rest.

22: Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s household. He lived to be a hundred and ten years old,

23: and saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation; he also recognized as his the children of Manasseh’s son Machir.

24: He said to his brothers, “I am about to die; but God will not fail to come to your aid and take you from here to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

25: He made the sons of Israel solemnly swear that when God came to their aid, they would carry his bones up with them form there.

26: So Joseph died in Egypt at the age of a hundred and ten, and he was embalmed and laid in a coffin.