And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel.
Jacob has died in Egypt. Joseph weeps over his father, then sends for the court physicians. An Egyptian custom is used on a man whose hope lay outside Egypt. How far could people who belonged elsewhere follow the ways of the land around them?
Healers Put to Another Use
The men Joseph calls are named by their trade, and that trade was healing the living, not tending the dead:
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe Lord said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician," showing that then, as now, the work of such people was to cure diseases. In the Old Testament the word is rapha, "to heal," and in Genesis 50:2 Joseph called on such men to embalm the body of his father, since a certain amount of chemical knowledge was needed for that too.
Joseph's Standing at Court
The verse calls these physicians Joseph's servants. One writer takes that phrase as the measure of how high Joseph had risen. Yet with all that backing, he still moved with care over burying his father in Canaan:
J. G. BellettHe was high at court, as we may say; for, as we read, the physicians, the court physicians, were his servants (Genesis 50:2). And we know the resources of the kingdom, the strength and wealth of the realm of Egypt, were at that moment under his hand. But still he hesitates about the matter of burying his father in Canaan, and gets the help and intercession of Pharaoh's near relatives.
What Embalming Involved
Embalming appears in Scripture only around Jacob and Joseph. Ancient historians describe how it was done:
Morrish Bible DictionaryJacob and Joseph were both embalmed in Egypt, but we never read of the children of Israel practising it. Genesis 50:2-3, 26. The historians Herodotus and Diodorus describe the process of embalming in Egypt... In short, the body lay in nitre — a drying salt — for thirty days, to draw out all its excess and harmful moisture. Sometimes they took out the brain and bowels. Then for forty more days they anointed the body with gums and spices to preserve it. When this was complete, they wrapped it in many bandages and put it in a case shaped roughly like the person.
A Record That Fits Its Own Time
The numbers in the next verse do not quite match Egyptian records from later centuries. One writer treats that gap as a mark of authenticity:
L. M. GrantIn contrast to burial, as in other countries, Joseph gives orders to the physicians to embalm his father. This took forty days, and they mourned him for seventy days (v. 3). Much later, Egyptian history records that for a king, embalming took thirty days and mourning lasted seventy-two days. These are not significant changes. But they clearly imply that no one invented this story later in history, for he would have given the figures he knew.
Egypt's Answer to Death
Embalming was Egypt at its cleverest, a way of holding on to what death had taken. One writer sets that skill beside what believers now know:
G C WillisJoseph told the physicians to embalm the body. Embalming would keep the dead body for hundreds of years. In this matter the Egyptians were very clever. They did not know what we know of resurrection, so they kept those bodies. We Christians know that God will raise the dead. "Who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body."
Egyptian Custom, but Only So Far
Jacob's body received Egyptian treatment; it did not receive an Egyptian resting place. Faith drew the line:
F. B. HoleThey were in Egypt, so they followed the burial customs of that land up to a point. But Jacob's body was not to lie embalmed in an Egyptian tomb. By Jacob's desire, as well as Joseph's, it was to lie in the land of promise. The promise of God was a reality to their faith, since "Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for" (Hebrews 11:1, New Translation). The things hoped for are real, and faith makes them real to us.
(The ESV renders that verse "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for.")
Why the Splendour Belonged to That Age
The rich care given to Jacob's body raises a question for readers today: should funerals be grand? One writer ties the answer to whether resurrection is still only in prospect:
J. G. BellettIn earlier days funerals were to be splendid. Resurrection was then only in prospect, and a funeral was a kind of pledge of the resurrection they expected. It was fitting that the pledge should be magnificent, matching the glory of what it pledged. But now resurrection has become fact in the person of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. So the splendid funeral, like ceremonious worship, is more of a reproach, as if the great mystery itself had not yet become fact in its substance and power.
Summary
- Skill. Joseph put Egypt's healers to preserving the dead, and their craft could keep a body for centuries — human skill at its best against death.
- Custom. Joseph's rank put that whole system at his disposal, and Egyptian practice was followed up to a point.
- Limit. It stopped at the grave. Jacob was embalmed in Egypt, but he was not to stay there, because God's promise was real to faith.
- Pledge. The costly funeral honour of those days was a pledge of a resurrection still only in prospect.
- Fulfilment. What Egypt tried to hold, God will raise. Christ is risen, so the pledge has given way to the fact, and He will make our lowly body like His glorious body.