Genesis 50:4

Jacob, his father, when dying, had made him swear that he would bury him in the land of Canaan. When Joseph comes to act on his oath, he seems to me to feel that he was about to venture on a serious and risky matter. He clearly braces himself for a task with its own special difficulties. He was high at court, as we may say; after all, the court physicians were his servants (Gen. 50:2). And we know that the resources of the kingdom, the strength and wealth of Egypt, were at that moment in his hand. Yet he still hesitates about burying his father in Canaan. He asks Pharaoh's close relatives to help him and to plead his case.

Why all this? Was it not a small thing for so great a man to do? Yes; but asking to be buried in Canaan was, in some sense, putting a reproach on Egypt. It seemed to say that after all, the Canaan of degradation and poverty was better than the Egypt of honour and wealth.

This was the language of Jacob's request. Joseph felt it was a serious thing to bring such language to Pharaoh's ear. But he did. Faith again triumphed. In this way he is a witness to us. We should let the world learn plainly from us that, with all its progress and promise, it is nothing to us, while what is Christ's, though it looks weak, is our aim.

But when these silent and retired years are about to close, we find him, rather suddenly, stirring and earnest. It is with Joseph, about his burial. He will have Joseph not only promise, but swear, that he will bury him in the land of his fathers (47:30). We never find him urgent about the conditions of his life in Egypt. He seems willing to take what they give him and to be what they make him. But as to his burial, he is now all urgency and decision. He will have it confirmed by an oath: his son must carry his dead body to the land where God gave him the promise. He is earnest and insistent now, as he was indifferent before. For faith likes its title clear, full, and secure.

Joseph then gained a favourable response from Pharaoh as to burying his father's body in Canaan, as he had sworn to Jacob (vv. 4-6). This called for a huge funeral procession all the way from Egypt to Canaan. It included all the elders of the house of Pharaoh and the elders of the land of Egypt... There was nothing like this at the funerals of Abraham or Isaac. But here God is showing us the sovereignty of His great power and grace in producing sympathy among the Gentiles for His people Israel. The nation's immediate father dies, but his descendants remain, and God gives them favour among the Gentiles.

Because they were in Egypt, they kept the burial customs of that land up to a certain 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 assurance of things hoped for" (Heb. 11:1). The things hoped for are real, and faith makes them real to us.