Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. Genesis 50:1-13 The honour paid to the departed Jacob T. H. Leale. I. PRIVATE. 1. The tears of his family. 2. The respect paid to last wishes. II. PUBLIC. ( T. H. Leale. ) Ceremonies after death M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D. The order of the ceremonies alluded to, and on the whole agreeing with classical and monumental records, was as follows: 1. When the extinction of the vital breath could no longer be doubted, the relatives began a preliminary mourning, perhaps observed during the day of death only (ver. 1), and consisting in public lamentations, in covering the head and the face with mud (or dust), girding up the garments, and beating the breasts. 2. Then the body was delivered up to the embalmers, who, in the case of Jacob, completed their work in forty days (ver. 3), though it more frequently required seventy. 3. Simultaneously with the operations of embalming commenced the chief or real mourning, which, lasting about seventy days (ver. 3), usually ended together with the process of mummification, but which, in the instance of the patriarch, exceeded it by thirty days. 4. The body, after having been enclosed in a case of wood or stone (ver. 26), was then either deposited in the family vaults (ver. 13), or placed in a sepulchral chamber of the house of the nearest relative (ver. 26). ( M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D. ) Three modes of embalming M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D. 1. If the most expensive mode, estimated at one talent of silver, or about £250, was employed, the brain was first taken out through the nostrils, partly with an iron (or bronze) hook, and partly by the infusion of drugs; then an appointed dissector made with a sharp Ethiopian stone, a deep incision (generally about five inches long) in the left side, at a part before marked out by a scribe; but having scarcely performed this operation, he hastily fled, persecuted by those present with stones and imprecations, as one who was guilty of the heinous crime of violently mutilating the body of a fellow-man. Then one of the embalmers, holy men, who lived in the society of the priests, and enjoyed unreserved access to the temples, extracted through the incision all intestines, except the kidneys and the heart; every part of the viscera was spiced, rinsed with palm-wine, and sprinkled with pounded perfumes. The body was next filled with pure myrrh, cassia, and other aromatics, with the exception of frankincense; sewed up, and steeped in natrum during seventy days, after the expiration of which period it was washed, and wrapped in bandages of linen cloth covered with gum. By this procedure all the parts of the body, even the hair of the eyebrows and eyelids, were admirably preserved, and the very features of the countenance remained unaltered. 2. The cost of the second mode of embalming amounted to twenty mince, or about; £81. No incision was made, nor were the bowels taken out; but the body was, by means of syringes, filled with oil of cedar at the abdomen, and steeped in natrum for seventy days. When the oil was let out, the intestines and vitals came out in a state of dissolution, while the natrum consumed the flesh, so that nothing of the body remained except the skin and the bones; and this skeleton was returned to the relatives of the deceased. The possibility of an injection, as here described, without the aid of incisions, has been doubted; and, in some cases, incisions have indeed been observed near the rectum. 3. A third and very cheap method, employed for the poorer classes, consisted merely in thoroughly rinsing the abdomen with syrmaea, a purgative liquor (perhaps composed of an infusion of senna and cassia), and then steeping the body in natrum for the usual seventy days. ( M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D. ) Forgive. Genesis 50:15-19 The message of his brethren to Joseph A. Fuller. The death of great characters being often followed by great changes; conscious guilt being always alive to fear; and the chasm which succeeds a funeral, inviting a flood of foreboding apprehensions, they find out a new source of trouble. But how can they disclose their suspicions? To have done it personally would have been too much for either him or them to bear, let him take it as he might. So they "sent messengers unto him," to sound him. We know not who they were; but if Benjamin were one of them, it was no more than might be expected. Mark the delicacy and exquisite tenderness of the message. Nothing is said of their suspicions, only that the petition implies them; yet it is expressed in such a manner as cannot offend, but must needs melt the heart of Joseph, even though he had been possessed of less affection than he was. 1. They introduce themselves as acting under the direction of a mediator, and this mediator was none other than their deceased father. He commanded us, say they, before he died, that we should say thus and thus. And was it possible for Joseph to be offended with them for obeying his orders? But stop a moment. May we not make a similar use of what our Saviour said to us before He died? He commanded us to say, "Our Father — forgive us our debts." Can we not make the same use of this as Jacob's sons did of their father's commandment? 2. They present the petition as coming from their father: "Forgive, I pray thee, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil." And was it possible to refuse complying with his father's desire? The intercessor, it is to be observed, does not go about to extenuate the sin of the offenders, but frankly acknowledges it, and that, if justice were to take its course, they must be punished. Neither does he plead their subsequent repentance as the ground of pardon, but requests that it may be done for his sake, or on account of the love which the offended bore to him. 3. They unite their own confession and petition to that of their father. Moreover, though they must make no merit of anything pertaining to themselves, yet if there be a character which the offended party is known to esteem above all others, and they be conscious of sustaining that character, it will be no presumption to make mention of it. And this is what they do, and that in a manner which must make a deep impression upon a heart like that of Joseph. "And now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father." It were sufficient to have gained their point, even though Joseph had been reluctant, to have pleaded their being children of the same father, and that father making it, as it were, his dying request; but the consideration of their being "the servants of his father's God" was overcoming. But this is not all: they go in person, and "fall before his face," and offer to be his "servants." This extreme abasement on their part seems to have given a kind of gentle indignancy to Joseph's feelings. His mind revolted at it. It seemed to him too much. "Fear not, saith he: for am I in the place of God?" As if he should say, "It may belong to God to take vengeance; but for a sinful worm of the dust, who himself needs forgiveness, to do so, were highly presumptuous: you have therefore nothing to fear from me. What farther forgiveness you need, seek it of Him." ( A. Fuller. ) Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. Genesis 50:20 Good out of evil E. Bersier, D. D. 1. God permits evil, but from the evil He unceasingly causes good to proceed. If good were not destined to conquer evil, God would be conquered, or rather God would cease to be. 2. Since the Scriptures call us to be imitators of God, like Him we must endeavour to draw good out of evil. For believing souls there is a Divine alchemy. Its aim is to transform evil into good. Evil, considered as a trial, comes from three different sources: it comes either from God, through the afflictions of life; from men, through their animosity; from ourselves, through our fault. We may learn Divine lessons from sorrow, and lessons of wisdom from our enemies; we may even gather instruction from our faults. ( E. Bersier, D. D. ) Providence W. M. Taylor, D. D. I. BY THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD I MEAN THAT PRESERVING AND CONTROLLING SUPERINTENDENCE WHICH HE EXERCISES OVER ALL THE OPERATIONS OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, AND ALL THE ACTIONS OF MORAL AGENTS; or, as the Shorter Catechism has succinctly expressed it, "His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions." That there is such a thing is clearly taught in the Word of God, is matter of daily observation, and follows naturally and necessarily from the very fact of creation. That which could be produced alone by the will of the Omnipotent can be maintained and regulated only by the same volition. II. Advancing now another step, it will follow from the reasoning which we have just concluded THAT THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IS UNIVERSAL, having respect to every atom of creation and every incident of life. Take any critical event, either in the history of a nation or the life of an individual, and you will discover that it has depended on the coming together and co-operation of many smaller things, which, humanly speaking, might very easily have been, and indeed almost were, different. Hence there can be no watchful superintendence over those things which are confessedly important unless there be also a care over those which to men seem trivial. III. Advancing yet another step, we may observe that THIS UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE IS CARRIED ON IN HARMONY WITH, OR RATHER PERHAPS I OUGHT TO SAY BY MEANS OF, THOSE MODES OF OPERATION WHICH WE CALL NATURAL LAWS. "This is, in fact, the great miracle of Providence, that no miracles are needed to accomplish its purposes." IV. But taking yet another step, we may lay it down as a further principle THAT GOD'S PROVIDENCE IS CARRIED ON FOR MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ENDS. There is a retributive element in the workings of Providence. We see, we cannot but see, that idleness is followed by rags, intemperance by disease, dishonesty by suffering or dishonour, and deceit by cruelty. One cannot take up a newspaper without having that fact sternly confronting him from almost every column; and though the Nemesis may be long in overtaking the guilty, sooner or later the wrong-doer is brought low, and men are constrained to say, "Verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth." Thus in the universe of God the moral and the physical go hand in hand, and still the law is vindicated in morals as in the fields of the agriculturist: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." V. But if that be so, we are prepared now to put the copestone on the pyramid of our discourse by saying THAT THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD CONTEMPLATES THE HIGHEST GOOD OF THOSE WHO ARE ON THE SIDE OF HOLINESS AND TRUTH. "All things work together for good to them who love God." "God meant it unto good." ( W. M. Taylor, D. D. ) Difficulties in providence mitigated by revelation Dean Vaughan. The sound of the words is comforting. They were spoken by a brother to his brethren, in reference to events long past, yet still vivid and present to memory and to conscience. No sorrow, and no sin, ever quite dies. No lapse of time, no length of experience, no depth of repentance, can absolutely divide the one life into two, while the person is the same, or cut off the thing that was from the thing that is. But there may come a time when even suffering — in a certain sense, when even sin — may be regarded in a light subdued and softened; when the bitterest trial of the whole life, however mingled and entangled (as most of life's bitterest trials are) with human unkindness and human sin, shall be seen to have had in it a kind as well as a cruel intention; when the old man, or the dying man, shall be able to distinguish in the retrospect between man's part in it and God's; saying, with the noble-hearted and saintly man who speaks in the text, "As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good." The mind is staggered and astounded by the sight of the prevalence of suffering amongst beings altogether or comparatively innocent of sin. The lower you descend in the scale of being, the more unaccountable does this suffering appear to you. That a wicked man should find misery in his wickedness; that, even as the vultures gather to the carcase, so sorrow and trouble should fasten upon the evil-doer — this is to be expected, if the rule is the rule of justice. It is more difficult to understand why this punishment should extend itself to persons not implicated in the particular ill-doing; why, for example, a profligate spendthrift son should be allowed to ruin his father, or why the sins of a drunken dissolute rather should be visited upon his children (as they often are seen to be) to the third and fourth generation. Still, in these cases, as none can plead absolute innocence, a perfectly upright nature and an entirely sinless life, it seems not wholly iniquitous that there should not be an exact discrimination, in effects and consequences, between the particular sin and the general. It is when we see the overflowing of that misery which is engendered of sin upon whole classes and departments of being which have never sinned and never fallen; when we see the animal world laid under the power, and subjected to the uncontrolled tyranny, of a race called rational, but employing reason, largely or chiefly, in ingenuity of sinning it is then that the heart revolts against the order of things established, and finds it most of all difficult to understand in what possible sense the text can have an application here, "But God meant it unto good." Now, the difficulty, though it must ever press, and press heavily, upon thoughtful men, is evidently much lightened by the suggestions of revelation, as to a coming time of refreshing and restoration, when these innocent ones shall cease to suffer, and the whole creation, now "groaning and travailing," shall be delivered, as St. Paul writes, evidently (to careful students of the passage) with reference not only or chiefly to the human creation, "into the glorious liberty," into the liberty belonging to and accompanying the glory, "of the children of God." There may be much that is unexplained — a dark fringe and border of mystery must ever lie around each revelation of the unseen — still, in so far as there is revelation, there is light and there is reconciliation. With it we can believe at least that all shall be well; we can wait, without credulity, for the key and for the lamp; we can expect, and not irrationally, a day, near or far off, when the text shall receive, in this connection, its warrant and its demonstration, "But God meant it unto good." There are two thoughts, besides that of the glorious rest reserved for God's people, which bring with them, wherever they are entertained, harmony and reconciliation at once. 1. One of these is the length of the Divine vision. "A thousand years are with the Lord as one day." "He sees," it is written again, "the end from the beginning." "God meant it unto good" — yea, the loftiest good and the most durable of all — if He taught one soul, by the unroofing or the unbuilding of its home here, the comparative, the superlative importance of a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. If when He severed from you, by death or banishment or (sadder still) alienation, that friend who was your life, He thus made you look onward towards heaven, or upward towards Himself; if He strongly, sharply, roughly, rudely rebuked your tendency to make man your trust, and to hew out for yourself broken cisterns which can hold no living water — was it not unto good? Or if, by a more conspicuous visitation of one of His four sore judgments, He should at last teach a frivolous though gallant nation that by Him alone counsels are established, by Him alone republics, like kings, govern, and that without Him there is neither strength nor permanence, was not this too "meant unto good"? Learn of God the length of His vision; learn not to weigh with the light weights and false balances of time, but with that " shekel of the sanctuary" which is the recollection of eternity, and you will find no cause to impugn God's wisdom or God's justice in the arrangements of His providence, whether as concerning men or nations. You will say, "He hath done all things well"; and even when He seems to provoke the prophet's question, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" you will be able also to answer it in the end, out of a full heart and a firm conviction, "But He meant it unto good." 2. The other thought which suggests itself as tending powerfully towards the justification of the ways of God is that of the largeness of the Divine view. It differs in some respects from the former, as the breadth differs from the length of the vision. It has special reference to those dealings in which sin is concerned. No reflection, because no revelation, reconciles the true heart to the existence of evil. That mystery lies still in its darkness. We fret and we struggle against it in vain. But that mystery is not one of God's mysteries. God's secrets are always secret's told. You will find no instance in Scripture of the term "mystery" applied to things incomprehensible. God's mysteries, indicoverable to human search, are apprehensible, when revealed, to human faith. The existence of evil is no mystery, because it is a fact; the origin of evil is no mystery, in God's sense, because it is not revealed. But, evil being recognized as a fact and unexplained as a secret, the question which remains is all-practical, and the text forces it upon our attention — Is there any sense in which God has to do with it? any sense in which God, in His mercy and compassion, deigns to use it as His instrument "unto good"? Does He merely threaten it with judgment present and to come? Or does He, as the text seems to say, coerce and even rule it for the welfare of His children? We would tread warily on this perilous ground; yet firmly too, under the guidance of the Holy One. We say that even sin is made, in some sense, to confess and to glorify God. The sin of these men addressed in the text was made to save life. The sin of the murderers of the great Antitype of this saint was made to save souls. Yes, we cannot evade the conclusion, "As for you, ye thought evil, but God meant it unto good." And it gives a very magnificent, however incomplete, conception of the greatness and goodness of God, that He forces even this inexplicable, this adverse existence, this sin which He hates, into subserviency to the good of His redeemed. ( Dean Vaughan. ) God's providence W. M. Taylor, D. D. In the ancient city of Chester, which is one of the few links connecting the world of this nineteenth century with the age of the Roman rule in Great Britain, there is an old building, which some of you, perhaps, have seen, having these words engraved on the lintel of the door; "God's providence is mine exheritance." It is said that when the plague last visited the city that was the only house which escaped the visitation, and so its inmates sculptured these words upon it as a record of their gratitude. I trust that God's providence was the heritage of many who died as really as of those who were preserved. But the Christian may always adopt that inscription as his own. God's providence is his inheritance, and is so as much and as really when he is suffering calamity or enduring persecution as when he is prosperous and honoured. Friends, if we could but believe that, how much of the bitterness would be taken out of our trials! ( W. M. Taylor, D. D. ) God's providential care In Palestine and Asia Minor the winter of 1873-4 was unusually severe. The snow lay at one time from two to five feet deep in the streets and on the flat roofs of the houses. Many roofs were crushed, and many houses fell in ruins under the unwonted burden. In Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, thirteen houses were thus prostrated. In Gaza, where of old the temple of Dagon fell and slew Samson and three thousand of the Philistines, the following remarkable incident occurred in connection with the great snowstorm of February 7th and 8th: — A robber during the night broke into the house. After having collected several articles on the lower floor, he entered the chamber where the master of the house was peacefully sleeping. His little child was also asleep in his cradle. The robber reflected that he might be betrayed by the child, so he took the cradle and set it outside of the house near the door. The child began to cry. The mother hastens to the cradle, but finds it gone. The child kept on crying. The father awoke and exclaimed, "The child is crying out of doors. How can that be?" They both hasten to the cradle, wondering who could have taken it out. While they are wondering and speculating on the strange circumstance, the roof, pressed under the burden, falls, and in a moment their house is in ruins. But they are all three unharmed. In the morning, when the stones and lumber were taken away, a man was found dead among the ruins. The things he had stolen were found partly sticking out of his pockets, partly tied up in a bundle on his back. Thus God and death had overtaken him. He carried out the child lest he should wake his father and mother by crying, and so, without meaning it, by the wonderful providence of God, he rescued the lives of all the family, while he himself died in his sin. How truly were the words of Joseph to his brothers fulfilled in him — "Ye meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." "Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." God's angel averted the evil which the enemy would have gladly done. It would be difficult to find a more striking instance illustrating God's providential care — saving those whom He resolves to save, even by the agency of the wicked, whose sin He condemns; and while He employs the agency of the sinner as a means of life, visits upon him, according to his deserts, judgment and death. He comforted them, and spake kindly unto them. Genesis 50:21 Joseph's last forgiveness of his brethren F. W. Robertson, M. A. I. THEIR NEED OF FORGIVENESS. II. THE PLEA ON WHICH THEY URGE IT (vers. 16-18). 1. The dying request of their father. 2. Their own free confession of guilt. 3. Their father's influence with God. 4. Their willingness to utterly abase themselves. III. THE COMPLETENESS OF THEIR FORGIVENESS. 1. He speaks words of peace. 2. He will not presume to put himself judicially in the place of God. (1) As an instrument of vengeance. (2) As presuming to change does not join forgetfulness. You forgive only so far as you forget. ( F. W. Robertson, M. A. ) Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you. Genesis 50:22-26 Dying Joseph T. H. Leale. I. SATISFIED WITH THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD. II. FULL OF FAITH. 1. Sure of God's covenant. 2. Superior to the world. 3. The possessor of immortality. ( T. H. Leale. ) The last days of Joseph E. S. Atwood. I. THE REMOTE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN (vers. 15-17). To fear God and keep His commandments, always, is the only safe way and sure way for the soul. Men are peopling their future with calamity when they go one step out of the right path. II. The last days of Joseph were an illustration of THE MYSTERIES OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE (ver. 20). The strange problems of human history should not cause us to lose faith. Behind the web into which so much that seems chaotic and unintelligible is being wrought, God sits wise to purpose and almighty to accomplish; and when His work is done, the assenting acclaim of the universe will proclaim, "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints." Morbid views of life are unwarranted. What God pleases is best, and what God pleases is sure to come to pass. III. Very noticeable also is THE FAITH WHICH COMFORTED THE LAST DAYS OF JOSEPH (ver. 24). He saw already the blooming fields and laden vineyards which his descendants were to inherit, and he "took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." That same sort of faith has a place and power among men now. Outlook and confidence are not the peculiar privileges of any one age. The victories of faith are world-wide and world-old. IV. Notice also some INCIDENTAL TEACHINGS of this passage. 1. The last days of Joseph were the natural result of his first days. He began right. 2. Righteousness pays in the long run. Men who are tempted by the speciousness of strong temptation do well to listen to the Saviour's question "What shall it profit?" God's pay-days may be in the future, but He pays well when the time of reckoning comes. 3. What power there is in a good life. ( E. S. Atwood. ) The Israelite's grave in a foreign land F. W. Robertson, M. A. I. THE LIFE OF JOSEPH. 1. Its outward circumstances.(1) Chequered with misfortune. It is the law of our humanity, as that of Christ, that we must be perfected through suffering. And he who has not discerned the Divine sacredness of sorrow, and the profound meaning which is concealed in pain, has yet to learn what life is. The Cross, manifested as the necessity of the highest life, alone interprets it.(2) Besides this, obloquy was part of Joseph's portion. His brethren, even his father, counted him a vain dreamer, full of proud imaginings. He languished long in a dungeon with a stain upon his character. He was subjected to almost all the bitterness which changes the milk of kindly feelings into gall; to Potiphar's fickleness, to slander, to fraternal envy, to the ingratitude of friendship in the neglect of the chief butler, who left his prison and straightway forgot his benefactor. Out of all which a simple lesson arises, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils." Yet that may be over-stated. Nothing chills the heart like universal distrust. Nothing freezes the genial current of the soul so much as doubts of human nature. Human goodness is no dream. Surely we have met unselfishness, and love, and honour among men. Surely we have seen, and not in dreams, pure benevolence beaming from human countenances. Surely we have met with integrity that the world's wealth could not bribe, and attachment which might bear the test of any sacrifice. It is not so much the depravity as the frailty of men, that makes it impossible to count on them.(3) Success, besides, marked the career of Joseph. Let us not take half views of men and things. The woof of life is dark; that we granted, but it is shot through a web of brightness. Accordingly, in Joseph's case, even in his worst days, you find a kind of balance, to be weighed against his sorrows. The doctrine of compensation is found through all. Amidst the schemings of his brothers' envy he had his father's love. In his slavery he had some recompense in feeling that he was gradually winning his master's confidence. In his dungeon he possessed the consciousness of innocence, and the grateful respect of his fellow prisoners. 2. The spirit of Joseph's inner life.(1) Forgiveness. The Christian spirit before the Christian times.(2) Simplicity of character. He bore a simple, unsophisticated heart amidst the pomp of an Egyptian court.(3) Benevolence. This was manifested in the generosity with which he entertained his brethren, and in the discriminating tenderness with which he provided his best beloved brother's feast with extraordinary delicacies. II. THE DEATH OF JOSEPH WAS IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS LIFE. 1. The funeral was a homage paid to goodness. Little is said in the text of Joseph's funeral. To know what it was, we must turn to the earlier part of the chapter, where that of Jacob is mentioned. A mourning of seventy days; a funeral whose imposing greatness astonished the Canaanites, they said, "This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians." Seventy days were the time, or nearly so, fixed by custom for a royal funeral; and Jacob was so honoured, not for his own sake, but because he was Joseph's father. We cannot suppose that Joseph's own obsequies were on a scale less grand. Now, weigh what is implied in this. This was not the homage paid to talent, nor to wealth, nor to birth. Joseph was a foreign slave, raised to eminence by the simple power of goodness. Every man in Egypt felt, at his death, that he had lost a friend. There were thousands whose tears would fall when they recounted the preservation of lives dear to them in the years of famine, and felt that they owed those lives to Joseph. Grateful Egypt mourned the good foreigner; and, for once, the honours of this world were given to the graces of another. 2. We collect from this, besides, a hint of the resurrection of the body. The Egyptian mode of sepulture was embalming; and the Hebrews, too, attached much importance to the body after death. Joseph commanded his countrymen to preserve his bones to take away with them. In this we detect that unmistakable human craving, not only for immortality, but immortality associated with a form. The opposite to spirituality is not materialism, but sin. The form of matter does not degrade. For what is this world itself but the form of Deity, whereby the manifoldness of His mind and beauty manifests, and where in it clothes itself? It is idle to say that spirit can exist apart from form. We do not know that it can. Perhaps even the Eternal Himself is more closely bound to His works than our philosophical systems have conceived. Perhaps matter is only a mode of thought. At all events, all that we know or can know of mind exists in union with form. The resurrection of the body is the Christian verity, which meets and satisfies those cravings of the ancient Egyptian mind, that expressed themselves in the process of embalming, and the religious reverence felt for the very bones of the departed by the Hebrews. Finally, in the last will and testament of Joseph we find faith. He commanded his brethren, and through them his nation, to carry his bones with them when they migrated to Canaan. In the Epistle to the Hebrews that is reckoned an evidence of faith. "By faith Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones." How did he know that his people would ever quit Egypt? We reply, by faith. Not faith in a written word, for Joseph had no Bible; rather, faith in that conviction of his own heart which is itself the substantial evidence of faith. For religious faith ever dreams of something higher, more beautiful, more perfect, than the state of things with which it feels itself surrounded. Ever, a day future lies before it; the evidence for which is its own hope. ( F. W. Robertson, M. A. ) Comfort from the thought of the eternity of God W. M. Taylor, D. D. These words bring before us the contrast between the mortality of men and the eternity of God. They die, but He abides "the King eternal, immortal, the only wise God." Now this truth is full of comfort, on the one hand, to the dying servant of God, and, on the other, to the bereaved who are called to mourn his loss. 1. It is full of comfort to the dying, for whatever of good he has done in the world shall not be lost when he is gone. In the words of the appropriate inscription on the monument to the Wesleys in Westminster Abbey, "God buries the workers, but He carries on the work." The sower may die, but the seed which fell from his hands matures into a harvest which is reaped by others, and becomes in its turn the food of multitudes and the germ of many harvests more, I stood once on a Highland hill in my native land, and marked a spot upon the landscape greener than all else around. When I inquired into the reason, I learned that for many, many years there had been a village there, and that the gardens of the villagers so long under cultivation kept unwonted verdure still. So, through the operations of God's grace, the earth is greener where His servants have been at work, though the servants themselves have long since passed away. The operations of grace, like those of Nature, go on after men have died, because God lives to maintain them, and nothing done for Him is ever allowed by Him to come to nothing. So when we are called to leave the earth, the work in which we delighted shall not be lost. We die, but God lives; and we may he sure that under His care it will flourish. 2. Then what consolation comes from the eternity of God to those who are bereaved! Look at the 90th Psalm. It was written by Moses in the wilderness, when he was depressed by the death of those who had reached man's estate when he led them out of Egypt. There came a time when he was left wellnigh alone of all his generation; and then he took his comfort out of the permanence of God, singi

Benson Commentary Genesis 50:1 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. Genesis 50:1 . Joseph fell upon his father’s face — Having first, no doubt, closed his eyes, according as God had promised that he should; and wept upon him, and kissed — His pale and cold lips, thus manifesting his love to and his sorrow for the loss of him. Probably the rest of Jacob’s sons did the same, much moved, no doubt, with his dying words. Genesis 50:2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. Genesis 50:2 . He ordered the body to be embalmed, not only because he died in Egypt, and that was the manner of the Egyptians, but because he was to be carried to Canaan, which would be a work of time. “Embalming is the opening of a dead body, taking out the intestines, and filling the place with odoriferous and desiccative drugs and spices, to prevent its putrifying. The Egyptians excelled all other nations in the art of preserving bodies from corruption; for some, that they embalmed upward of two thousand years ago, remain whole to this day, and they are often brought into other countries as great curiosities. Their manner of embalming was this; they scooped the brains with an iron scoop out at the nostrils, and threw in medicaments to fill up the vacuum. They also took out the entrails, and having filled the body with myrrh, cassia, and other spices (except frankincense) proper to dry up the humours, they pickled it in nitre, where it lay soaking for seventy days. The body was then wrapped up in bandages of fine linen and gums, to make it stick like glue; and so was delivered to the kindred of the deceased, entire in all its features, the very hairs of the eyelids being preserved. They used to keep the bodies of their ancestors, thus embalmed, in little houses magnificently adorned, and took great pleasure in beholding them alive, as it were, without any change in their size, features, or complexion. The Egyptians also embalmed birds,” &c. — Encyclop. Britan. This practice of embalming, it appears, was common both to the rich and poor, but it was more or less costly, according to the rank and circumstances of the person. Joseph commanded his servants the physicians — To perform this office. For, according to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, the same persons who prescribed as physicians for the living, were employed in embalming the dead. As it appears that many of these physicians were wont to be kept in pay, as servants, in the courts of princes, and the families of the great, we may conclude that Joseph, in his office of prime minister, had not a few of them belonging to his household. Indeed, if we may credit Herodotus, all places in Egypt were crowded with them. And no wonder; for “every distinct distemper” says he, “hath its own physician, who confines himself to the study and care of that alone, and meddles with no other. Thus, one class hath the care of the eyes, another of the head, another of the region of the belly,” &c. (lib. 2. c. 84;) so that their number must have been very great. Genesis 50:3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days. Genesis 50:3 . Forty days were fulfilled for him — That is, for embalming him, this time being, at the least, requisite to go through the process. But according to Herodotus, the body often remained at the embalmer’s seventy days. The Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days — Thirty days according to the custom of the Hebrews, Numbers 20:29 , Deuteronomy 34:8 , over and above the forty employed in embalming, which also was a time of mourning. During all which time they either confined themselves, and sat solitary, or, when they went out, appeared in the habit of close mourners, according to the custom of the country. Genesis 50:4 And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, Genesis 50:4-5 . Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh — Either it was not customary for mourners to enter the royal presence, or Joseph wished to make his request to the king with all possible humility and respect. He therefore made application to Pharaoh, not directly, but through the intervention of some of his courtiers. Let me go up, I pray thee — It was a piece of necessary respect to Pharaoh, that he would not go without leave; for we may suppose, though his charge about the corn was long since over, yet he continued a prime minister of state, and therefore would not be so long absent from his business without license. Genesis 50:5 My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again. Genesis 50:6 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear. Genesis 50:7 And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, Genesis 50:8 And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. Genesis 50:9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company. Genesis 50:10 And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. Genesis 50:10 . They mourned with a very great and sore lamentation — “This,” says Sir John Chardin, quoted by Harmer, (vol. 2. p. 136,) “is exactly the genius of the people of Asia, especially of the women. Their sentiments of joy or grief are properly transports; and their transports are ungoverned, excessive, and truly outrageous. When any one returns from a long journey, or dies, his family bursts into cries that may be heard twenty doors off; and this is renewed at different times, and continues many days, according to the vigour of the passion. Especially are these cries long in the case of death, and frightful; for their mourning is right down despair, and an image of hell. I was lodged, in the year 1676, at Ispahan, near the royal square; the mistress of the next house to mine died at that time. The moment she expired, all the family, to the number of twenty-five or thirty people, set up such a furious cry, that I was quite startled, and was above two hours before I could recover myself. These cries continue a long time, then cease all at once; they begin again as suddenly at day-break and in concert. It is this suddenness which is so terrifying, together with a greater shrillness or loudness than any one would easily imagine. This enraged kind of mourning, if I may call it so, continued forty days, not equally violent, but with diminution from day to day. The longest and most violent acts were when they washed the body, when they perfumed it, when they carried it out to be interred, at making the inventory, and when they divided the effects. You are not to suppose that those that were ready to split their throats with crying out wept as much: the greatest part of them did not shed a single tear through the whole tragedy.” It is probable, however, that there was more sincerity in the mourning, even of the Egyptians, for Jacob, than is described in these words; for they seem evidently to have greatly respected him. And their solemn mourning for him ( Genesis 50:11 ) gave a name to the place, Abel-Misraim, which, in Hebrew, signifies, The mourning of the Egyptians: which served for a testimony against the next generation of the Egyptians, who oppressed the posterity of this Jacob, to whom their ancestors showed such respect. Genesis 50:11 And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan. Genesis 50:12 And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them: Genesis 50:13 For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre. Genesis 50:14 And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. Genesis 50:15 And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. Genesis 50:15-16 . Joseph will peradventure hate us — While their father lived, they thought themselves safe under his shadow; but now he was dead, they feared the worst. A guilty conscience exposeth men to continual frights; those that would be fearless must keep themselves guiltless. Thy father did command — Thus, in humbling ourselves to Christ by faith and repentance, we may plead that it is the command of his Father and our Father we should do so. Genesis 50:16 And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, Genesis 50:17 So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. Genesis 50:17 . Forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father — Not only children of the same Jacob, but worshippers of the same Jehovah. Though we must be ready to forgive all that injure us, yet we must especially take heed of bearing malice toward any that are the servants of the God of our father; those we should always treat with a peculiar tenderness, for we and they have the same Master. He wept when they spake to him — These were tears of sorrow for their suspicion of him, and tears of tenderness upon their submission. Genesis 50:18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. Genesis 50:19 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? Genesis 50:19 . Am I in the place of God? — Dare I usurp the prerogative of God, to whom it belongs to take vengeance? Or, can I do what I please with you, without God’s leave? Fear him rather than me, and upon your experience of his wonderful care of and kindness to you, be persuaded he will still befriend you, and therefore I will. Or, perhaps, in his great humility, he thought they showed him too much respect, and saith to them, in effect, as Peter to Cornelius, “Stand up; I myself also am a man.” Make your peace with God, and then you will find it an easy matter to make your peace with me. Genesis 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Genesis 50:20-21 . Ye thought evil, but God meant it unto good — In order to the making Joseph a greater blessing to his family than otherwise he could have been. Fear not, I will nourish you — See what an excellent spirit Joseph was of, and learn of him to render good for evil. He did not tell them they were upon their good behaviour, and he would be kind to them, if he saw them carry themselves well: no, he would not thus hold them in suspense, nor seem jealous of them, though they had been suspicious of him. He comforted them — And, to banish all their fears, he spake kindly to them. Those we love and forgive we must not only do well for, but speak kindly to. Genesis 50:21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them. Genesis 50:22 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. Genesis 50:23 And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation : the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph's knees. Genesis 50:24 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Genesis 50:24 . I die; and God will surely visit you — To this purpose Jacob had spoken to him, Genesis 48:21 . Thus must we comfort others with the same comforts wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of God, and encourage them to rest on those promises which have been our support. Joseph was, under God, both the protector and benefactor of his brethren, and what would become of them now he was dying? Why, let this be their comfort, God will surely visit you. God’s gracious visits will serve to make up the loss of our best friends: and bring you out of this land — And therefore they must not hope to settle there, nor look upon it as their rest for ever; they must set their hearts upon the land of promise, and call that their home. Genesis 50:25 And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. Genesis 50:25 . And ye shall carry up my bones from hence — Herein he had an eye to the promise, ( Genesis 15:13-14 ,) and in God’s name assures them of the performance of it. In Egypt they buried their great men very honourably, and with abundance of pomp; but Joseph prefers a plain burial in Canaan, and that deferred almost two hundred years, before a magnificent one in Egypt. Thus Joseph, by faith in the doctrine of the resurrection, and the promise of Canaan, gave commandment concerning his bones, Hebrews 11:22 . He dies in Egypt; but lays his bones at stake, that God will surely visit Israel, and bring them to Canaan. Genesis 50:26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Genesis 50:26 . Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old — So for about thirteen years of affliction he enjoyed eighty years of honour, and as much happiness as earth could afford him. He was put in a coffin in Egypt — But not buried till his children had received their inheritance in Canaan, Joshua 24:32 . If the soul do but return to its rest with God, the matter is not great, though the deserted body find not at all, or not quickly, its rest in the grave. Yet care ought to be taken of the dead bodies of the saints, in the belief of their resurrection; for there is a covenant with the dust which shall be remembered, and a commandment given concerning the bones. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . 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Expositor's Bible Commentary Genesis 50:1 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.