This sheet on Genesis 50 was written by Marc Bregman for 929 and can also be found here
At the very end of the book of Genesis (Chapter 50, verse 26), we are told that Joseph, who had been second-in-command to Pharaoh in Egypt, was embalmed, placed in a coffin and buried, apparently by Egyptian funeral attendants.
The following is my attempt to imagine Joseph’s Egyptian funeral, as might have been recalled by Serah bat Asher, the granddaughter of the patriarch, Jacob. According to rabbinic tradition, Serah was alive at the time of Joseph’s death, since she is said to have spanned the generations from the days of Jacob at least to the Exodus from Egypt (see Mekhilta Beshallah and parallels).
Serah is here revealing where Joseph’s bones might be found, to reinter his remains in fulfillment of Joseph’s deathbed charge that his final resting place be in the family burial site, the cave of Machpelah in Canaan (Genesis 49:29-32).
...Forty days after Joseph died, Pharaoh and his entire royal court, conducted a magnificent funeral procession for this deceased Grand Vizir. The cortege descended to the banks of the Nile. The Egyptian priests placed on the sarcophagus the likeness of a bull, its horns festooned with flowers as if for a festal sacrifice and carried the coffin onto one of Pharaoh's imperial barges. This ship was slowly rowed out onto the river to the sound of hymns sung by Pharaoh's slaves. Finally, the priests sank the bull-headed sarcophagus containing Joseph's mummy into the depths of the Nile. They promised the Egyptian people that the body of this holy man from the captive nation of Israel would provide a blessing to the waters of the Nile. For now, they had forever harnessed in its depths the sacred power that turned the primeval waterwheel causing the Nile to rise each year to inundate the land and renew the fecund silt of Egypt's delta. But we Israelites knew that the real reason was to prevent us from ever leaving this accursed land, for the Egyptian rulers knew that our forefather Joseph had made us swear an oath never to leave without taking his bones with us. And so, they sunk his body in a heavy metal sarcophagus in the depths of the Nile, which they were sure we could never recover.
To be continued, when we get to Moses’ recovery of Joseph’s bones (Exodus Chapter 13).
The following is my attempt to imagine Joseph’s Egyptian funeral, as might have been recalled by Serah bat Asher, the granddaughter of the patriarch, Jacob. According to rabbinic tradition, Serah was alive at the time of Joseph’s death, since she is said to have spanned the generations from the days of Jacob at least to the Exodus from Egypt (see Mekhilta Beshallah and parallels).
Serah is here revealing where Joseph’s bones might be found, to reinter his remains in fulfillment of Joseph’s deathbed charge that his final resting place be in the family burial site, the cave of Machpelah in Canaan (Genesis 49:29-32).
...Forty days after Joseph died, Pharaoh and his entire royal court, conducted a magnificent funeral procession for this deceased Grand Vizir. The cortege descended to the banks of the Nile. The Egyptian priests placed on the sarcophagus the likeness of a bull, its horns festooned with flowers as if for a festal sacrifice and carried the coffin onto one of Pharaoh's imperial barges. This ship was slowly rowed out onto the river to the sound of hymns sung by Pharaoh's slaves. Finally, the priests sank the bull-headed sarcophagus containing Joseph's mummy into the depths of the Nile. They promised the Egyptian people that the body of this holy man from the captive nation of Israel would provide a blessing to the waters of the Nile. For now, they had forever harnessed in its depths the sacred power that turned the primeval waterwheel causing the Nile to rise each year to inundate the land and renew the fecund silt of Egypt's delta. But we Israelites knew that the real reason was to prevent us from ever leaving this accursed land, for the Egyptian rulers knew that our forefather Joseph had made us swear an oath never to leave without taking his bones with us. And so, they sunk his body in a heavy metal sarcophagus in the depths of the Nile, which they were sure we could never recover.
To be continued, when we get to Moses’ recovery of Joseph’s bones (Exodus Chapter 13).
(כו) וַיָּ֣מָת יוֹסֵ֔ף בֶּן־מֵאָ֥ה וָעֶ֖שֶׂר שָׁנִ֑ים וַיַּחַנְט֣וּ אֹת֔וֹ וַיִּ֥ישֶׂם בָּאָר֖וֹן בְּמִצְרָֽיִם׃
(26) Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.
Marc Bregman is the Herman and Zelda Bernard Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies emeritus, at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.
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