My Reflections

Summary for Week 10 Joseph Bible Study

We start out this week's lesson with Israel giving his final blessings to his sons before his death.

Israel's blessing for Joseph and his sons - "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."

Joseph stopped his father when he got here because he realized the placement of his hands on his sons' heads and it displeased him. Israel had purposely placed his right hand on the youngest son's head, but Manasseh was the oldest and not Ephraim. When Joseph tried to correct him, this was his reply. "I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations."

Israel gave Joseph an extra portion of inheritance and set his youngest son before the oldest.

Joseph's blessing - (chapter 49) 22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:
23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:
24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)
25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

Joseph's father dies after giving his final blessings. This is the first record of embalming in the Bible.
https://biblehub.com/topical/ttt/e/embalming--learned_by_the_jews_in_egypt.htm
https://uasvbible.org/2025/03/24/how-was-embalming-practiced-in-ancient-egypt-an...

Jacob died and the mourning period was recorded as 40 days and an additional 7 days after the body was transported. Joseph ordered the physicians to embalm Jacob and not the Egyptian priests. This avoided any pagon rituals to be done with the embalming of the body.

Joseph and the family go to bury Israel in Canaan. They stop at the threshing floor of Atad.
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Atad

When the Canaanites saw the Egyptians mourning, they called the place Abelmizraim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel-mizraim

Then the burial was done in the field of Machpelah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs

After Israel was buried and everyone returned to Egypt, Joseph's brothers were afraid he would hate them because of what they had done to him in selling him into slavery. They sent a messenger to Joseph telling him their father asked for him to forgive them. Joseph wept when he heard their message. Then his brothers came and bowed down to him submitting themselves as his servants.

Joseph answered them, "Fear not: for am I in the place of God? 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. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones." He spoke kindly to them and comforted them.

This last section of scripture (Genesis 50:22-Exodus 1:6) has to do with the remainder of Joseph's life and death and of that generation and their death. Joseph lived 110 years and saw the 3rd generation of Ephraim and Manasseh's grandchild.

Machir was the son of Manasseh mentioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machir

Joseph was also embalmed and put in a coffin in Egypt but made the children of Israel to promise to carry his bones out of Egypt when God would bring them out.