Jacob lived in the land of Goshen with his children and their families for seventeen years, but at last the time came for him to die. He became very sick, and a messenger came to tell Joseph that his father was getting worse and wouldn’t live very much longer.
So Joseph took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, and went to visit his father. Jacob sat up in bed and talked with him, and told him how kind God had been to him all during his long life. And he told Joseph about the time when God had spoken to him in a dream as a young man, the dream about the stairway going up to heaven, with angels walking up and down it.
Joseph told his father that he had brought his two sons with him so that Jacob could bless them. Jacob said to bring them close to him. Then he put his arms around them and kissed them and asked God to help them. What a happy day that was for Jacob and Joseph and the boys!
“Then Israel called in all his other sons and blessed each one of them. He told them he was going to die, but that God would be with them and bring them back to the land of Canaan. He commanded his sons to take his body back and bury it in the same cave where his grandfather Abraham was buried, and his grandmother Sarah, his father Isaac and mother Rebekah and his wife Leah.
When Jacob had finished all he had to say to his sons, he lay back on the bed and died. Joseph put his face down to his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. Then he commanded his servants to embalm his father. This meant to put spices and other and other things into his body to prepare for burial. All the Egyptians mourned for him. For seventy days.
Joseph and his brothers went up to Canaan to bury their father, and many of Pharaoh’s government officials and other wealthy men from the land of Egypt went with them.
After the funeral, Joseph’s brothers were afraid. They thought that now, with their father dead and unable to defend them, Joseph would surely punish them for all the bad things they had done to him.
They sent a message to him saying that before their father died, he had expressed the hope that Joseph would forgive them. When Joseph heard this he cried, for he knew they were afraid of him. His brothers now came and fell down before him and said, “Don’t kill us; we will be your slaves.” But he told them not to be afraid of him, for though they wanted to hurt him by selling him as a slave, yet Good had turn the harm into good by putting him in Egypt where he could save many people from starving and death from the famine. And he spoke kindly to them and comforted them.
Joseph was in Egypt all the rest of his life, and lived to see the birth of his great-grandchildren. But after many years he sent for his brothers and told them that the time had come for him to die.
He asked that his bones be taken back to Canaan when God took the nation of Israel back there again. This didn’t happen for four hundred years, but when Moses’ led the people of Israel back to the Promised Land of Canaan, he took along Joseph’s bones just as Joseph had requested.
So, Joseph died when he was 110 years old. His body was embalmed and put into the coffin in Egypt.
Questions:
Whom did Joseph and his two son’s go to visit?
Where did Jacob want to be buried?
What did Josephs brothers think would happen to them after the funeral? Why?
Where did Joseph want his bones to be buried?
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Sometime later Joseph was told, “Your father is ill.” So, he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim along with him. When Jacob was told, “Your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel rallied his strength and sat up on the bed. Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’ “Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. Any children born to you after them will be yours; in the territory they inherit they will be reckoned under the names of their brothers. As I was returning from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan while we were still on the way, a little distance from Ephrath. So, I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem). When Israel saw the sons of Joseph, he asked, “Who are these? ” They are the sons God has given me here,” Joseph said to his father. Then Israel said, “Bring them to me so I may bless them.” Now Israel’s eyes were failing because of old age, and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to him, and his father kissed them and embraced them. Israel (Jacob) said to Joseph, “I never expected to see your face again, and now God has allowed me to see your children too.” Then Joseph removed them from Israel’s knees and bowed down with his face to the ground. And Joseph took both of them, Ephraim on his right toward Israel’s left hand and Manasseh on his left toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them close to him. But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn. Then he blessed Joseph and said,
“May the God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully,
the God who has been my shepherd
all my life to this day,
the Angel who has delivered me from all harm
—may he bless these boys.
May they be called by my name
and the names of my father’s Abraham and Isaac,
and may they increase greatly
on the earth.”
Genesis 48:1-16
"Only Life Changes" 