H. P. Mansfield Bible notes — checked and arranged in verse-by-verse Expositor style

Source: HPB 02-Gen42-Lev11.pdf, principally Genesis 50 photographed pages 12, 15–16

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Genesis closes with two deaths but with the promises still alive. Jacob is embalmed in Egypt yet buried in Canaan, publicly witnessing that Egypt is not the covenant inheritance. After Jacob’s death the brothers fear that Joseph’s forgiveness may have been temporary; Joseph answers with tears, renewed assurance and one of Scripture’s clearest statements about providence.

The final theological interpretation of the Joseph story is Genesis 50:20. The brothers genuinely intended evil. God did not redefine that evil as good; He intended the same chain of events toward a different end — preservation of life. Joseph then dies in faith, leaving his bones in Egypt as a tangible pledge that God will visit Israel and bring the nation out.

MOURNING FOR JACOB — GENESIS 50:1–6

Genesis 50:1 — Joseph at his father’s death

Joseph falls upon Jacob’s face, weeps and kisses him. Genesis 46:4 had promised that Joseph would put his hand upon Jacob’s eyes, an intimate assurance that the long-lost son would be present at his father’s death. The scene fulfils that promise in substance and closes Jacob’s life with family affection rather than the separation that marked so many earlier years.

Genesis 50:2 — physicians and embalming

Joseph commands his servants, the physicians, to embalm Israel. The Hebrew roph’im is the plural of the healing/physician root r-p-’. Egyptian medicine was highly developed and specialised, as later medical papyri and classical testimony show, but the exact institutional relationship between physicians, priests and professional embalmers varied and should not be reconstructed from this one verse.

Embalming here serves the practical purpose of preserving Jacob’s body for the long funeral journey to Canaan. Nothing in the narrative suggests that Jacob or Joseph accepted Egyptian beliefs about the ka, an immortal double, or Egyptian afterlife theology.

Genesis 50:3 — forty days and seventy days

Genesis explicitly says that forty days were required for Jacob’s embalming and that the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days. Classical descriptions of Egyptian embalming give differing totals and stages. Those accounts provide useful cultural background but need not be forced into a precise thirty-plus-forty-day harmonisation. The inspired figures stand independently.

Genesis 50:4–6 — permission to honour Jacob’s oath

After the mourning period Joseph speaks through Pharaoh’s household and asks permission to fulfil Jacob’s burial oath. The text does not state why Joseph approaches Pharaoh indirectly. Mansfield’s explanation based on Egyptian mourning etiquette and unshaven appearance is possible background, but remains conjectural.

Joseph quotes Jacob as referring to “my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan.” The verb karah can mean dig or excavate; since Machpelah was an existing purchased cave, the phrase may refer to preparing his own burial place/niche rather than excavating the entire cave. Pharaoh authorises Joseph to go and keep the oath.

THE BURIAL PROCESSION — GENESIS 50:7–13

Genesis 50:7–9 — Egypt honours Jacob

Joseph goes to Canaan with Pharaoh’s servants, elders of the royal household, elders of Egypt, Joseph’s household and his brothers. Only the small children and livestock remain in Goshen. Chariots and horsemen accompany them, producing “a very great company.” The scale reflects the honour attached to Joseph and, through him, to Jacob.

Mansfield counts seven social groups and assigns covenant symbolism to the number. The list itself is historical; the numerical application is devotional rather than an inspired explanation of the procession.

Genesis 50:10 — Goren-atad and seven days’ lamentation

The company reaches the threshing-floor of Atad and holds a very great lamentation, with Joseph mourning seven days. Atad is a Hebrew word for a thorn-bush/bramble, so “threshing-floor of Atad” may mean the threshing-floor associated with that plant or locality. The exact site has not been securely identified.

The expression “beyond Jordan” is geographically ambiguous because its direction depends on the narrator’s/viewer’s standpoint and became a conventional place-description. It should not be used to construct a confident detour route when the location itself is uncertain.

Genesis 50:11 — Abel-mizraim

The Canaanites describe the spectacle as “a grievous mourning to the Egyptians,” and the place is called Abel-mizraim. Hebrew ’ebel means mourning, while ’abel occurs in place-names with senses such as meadow. The consonants permit an intentional wordplay between the established place-name form and “mourning of Egypt.” The Septuagint reflects the mourning interpretation, but this need not be framed as proof that one vocalisation is simply wrong.

Genesis 50:12–13 — Machpelah

Jacob’s sons carry out his command and bury him in the cave of Machpelah before Mamre, the field Abraham purchased from Ephron. Genesis repeats the legal purchase details because Machpelah is the one securely owned parcel in the land promised far more broadly to the patriarchs. Jacob’s burial there is therefore both family continuity and covenant testimony.

THE BROTHERS FEAR REVENGE — GENESIS 50:14–18

Genesis 50:14–15 — guilt still suspects retaliation

After returning to Egypt, the brothers fear that Joseph may now hate them and repay all the evil they did to him. Their anxiety reveals how difficult it is for guilty people to trust forgiveness completely. They may have imagined that Joseph’s kindness had been restrained only by respect for Jacob, despite the reconciliation already displayed in Genesis 45.

Genesis 50:16–17 — Jacob’s alleged command

The brothers send a message saying Jacob commanded Joseph to forgive their trespass and sin. Genesis records no earlier occurrence of this command. It may preserve a genuine private instruction of Jacob, or the brothers may be framing their appeal through what they know Jacob would have desired. The text does not allow certainty either way.

They call themselves “the servants of the God of thy father.” Joseph weeps when he hears them. His tears are again the strongest evidence that their continuing suspicion wounds him: he has not been preserving a private intention of vengeance.

Genesis 50:18 — voluntary submission

The brothers themselves come, fall before Joseph and offer, “Behold, we be thy servants.” The old dreams have now been fulfilled repeatedly, but this final prostration differs from the first: it is voluntary, conscious and accompanied by acknowledgement of guilt rather than ignorant hostility.

JOSEPH’S FINAL INTERPRETATION OF PROVIDENCE — GENESIS 50:19–21

Genesis 50:19 — “Am I in the place of God?”

Joseph answers, “Fear not: for am I in the place of God?” He refuses to assume the role of ultimate judge and avenger. Deuteronomy 32:35 and Romans 12:19 express the wider biblical principle that vengeance belongs to God. Joseph’s political power does not entitle him to convert personal injury into private retribution.

Genesis 50:20 — “ye meant evil ... God meant it unto good”

This is the theological climax of the Joseph narrative. The verb chashav is used for both intentions: the brothers planned/reckoned the events for evil; God planned/reckoned them for good, “to save much people alive.” The same historical event therefore contains distinct moral intentions. Human agency and responsibility are not cancelled by Divine sovereignty.

Joseph does not say that evil was secretly good, nor that his brothers were innocent because providence used their act. Genesis has already made their guilt explicit. Rather, God’s purpose proves greater than theirs: the attempted destruction of Joseph becomes the means of preserving Jacob’s family and many others through famine.

This structure provides a major biblical pattern for the rejection of Christ: Acts 2:23 and 4:27–28 can speak simultaneously of wicked human action and God’s predetermined saving purpose. The analogy confirms providence without making God morally responsible for the evil intentions of the perpetrators.

Genesis 50:21 — forgiveness nourishes and comforts

Joseph repeats, “Fear ye not,” promises to nourish the brothers and their little ones, and “comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.” The Hebrew idiom is literally that he spoke “to their heart.” True forgiveness is therefore positive, not merely the absence of punishment: Joseph continues to sustain and reassure the families of those who wronged him.

JOSEPH’S FINAL FAITH — GENESIS 50:22–26

Genesis 50:22 — one hundred and ten years

Joseph lives to 110 years. Egyptian wisdom literature sometimes treats 110 as an ideal/full lifespan, which makes the age culturally interesting, but Genesis does not explain the figure through Egyptian ideology. Joseph’s biblical significance lies in dying within the covenant hope.

Genesis 50:23 — descendants “upon Joseph’s knees”

Joseph sees Ephraim’s descendants to later generations, and the children of Machir are “brought up upon Joseph’s knees.” As in other patriarchal knee-language, this expresses acknowledged family relationship and reception, not merely physical sitting. Joseph lives to see the multiplication promised over Ephraim and Manasseh begin.

Genesis 50:24–25 — paqod yifqod: “God will surely visit you”

Joseph tells his brethren, “I die: and God will surely visit you.” The Hebrew construction paqod yifqod combines infinitive absolute and finite verb for emphasis: “visiting, He will visit” — certainly/surely visit. Exodus 3:16 deliberately echoes the phrase when Moses is told to announce that Yahweh has surely visited Israel.

Joseph connects that visitation with the oath-bound promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and makes Israel swear to carry his bones out of Egypt. Hebrews 11:22 selects this command as the defining evidence of Joseph’s faith at death: he believed the Exodus before it happened. Moses fulfils the immediate obligation in Exodus 13:19, and Joshua 24:32 records the burial of Joseph’s bones at Shechem.

Genesis 50:26 — a coffin in Egypt

Joseph dies at 110, is embalmed, and is placed in an ’aron in Egypt. ’Aron can mean a chest, ark or coffin according to context; here “coffin” is correct. Unlike Jacob, Joseph is not carried immediately to Canaan. His preserved body remains with Israel as a physical witness that the whole nation is waiting to leave.

Genesis therefore ends deliberately unfinished: the land promise is not fulfilled, the family remains in Egypt, and Joseph’s coffin waits. The words “God will surely visit you” form the narrative bridge to Exodus.

PRINCIPAL THEMES

• Jacob’s burial in Canaan publicly witnesses that Egypt is not the covenant inheritance.

• Egyptian embalming preserves the body for burial and does not imply acceptance of Egyptian soul theology.

• The brothers’ guilt makes them fear revenge even after genuine forgiveness has already been shown.

• Joseph refuses to take God’s place as personal avenger.

• Genesis 50:20 distinguishes human evil intention from Divine good intention within the same events.

• Providence can overrule evil for saving purpose without redefining evil or cancelling responsibility.

• True forgiveness actively nourishes, comforts and speaks to the heart.

• Joseph’s command concerning his bones is an act of faith in the future Exodus.

• Genesis ends with a coffin in Egypt and an unfulfilled promise pointing directly into Exodus.

EDITORIAL VERIFICATION AND RECOVERED READINGS

RESIDUAL UNCERTAINTIES

The exact ancient location of Goren-atad/Abel-mizraim, the precise relationship between Egyptian physicians and embalmers in Joseph’s period, and the reason Joseph communicated with Pharaoh through the royal household are uncertain. Genesis does not tell us whether the forgiveness message attributed to Jacob in verses 16–17 reproduces a private command or reflects the brothers’ fearful formulation. Detailed Egyptian lifespan symbolism and individual embalming quotations remain historical background rather than essential readings of the chapter.