Send us a text

In this episode, we begin the first half of our Genesis 50 finale, marking the end of a long journey through Genesis and the turning of the patriarchal page. Jacob has died, and Joseph is now faced with the question of how a covenant family buries its father while living inside an empire. What follows is a funeral procession that feels strangely royal, deeply multicultural, and theologically loaded. Why does the text say the physicians embalmed Israel? Why emphasize Israel instead of Jacob? And what are we meant to notice when Egypt mourns the patriarch as though he were one of their own?

We explore the tension of Joseph’s position, both honored and compromised, as he navigates Egyptian purity laws, royal protocol, and the risk of pagan ritual. The detail that physicians, not priests, perform the embalming raises sharp questions about Joseph’s intent. Is he shielding his father from Egyptian religious burial rites? Is he adapting to Egypt more than he realizes? Or is something else happening beneath the surface, where the narrative uses Egyptian resurrection practices as an uncomfortable shadow that points forward to the biblical promise of life after death?

We also examine the layered symbolism of time and mourning in the text, including the forty days, the seventy days, and the seven day lamentation once they reach the land. Numbers matter in Genesis, not as decorative mythology, but as part of a story that repeatedly ties historical events to covenant meaning. The burial journey itself becomes a public declaration. Israel’s bones do not belong to Egypt. The covenant does not terminate in Goshen. Even in death, Jacob insists on the land, and Joseph must ask permission to leave, revealing just how tightly Egypt’s power already grips the family.

As the procession travels toward Canaan and stops at the threshing floor of Atad, we ask why this location is named, why it is remembered, and what it means that the Canaanites interpret the scene as Egyptian mourning. Is Israel being claimed by Egypt in the eyes of the nations, or is Egypt, ironically, witnessing the weight of a covenant they cannot own?

This first half sets the stage for the deeper conflict that follows. Genesis ends with inheritance and burial, with promises spoken over bones, and with the looming question that will drive the next generation. Will Israel remember who they are when the patriarchs are gone?

ChatGPT can make

Website: thelogicofgod.com

Email: main.thelogicofgod@gmail.com

Instagram

Facebook

Patreon