Genesis Chapter 49b-50– John Karmelich

1. Recently, I attended the funeral of a life-long Christian.

a) I would describe that funeral as more of a victory-party than one of sorrow.

b) This was a person who glorified God all of their life.

c) You could almost here Jesus throughout the service saying, “'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'” (Matthew 25:21 NKJV)

d) On a related note, I think it is important every now and then to go to a cemetery.

i) Go look at gravestones. Some have scriptures, and some just have names.

ii) Almost all of them have the year of birth, and the year of death.

iii) In between is a “dash”. That dash represents the time span of their life.

iv) We do not know the ending date of our life. All we can do is live out the “dash” the best we can. The greatest thing we do can do with our lives is to live it for God. A life lived to glorify God is far greater than anything else we can do with that dash. We should desire to be “significant” for God, not rich or famous.

v) That was the case of the funeral I attended. That is the story of Joseph and Jacob.

2. This is the last lesson on Genesis. The focus is on the death of Jacob and Joseph.

a) Thirty lessons and roughly 360 pages after I started, I feel like I can see the finish line of a marathon. J I realize now the joy is not finishing the race, but enjoying the run.

b) When one reaches the finish line, one needs to look back, and say, “it was a great run”.

c) Note Paul’s famous last words near the end of his life:

i) “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2^nd Timothy 4:7-8 NIV)

ii) Paul ends his life with a cry of victory. We are going to see that same tone in today’s lesson about the death of Jacob and Joseph.

d) The great lesson for us is not to focus on our death but on our life.

i) I want on my deathbed, whenever that is, to look back on my life with a sense of peace and say, “I lived it for God. I have kept the faith. I have done what God called me to do”.

ii) Please note this does not mean I am focused on God 100% of the day. I have my faults and I have hobbies and interests that are not God-oriented. The point is I have committed my life to serving God and hopefully you have to. If you have made that commitment, your interest in other things are limited.

iii) There is a Christian saying that goes: “Love the Lord Your God with all of your heart, soul mind and strength, and then do whatever you want.” The point of that line is if you love God that much, your interest in other things will be limited.

3. Before I start into this text, let’s compare the start of Genesis with the end of Genesis.

a) Genesis starts with “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth”.

i) Genesis starts with “life”. The word Genesis means “beginnings”. It is about the start of various things. It is about the start of life itself. It is about the start of the first human being. It is about the start of a new race after a flood. It is about the first person called to form a special nation of believers in God. It is about the first person called to redeem that nation for a great Exodus.

b) Now contrast the “life” of the Genesis with the “death” of the last chapter.

i) Here is a book that is all about life, and ends with a chapter on death.

ii) In a sense, it does not end with death, but with a promise of greater things to come. The end of Jacob’s life and Joseph’s life is designed to be a physical witness of greater things to come. Even in death, Genesis is still about “beginnings”. It is about the beginning of a promise of redemption. Not only for the Israelites in Exodus, but for all believers in Jesus into eternity with him.

c) One thing to note about Genesis, and the bible as a whole is how little it says about the next life in heaven. Don’t get me wrong, there are hints of a resurrection even in Genesis. Yet, you don’t read any description of what that life is like. Even if you go through the whole bible, there is very little description of heaven itself. You would think that with Jacob and Joseph on their deathbed, this would be a hot topic. J

i) The lesson of a lack-of-heaven-description is that God wants us to focus on our life here on earth. It is almost as if God is saying, “Let me worry about heaven. Here is your instruction book for life on earth. Focus on that, as that is enough. I’ll take care of heaven when you get there!”

ii) God does give us some clues about heaven. There are references to our rewards in heaven throughout the bible. There is a description of judgment in rewards scattered through the bible and a few chapters at the end of Revelation. But that is a small amount in comparison the bible as a whole. The primary topic of the bible is about how God wants us to live here on earth. Sometimes God gives us direct commands. Most of the time, God gives us stories for us to learn. That is the case of most of Genesis. Speaking of Genesis…J

4. Chapter 49, Verse 28: All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, giving each the blessing appropriate to him.

a) We left the last lesson with Jacob pronouncing blessings on the 12 sons.

i) When you study those blessings, some were more of curses than blessings.

ii) Most of those blessings were predictions about the future.

iii) They were not so much about Jacob’s 12 sons, as it applied to the long-term descendants of those 12 sons.

iv) A great lesson to remember about those “blessings” is what happens to you not only affects you, but those who come after you.

a) Jacob appears to be saying to some to his sons, “Let’s review some key things you did over your lifetime. Here is how your children will be like that too”. The point is not that their kids are cursed because their parents are that way, the point is “what we do affects the next generation”.

b) To use a modern cliché, “We don’t live in a bubble”. Our lives affect those around us. Which is a reason why I do believe “drugs” should be illegal. Libertarians argue, “Drug users only hurt themselves”. The bible teaches the opposite. What you do affects those around you. You cannot harm yourself and not impact other people.

b) This verse is the first time in Genesis we read of the expression, “The 12 tribes of Israel”.

i) Through the rest of Israel’s history, they will be divided up into 12 divisions, based upon which son of Jacob was their ancestor.

ii) The interesting thing is that this division causes war between those divisions, jealousy, and even the breakup of Israel at one point in their history.

iii) So the next question is why divide all the descendants by ranks? Why divide the Israelites into the “12 tribes of Israel”?

a) Part of the reason is to keep a sense of order and rank. After the Exodus, there are several million people and an organizational plan was needed.

b) God uses the number “12” as a symbolic picture of a perfect government by God’s standards. When you study the bible, you often see patterns in numbers. If you study any specific number used throughout the bible, you often see a pattern associated with that number. As for the number 12, it is associated with “Government, as God desires it to be.” This also works with multiples of 12. For example, there were 24 divisions of priests
(1^st Chronicles 27). In the book of Revelation, there are 144,000 witnesses (12 x 12 x 1,000) sealed by God during the tribulation.

c) That doesn’t mean the United States should scale down to 12 states, 12 Congressmen and 12 Senators. J It just means that the number ”12” is associated with division in the bible as God intended to be.

5. Verse 29: Then he (Jacob) gave them these instructions: "I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰ the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite, along with the field. ³¹ There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. ³² The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites. "

a) Jacob is now moments from his death. His last words were in a sense, “I want to be buried in the same cave as my grandparents, my parents and my wife Leah. Here is where the cave is located.”

b) Remember they didn’t have roadmaps and street signs in those days. Therefore the description of the cave had to be described in the manner of the text.

c) That cave still exists today. There is a monument built on top of that cave. One can visit the monument, but one cannot peak into the cave itself.

d) OK, the big question: Why did Jacob want to be buried there?

i) Let’s face it. He was about to die. Jacob understood God could resurrect him from any spot on earth. Further, he could be buried in Bethlehem next to favorite wife Rachel. Why pick the spot where mom and dad and the grandparents are?

ii) This gets back to my opening theme of “dying well”. Jacob wanted to use his death as a life-lesson for his children.

iii) When Jacob’s grandfather Abraham bought this burial ground, Genesis spent a whole chapter (Chapter 23) describing the “haggling session” of Abraham buying some land from someone named “Ephron the Hittite”. Reviewing a little, why would God waste so much ink just to describe the negotiations to buy this piece of ground? A clue is that this same ground is so important to Jacob that it is mentioned in his final words.

iv) The answer is that this is the only plot of land owned by Abraham. In a sense, it is also the only plot of land owned by any Jewish person until they conquered the land some 400 years later. Yes Rachel was also buried near her hometown of Bethlehem. In Rachel’s case, it was just a grave spot. Abraham’s burial ground is the only significant piece of ground owned by any Jewish person at that time.

v) God promised Abraham would inherit all of Israel. Yet Abraham, who was very rich never made an effort to buy any land other than this one spot. His son Isaac never bought any real estate. Jacob never bought any real estate.

vi) What’s the point? The point is we all are in this world, but not of this world. In a sense, the entire world is “Egypt” to us in that we are part of it, but our future home is somewhere else. That “home’ is in heaven.

vii) A related point is Jacob is using his dying breath to teach his sons, “You are to live in Egypt, but not be too comfortable in Egypt. Just like I don’t want to be buried here (and Joseph does the same in Chapter 50), I don’t want my children “buried” here. God made a promise of a future home somewhere outside of Egypt, and that is in the land promised to us. The same word-picture applies to us as well.

e) Before I move on, I also remembered the fact that Jacob’s favorite wife was Rachel, and not Leah. Yet Jacob wanted to be buried next to Leah and not Rachel.

i) There have been sermons preached how this “vindicates” Leah for all of her years of loyal service even though she was the unloved wife.

ii) Personally, I don’t think that is the point. The point is Jacob chose to make God a priority over his favorite wife. This isn’t about Rachel and Leah. This is about loving God first, and trusting in His promises. Those promises included a future redemption for Jacob’s children.

a) In a word-picture, both burial grounds represent promises to us. The burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob represent the land promised to the nation of Israel. The burial place of Rachel is Bethlehem, which of course became the source of new-life through Jesus.

iii) As important as it was to teach your children about loving your spouse, the more important lesson is to love God over your spouse. My greatest hope for my young daughters is that they marry men who love God more than those men love my daughters. It is through God’s love that God will give them the ability to truly love my daughters far more than they can through their own strength.

iv) That’s the word picture of Jacob being buried next to the less-loved Leah. It is not that “I now love Leah more” or “I want to make it up to Leah”. It’s about choosing God first. In Jacob’s case, this is about trusting in God’s promises even as one faces death. Therefore, he chose the burial place with his “fathers”.

v) Notice in Verse 29, Jacob says, “I am about to be gathered to my people”.

a) I can hear Jacob’s sons say, “What do you mean gathered to your people. Who are we, chopped liver?” J

b) That verse does not mean Jacob’s sons are not “his people”. “His people” are those in heaven who have put their trust in God. All people who make it into heaven become Jacob’s people, my people and your people.

6. Verse 33: When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

a) Here we have the actual death recorded of Jacob. Like the funeral I mentioned in the opening of this lesson, this is a victory, not a defeat. Jacob despite all of his faults believed in God and struggled to do God’s will. Jacob was “gathered to his people” not because Jacob was a good person, but because Jacob trusted in God’s faithfulness to carry out His promises to Jacob and to his children.

b) In the Book of Hebrews, Chapter 11 is called the “Hall of Faith”. It lists the great men of the Old Testament. Here is the only thing said about Jacob in that chapter:

i) “By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.” (Hebrews 11:21 NIV)

ii) Notice Hebrews has no mention of Jacob wrestling with an angel. There is no mention of any of the years with Laban, the struggles with Esau or any other part of his life. The one aspect the New Testament emphasizes is that by faith Jacob on his deathbed blessed his sons.

iii) What’s the point? The point is Jacob lived and died trusting in a future, better day for his children. Let’s face it, life has its wonderful moments, but it also has lots of pain and suffering. If this life is “all that we get”, well, I’m disappointed.

iv) The reason God created us is because He wants to spend eternity with us. His only requirement is that He wants us to freely-choose Him over our life here on earth. That is why our eternal destiny is based on our life here on earth. It is God saying, “OK, you can choose to life for yourself here on earth or for me. How you choose affects your eternal destiny. If you don’t choose me here on earth, why would you want me for eternity?”

v) C.S. Lewis once remarked that, “The gates of hell will be locked from the inside.” He meant that people go to hell because they willfully chose to ignore God all of their life. Living a sinful life is simply the “natural consequence” of ignoring God. In a sense, God sending people to hell is giving them what they want.

vi) Which leads us back to Jacob. If you live your life following God, you are naturally going to end your life following God. If you ignore God all of your life, it is difficult to change. This is why statistically most people choose to follow God as teenagers. The problem is the older you get, the harder it is to change habits. (You can still change. The power of God is greater than our habits!)

a) Jacob ends his life stating how much he trusts God and how God will resurrect both him to heaven and the nation of Israel to a future promise.

b) Hebrews emphasizes Jacob’s deathbed request because it shows Jacob’s life-long trust in God. A man that trusts God most of his adult life will end that life also being a witness to God.

7. Chapter 50, Verse 1: Joseph threw himself upon his father and wept over him and kissed him.
² Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, ³ taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

a) I envision all of the brothers standing around Jacob, but the emphasis is on Joseph as he has the power as Prime Minister to organize and pay for the embalming.

b) OK, the next big question, why discuss embalming? The text makes a big deal about how Jacob was to be embalmed for burial.

i) First of all, if anyone understood embalming it was Egyptians. Their whole culture was obsessed with death. If you ever visit Egypt, the main attractions are pyramids, which are essentially giant mausoleums full of mummies.

ii) To this day, we don’t understand how the Egyptians embalmed so well. Some of the mummies that have been found still contain the last meal they ate.

iii) Back to the question, why embalm Jacob this way? Let’s face it, God can resurrect us no matter how we die or how we are buried. My personal view is that God resurrects our DNA signature and puts it in a new body. It’s just my view and if I’m wrong, well, so be it. J Back to the question: Why take the 40 days for the Egyptian high-quality burial technique for Jacob?

iv) The answer is about being a witness in death as well as life.

v) Jacob’s sons are about to hold a big funeral procession to Israel. The text coming up even makes notice of how those who lived around the burial cave made note of this funeral procession.

vi) The message of the funeral is, “See this funeral coming out of Egypt? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait 400 years and then you’ll see a real procession!” J

a) Notice it says, “The Egyptians mourned for him 70 days”. Joseph, as a Prime Minister, still had power in Egypt and arranged a formal state funeral for his father to be honored by the country.

b) The idea is to make his father’s funeral “a witness” to a world of nonbelievers around him.

vii) I truly believe the funeral procession is meant as a message not only to the Egyptians, but as a message to the future children of Israel who were stuck in Egypt for 400 years. The message is “This horror is not forever. God made promises and God keeps his promises. Don’t put your trust in man or yourself because we are not perfect and we fail. God is perfect and God does keep his promises. Just as Jacob will be taken out of Egypt, so will the whole nation of Israel be taken out of Egypt.”

viii) In the same way, we also don’t trust in our faithfulness, we trust in God’s faithfulness. We also want to end our lives well as we live our lives for God. We trust in God’s faithfulness to resurrect us, not our ability to get into heaven “because we’re good people”.

8. Verse 4: When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh's court, "If I have found favor in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him, ⁵ `My father made me swear an oath and said, "I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan." Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.' "

a) Joseph essentially asks Pharaoh, “Look, I need a leave of absence from my job for a short time span. I made this promise to my father to bury him in Canaan (Israel). So let me go and I’ll be back when I’m done”.

b) OK, why include this text? Why mention Joseph asking permission to leave?

i) Again, the point is about being a witness for God to those around us.

ii) Joseph says, “I will return”. Joseph is saying, “I am trustworthy. I was hired to do this job and I’m keeping oath.” God wants us to be trustworthy in all aspects of our life. If people can’t trust us in say, our jobs, how will they ever trust us when it comes to telling people about God?”

iii) The specific witness of the funeral processing is also about “practicing for the big Exodus”. It is to show the Egyptians that “The God” does promise greater things and “The God” does redeem man. Thus the funeral procession is about showing outsiders how God keeps his word.

iv) Notice Joseph does not say, “Hey you pagans, I have to go bury dad as a model of how my descendants will plunder Egypt and millions will walk out”. J He simply makes the request to leave Egypt.

c) Verse 6 makes a point of announcing that Pharaoh agreed to do this.

i) This is the last we read of a “cooperative Pharaoh”. In the first chapter of Exodus we start reading of an uncooperative Pharaoh who opposes the Jewish people.

ii) A point to consider from all of this is that God is behind the scenes “swaying the minds” of unbelievers, even pagan kings.

a) It was God’s desire for Joseph to be Prime Minister of Egypt and God was behind the scenes persuading the Pharaoh to promote a non-Egyptian to the #2 man in power.

b) Here we are many years later. We can assume it is now a different Pharaoh in charge. Remember that it is not just a matter of letting Joseph go for a few days, but with a large caravan of Egyptian officials as we will read in the next few verses.

c) This verse is a good reminder for us to pray for our government appointed leaders (Romans 13:1). That includes ones who haven’t committed their lives to serving God and the one’s we don’t like. If God can sway the hearts of a Pharaoh, he can work with anyone.

d) “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” (Proverbs 21:1 NIV)

9. Verse 7: So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh's officials accompanied him--the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt-- ⁸ besides all the members of Joseph's household and his brothers and those belonging to his father's household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. ⁹ Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.

a) Now that’s a funeral! Some of you may have witnessed a president’s funeral or a pope’s funeral. Remember this is the funeral of a “nobody” as far as the Egyptians were concerned.

i) Think about it this way: Have you ever seen a state-funeral for an insignificant father of a United States Vice President? That is what we have here. Joseph is the #2 man in Egypt and he organizes an official state-sponsored funeral for his father, complete with Egyptian dignitaries.

b) OK, onto the big why question: Why did Joseph do this?

i) The easy-answer is “Joseph loved his father. Joseph was a powerful man in Egypt and had the power to arrange this funeral.”

a) It’s not a bad answer but it misses the big-picture. J

ii) Remember Verse 3 of this chapter says, “And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

a) I don’t think all of Egypt took off work for 70 days. I believe it means that word was spread all over Egypt that the father of the Prime Minister (or former Prime Minister) was dead and that for 70 days they all need to honor him. Remember a few chapters back every Egyptian gave all they had to Joseph in order to survive. I suspect they had no choice but to honor the death of his father.

iii) Let me paraphrase what is the “big answer”:

a) Joseph is saying to the Egyptians: “Hey, we Hebrews are here in Egypt. My brothers and I want to show you about the “true God” and not the pagan gods that you follow. We want every Egyptian to know we are burying our father back in the land promised to him, even though he doesn’t own it. I’m organizing a big state-sponsored funeral so you can all see how one day all the Hebrews will return to this land just like my brothers and I are carrying out my father right now.”

b) Joseph is also saying to his brothers and their children: “The words spoken to Abraham are true, even though he didn’t own any land other than the burial site. The words are also true how we will be in Egypt for 400 years and we will be redeemed. One day, our decedents will come out of Egypt with a big procession just like we are doing to this day.”

c) So the answer to the question of why is Joseph doing this is to act out prophecy. It is to remember what God will do in the future.

d) Which leads to us. A lot of what we do as Christians is to look back to what Jesus did for us. The redemption for us was “past tense”. For Joseph, the redemption is “future tense”. Joseph performed a ritual pointing to the future as we perform rituals such as communion to remember the past.

e) Let’s look at something written in Hebrews:

(1) “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” (Hebrews 11:1-2 NIV)

(2) That applies to Joseph. He was sure of the promise of a future redemption. He trusted in that promise so much he was willing to perform this big funeral as a witness to his fellow Jews as well as to the nonbelievers around him.

c) One last thing: Notice Verse 8 says they left their children and flocks in Egypt.

i) On one hand, that is “stating the obvious”. It would be tough to travel a long distance with little kids.

ii) I also believe the point of that is to tell the Egyptians, “We’re not running away for good. We will be back. God told our ancestor Abraham that we have to stay here for 400 years and be mistreated as slaves (Genesis 15:13). We obey what God says, even though we don’t like it.”

a) The application is that God also calls us into situations we may not like. The point is we must be obedient to God even when we don’t like the situation or makes us uncomfortable.

10. Verse 10: When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. ¹¹ When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, "The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning." That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.

a) This funeral procession has now left Egypt and is back in Israel. They are now at the burial ground where they stopped and had a 7-day funeral (now that’s a funeral! J). The local residents are so impressed by this procession of foreigners they renamed the place in order to remember the event.

b) In a sense, that is what Joseph wanted the locals to do -- remember this event. Remember that after the Exodus 400 years later, the Israelites go back to this land and start conquering the local residents in order to take over the land. That is why this funeral procession is such a big deal in terms of prophecy.

i) Remember that Genesis is a book of beginnings. It is not only the beginning of man’s existence and Israel’s existence, but it is the beginning of redemption.

ii) Genesis is ending with a prophetic word picture of a promise of a future redemption. This future redemption will be “very public”. This refers to the redemption of the Nation of Israel, but also ties to our redemption through Jesus.

a) “Look, he (Jesus) is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.” (Revelation 1:7 NIV)

c) The local resid