🌱WEB · Genesis 50:13
What does Genesis 50:13 mean?
"for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, as a possession for a burial site, from Ephron the Hittite, near Mamre."
— Genesis 50:13 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and severe lamentation. He mourned for his father seven days.
When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.” Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
His sons did to him just as he commanded them,
for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, as a possession for a burial site, from Ephron the Hittite, near Mamre.
Joseph returned into Egypt—he, and his brothers, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully pay us back for all the evil which we did to him.”
They sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father commanded before he died, saying,
Explanation
Genesis 50:13 records the fulfillment of a promise Jacob extracted from his sons before he died. It simply states the facts: Jacob's sons carried his body from Egypt to Canaan and buried him in the cave of Machpelah, a burial plot that Abraham had purchased generations earlier from Ephron the Hittite, located near Mamre. This verse concludes the long narrative of Jacob's death, embalming, and funeral procession that occupies the final chapter of Genesis.
The book of Genesis is traditionally attributed to Moses, writing for the Israelites who would soon need to understand their identity and their claim to the land of Canaan. This particular passage comes at the close of the patriarchal narratives, wrapping up the story of Jacob (also called Israel) and preparing the reader for the transition into the book of Exodus, where his descendants become a nation in Egypt. The cave of Machpelah itself is significant because it had already been established as the family burial site in Genesis 23, when Abraham bought it from Ephron the Hittite after the death of his wife Sarah. By the time Jacob is buried there, the cave already held Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah. Jacob had specifically instructed his sons in Genesis 49:29-32 to bury him there rather than in Egypt, and Joseph, now a powerful Egyptian official,
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