🌱WEB · Genesis 50:3
What does Genesis 50:3 mean?
"Forty days were fulfilled for him, for that is how many the days it takes to embalm. The Egyptians wept for him for seventy days."
— Genesis 50:3 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Joseph fell on his father’s face, wept on him, and kissed him.
Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father; and the physicians embalmed Israel.
Forty days were fulfilled for him, for that is how many the days it takes to embalm. The Egyptians wept for him for seventy days.
When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,
‘My father made me swear, saying, “Behold, I am dying. Bury me in my grave which I have dug for myself in the land of Canaan.” Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come again.’”
Pharaoh said, “Go up, and bury your father, just like he made you swear.”
Explanation
Genesis 50:3 comes right after the death of Jacob (also called Israel), the patriarch whose life the book of Genesis has been tracing from chapter 25 onward. The verse simply reports two practical facts: Jacob's body was embalmed, a process that took forty days according to Egyptian practice, and the Egyptians then mourned him for seventy days. In plain language, the text is describing the funeral customs that were followed for Jacob because he died in Egypt, in the household of his son Joseph, who by this point had become a powerful official under Pharaoh.
The context is essential here. Jacob had moved his entire family to Egypt during a famine, at Joseph's invitation, after Joseph had risen to become second-in-command under Pharaoh (Genesis 45-47). When Jacob died in Egypt (Genesis 49:33), his body was treated according to Egyptian customs of embalming and mourning, since Joseph was deeply embedded in Egyptian society and had access to Pharaoh's own physicians and officials. Embalming was a specialized Egyptian practice tied to their beliefs about preserving the body, and a forty-day embalming period is consistent with what is known from Egyptian funerary customs of the ancient world. The seventy days of mourning likely included both the embalming period and additional time of public grief, and such an extended mourning period was reserved for people of great honor and status in Egyptian society. This detail sh
Compare translations
Go deeper with ScriptureCompanion AI
Ask questions about any verse, follow reading plans, write personal prayers, and track your daily habit — all grounded in verified scripture text.