1 Joseph fell on his father’s face, wept on
him, and kissed him.

2 Joseph commanded his servants, the
physicians, to embalm his father; and the
physicians embalmed Israel.

3 Forty days were used for him, for that
is how many days it takes to embalm. The
Egyptians wept for Israel for seventy days.

4 Whenthedays of weeping forhimwere
past, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s staff, saying, “If now I have found favor in your
eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh,
saying,

5 ‘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.’ ”

6 Pharaoh said, “Go up, and bury your
father, just like he made you swear.”

7 Joseph went up to bury his father;
and with him went up all the servants of
Pharaoh, the elders of his house, all the
elders of the land of Egypt,

8 all the house of Joseph, his brothers,
and his father’s house. Only their little
ones, their flocks, and their herds, they left
in the land of Goshen.

9 Both chariots and horsemen went up
with him. It was a very great company.

10 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.

11 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.

12 His sons did to him just as he commanded them,

13 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.