Genesis 50:3

3 The embalming process took the usual forty days. And the Egyptians mourned his death for seventy days.

Genesis 50:3 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 50:3

Forty days were fulfilled for him
Were spent in embalming him:

for so are fulfilled the days of those that are embalmed;
so long the body lay in the pickle, in ointment of cedar, myrrh and cinnamon, and other things, that it might soak and penetrate thoroughly into it: and so Diodorus Siculus ^F4 says, that having laid more than thirty days in such a state, it was delivered to the kindred of the deceased:

and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days;
during the time of their embalming him; for longer than seventy days the body might not lie in the pickle, as before observed, from Herodotus. According to Diodorus Siculus ^F5, the Egyptians used to mourn for their kings seventy two days: the account he gives is, that

``upon the death of a king, all Egypt went into a common mourning, tore their garments, shut up their temples, forbid sacrifices, kept not the feasts for seventy two days, put clay upon their heads ^F6, girt linen clothes under their breasts; men and women, two or three hundred together, went about twice a day, singing in mournful verses the praises of the deceased; they abstained from animal food, and from wine, and all dainty things; nor did they use baths, nor ointments, nor lie in soft beds, nor dared to use venery, but, as if it was for the death of a beloved child, spent the said days in sorrow and mourning.''

Now these seventy days here are either a round number for seventy two, or two are taken from them, as Quistorpius suggests, to make a difference between Jacob, and a king of theirs, who yet being the father of their viceroy, they honoured in such a manner. Jarchi accounts for the number thus, forty for embalming, and thirty for mourning; which latter was the usual time for mourning with the Jews for principal men, and which the Egyptians added to their forty of embalming; see ( Numbers 20:29 ) ( Deuteronomy 34:8 )

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 lBibliothec. l. 1. p. 82.
F5 lbid. p. 65.
F6 Vid. Pompon. Mela de Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 9.

Genesis 50:3 In-Context

1 Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him.

2 Then Joseph told the physicians who served him to embalm his father’s body; so Jacob was embalmed.

3 The embalming process took the usual forty days. And the Egyptians mourned his death for seventy days.

4 When the period of mourning was over, Joseph approached Pharaoh’s advisers and said, “Please do me this favor and speak to Pharaoh on my behalf.

5 Tell him that my father made me swear an oath. He said to me, ‘Listen, I am about to die. Take my body back to the land of Canaan, and bury me in the tomb I prepared for myself.’ So please allow me to go and bury my father. After his burial, I will return without delay.”