Genesis 50:6

6 Pharaoh agreed to Joseph’s request. “Go and bury your father, as he made you promise,” he said.

Genesis 50:6 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 50:6

And Pharaoh said
To Joseph, by the courtiers that waited upon him at Joseph's request, who having delivered it to him had this answer: go up, and bury thy father, as he made thee swear;
the oath seems to be the principal thing that influenced Pharaoh to grant the request, it being a sacred thing, and not to be violated; otherwise, perhaps, he would not have chosen that Joseph should have been so long absent from him, and might have thought a grave in Egypt, and an honourable interment there, which he would have spared no cost to have given, might have done as well, or better.

Genesis 50:6 In-Context

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.”

6 Pharaoh agreed to Joseph’s request. “Go and bury your father, as he made you promise,” he said.

7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. He was accompanied by all of Pharaoh’s officials, all the senior members of Pharaoh’s household, and all the senior officers of Egypt.

8 Joseph also took his entire household and his brothers and their households. But they left their little children and flocks and herds in the land of Goshen.