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Genesis 50

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1 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. And the physicians embalmed Israel.

3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

4 And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favour in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

5 My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I die; in my grave which I have dug myself in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. And now, let me go up, I pray thee, that I may bury my father; and I will come again.

6 And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

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

8 and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house; only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and the camp was very great.

10 And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan; and there they lamented with a great and very grievous lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father of seven days.

11 And the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning of the Egyptians. Therefore the name of it was called Abel-Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.

12 And his sons did to him according as he had commanded them;

13 and his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah which Abraham had bought along with the field, for a possession of a sepulchre, of Ephron the Hittite, opposite to Mamre.

14 And, after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that had gone up with him to bury his father.

15 And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, If now Joseph should be hostile to us, and should indeed requite us all the evil that we did to him!

16 And they sent a messenger to Joseph, saying, Thy father commanded before he died, saying,

17 Thus shall ye speak to Joseph: Oh forgive, I pray thee, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin! for they did evil to thee. And now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

18 And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and said, Behold, we are thy bondmen.

19 And Joseph said to them, Fear not: am I then in the place of God?

20 Ye indeed meant evil against me: God meant it for good, in order that he might do as [it is] this day, to save a great people alive.

21 And now, fear not: I will maintain you and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke consolingly to them.

22 And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's house; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years.

23 And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third [generation]; the sons also of Machir the son of Manasseh were born on Joseph's knees.

24 And Joseph said to his brethren, I die; and God will certainly visit you, and bring you up out of this land, into the land that he swore unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

25 And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will certainly visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones hence.

26 And Joseph died, a hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him; and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

   

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Jacob or Israel (the man)

  

Jacob is told twice that his name will now be Israel. The first time is when he wrestles with an angel on his journey to meet Esau, and the angel tells him that his name will be changed. After he is reconciled with Esau, they go their separate ways. Jacob moves to Shechem and then on to Bethel, where he builds an altar to the Lord. The Lord appears to him there, renews the covenant He first made with Abraham and again tells him that his name will be Israel (Genesis 35). The story goes on to tell of Benjamin's birth and Rachel's death in bearing him, and then of Jacob's return to Isaac and Isaac's death and burial. But at that point the main thread of the story leaves Israel and turns to Joseph, and Israel is hardly mentioned until after Joseph has risen to power in Egypt, has revealed himself to his brothers and tells them to bring all of their father's household down to Egypt. There, before Israel dies, he blesses Joseph's sons, plus all his own sons. After his death he is returned to the land of Canaan for burial in Abraham's tomb. In the story of Jacob and Esau, Jacob represents truth, and Esau good. Jacob's stay in Padan-Aram, and the wealth he acquired there, represent learning the truths of scripture, just as we learn when we read the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. The change of name from Jacob to Israel represents the realization that what we learn should not simply be knowledge, but should be the rules of our life, to be followed by action. This action is the good that Esau has represented in the story up to that time, but after the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau, Jacob as Israel now represents the truth and the good, together. It is interesting that even after his name change Jacob is rarely called Israel. Sometimes he is called one and sometimes the other, and sometimes he is called both Jacob and Israel in the same verse (Genesis 46:2, 5, & 8 also Psalm 14:7). This is because Jacob represents the external person and Israel the internal person, and even after the internal person comes into being, we spend much of our lives living on the external level.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4274, 4292, 4570, 5595, 6225, 6256, Genesis 2:5, 46:8)