Genesis 50:10 Commentary and Bible Study

In our narrative, no sooner has the company left than it arrives, ‘and they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan’, that is, east of Jordan, if we understand it correctly. They stop for a further period of mourning for seven days. It is emphasised that this is a ‘great and very sore lamentation’, indicating what great respect the Egyptians held Jacob in. This threshing floor was either a place name, although it would have been a threshing floor at one time. Very often they were large areas. The nearest thing we would have to a threshing floor of those days today would be a parade ground something which had been beaten flat and stones beaten into the ground, and sometimes they were paved. So a former, or even and in use threshing floor would have been an ideal place for a large funeral. Possibly Atad was the name of the place; possibly it means a hedge which was around the threshing floor, but our translators have decided that it's a place name, so they call it the Floor of Atad. There the funeral was convened. But again, seven days: it's a long time for the Jews, and so it's pointed out to us that this was mainly an Egyptian affair. That's why it was protracted. ‘And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning In the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizzraim, which is beyond Jordan.’ There it's repeated. That name means ‘the mourning of the Egyptians’, so it seemed to be an Egyptian ceremony to a large extent.