Genesis 50:2 Commentary and Bible Study

It was very necessary for him to be embalmed. They were going to take a very long journey and take him to a far country in a hot climate. Joseph commanded his servants – the physicians, that is, those among his servants who were physicians – to embalm his father and they embalmed Israel, and that is so carefully expressed and for good reason. Joseph uses his staff physicians rather than the professional embalmers. Why not the professional embalmers? This was a distinct profession in ancient Egypt. Why did it have to be the court physicians? It was to be done perfectly and properly, and the physicians, with their detailed knowledge of anatomy, would probably be better at the embalming process than actually the professional embalmers. But also the Egyptian embalmers would undoubtedly have used various cultic processes which reflected Egyptian religion. Who knows what they mixed into the materials used for embalming? This idea is reinforced by the fact that at the end of the verse Moses writes, ‘the physicians embalmed Israel’, Jacob’s official name, which had to do with the coming of Messiah, and the typical church of God. That is possibly one reason why Joseph used his physicians rather than the embalmers – so that the process was free from Egyptian religious rites. ‘Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians.’ But perhaps more likely is the fact the greatest imaginable courtesy and honour is being shown to Jacob in his burial, and the Egyptians were happy to fall in line with that. They made a greater thing of this funeral than even the Israelites did, because Jacob was the father of their ‘saviour’. Egypt had been saved from famine and extinction by Joseph, with his God-given wisdom, as prime minister and head of state, and the nations around had been saved also.