Genesis 50:3 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 50:3

Comments

The seventy days probably includes the embalming process – the forty days – so that altogether it was seventy days of mourning. But notice how carefully it is pointed out that this is the Egyptian custom. The custom of the children of Israel was not to give anything like that amount of time to morning and to funerals. They were much more restrained than that, but the Egyptians evidently loved a very protracted outpouring of public grief, and they also were very involved, as all pagans are, with their very elaborate ceremonies. There was the family mourning, but there was also the official Egyptian morning. Why did the Egyptians mourn Jacob? Because he was the father of Joseph who was so highly regarded for all that God had enabled him to do for the preservation of Egypt, and so they were allowed to mourn because it was their way of showing honour to Jacob.

Application

Questions

Only Jacob and Joseph, his son, are recorded in Scripture as being embalmed, and the process was quite involved. You had to know what you are doing. You had to get out all the organs from the body cavities. We read they used very elaborate systems to somehow extricate the brain through the nostrils, and then they had to get all the contents of the chest and the abdomen out, and when they done that, they filled it all up with spices after soaking the body for seven days in saltpetre, washing it out with sweet wine and then soaking it in gum. It was then wrapped with layers of bandages with various wonderfully smelling substances,, and placed in the mummy case. It was a very elaborate process and it took forty days, forming part of the seventy days of mourning.

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Genesis 50:3 Commentary and Bible Study