Laid to Rest in God’s Promise

Finishing Well

Genesis 49:29–50:3 (NIV)

Then he gave them these instructions: “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites.”

When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

For three generations, the Lord has pointed Abraham’s family to the promise of the covenant sealed by God with Abraham. While Jacob’s life has been marked by significant moments where he chose his own desires and his own gain over dependence upon the Lord, here in the closing scenes, Jacob’s heart has been reconciled and restored by the faithfulness of God’s promise.

Genesis 48:3–4 (NIV)

Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.’

Jacob has seen and experienced the faithfulness of the Lord. It was God who reunited his family. It was the Lord who stepped in and protected Joseph even when his family failed to do so. And now it was the Lord through whom his family was once again protected and provided for in Egypt.

Jacob takes note that it was the Lord who was faithful. Now he passes that truth on to his children by reminding them of God’s promise. Jacob’s final testimony would be a proclamation of God’s promise. He would be buried in the land of promise.

Leaving a Legacy

Genesis 50:4–14 (NIV)

When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh’s court, “If I have found favor in your eyes, speak to Pharaoh for me. Tell him, ‘My father made me swear an oath and said, “I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.” Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.’ ”

Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.”

So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him—the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt—besides all the members of Joseph’s household and his brothers and those belonging to his father’s household. Only their children and their flocks and herds were left in Goshen. Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.

When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father. When the Canaanites who lived there saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “The Egyptians are holding a solemn ceremony of mourning.” That is why that place near the Jordan is called Abel Mizraim.

So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them: They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre, which Abraham had bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, together with his brothers and all the others who had gone with him to bury his father.

The amazing gift of a restored relationship with God is that our life and our death now has a greater meaning. Our lives are continuations of the creation narrative. God is continually at work in His creation, transforming hearts and lives through His glory. The story of Jacob is one that all too many of us resonate with. His life was built upon a foundation of deception motivated by gaining no matter the cost. Grit and hard work was the reward for deceptive beginnings, but even in his sweat, Jacob found something to hold onto and keep him going, the hope of love and the promise of more. After 20 years of hard labor and penance for the deceptions of his past, Jacob faces his greatest adversary, his past, in order to preserve the hope that he had finally taken hold of, his beloved and his family. Heartbreak was awaiting Jacob as his family reached its full as Rachael’s life is given in exchange for Benjamin’s. Jospeh is lost in what must have felt like his very next breath and Jacob is left broken and desperate, willing to claw to keep hold of every last reminder of his beloved.

Now at the precipice of death, Jacob sees what the Lord has been saying since his boyhood. Genesis 28:13-15

Genesis 28:13–15 (NIV)

There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

The legacy of Jacob is that in both life and death, the Lord was faithful to His promise.