Genesis 50:1-13 And Joseph fell on his father's face, and wept on him, and kissed him.… The order of the ceremonies alluded to, and on the whole agreeing with classical and monumental records, was as follows: 1. When the extinction of the vital breath could no longer be doubted, the relatives began a preliminary mourning, perhaps observed during the day of death only (ver. 1), and consisting in public lamentations, in covering the head and the face with mud (or dust), girding up the garments, and beating the breasts. 2. Then the body was delivered up to the embalmers, who, in the case of Jacob, completed their work in forty days (ver. 3), though it more frequently required seventy. 3. Simultaneously with the operations of embalming commenced the chief or real mourning, which, lasting about seventy days (ver. 3), usually ended together with the process of mummification, but which, in the instance of the patriarch, exceeded it by thirty days. 4. The body, after having been enclosed in a case of wood or stone (ver. 26), was then either deposited in the family vaults (ver. 13), or placed in a sepulchral chamber of the house of the nearest relative (ver. 26). (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.WEB: Joseph fell on his father's face, wept on him, and kissed him. |
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