Jacob's Death and Burial

Before he died, Jacob instructed his sons to bury him with his fathers in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan. He reminded them that Abraham had bought that field as a burial place. Abraham and Sarah were buried there, and Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob said Leah was buried there too.

When Jacob had finished giving these instructions, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last. Joseph fell on his father's face, wept over him, and kissed him. Then Joseph ordered the physicians to embalm Israel. The embalming took forty days, and the Egyptians mourned for him for seventy days.

When the days of mourning in Egypt were over, Joseph asked Pharaoh's household to speak to Pharaoh for him. He said that his father had made him swear to bury him in the grave he had dug for himself in the land of Canaan. Pharaoh gave permission, and Joseph went up to bury his father.

A very great company travelled with Joseph. Pharaoh's servants went, along with the elders of his house and the elders of Egypt. Joseph's household, his brothers, and his father's household also went. Only their little ones, flocks, and herds stayed behind in Goshen. Chariots and horsemen went with them too.

At the threshing floor of Atad, beyond the Jordan, they mourned with a great and bitter lament for seven days. The Canaanites saw it and said it was a grievous mourning by the Egyptians, so the place was called Abel Mizraim. Then Jacob's sons carried him into Canaan and buried him in the cave of Machpelah, as he had commanded. Afterward, Joseph, his brothers, and all who had gone with him returned to Egypt. What does this careful burial show about the way Jacob's family treated his final words?