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New Defender's Study Bible Notes
50:2 embalm his father. Both Jacob and later Joseph (Genesis 50:26) were embalmed in the manner of the Egyptians, and the remains of both were ultimately carried back for permanent burial in the promised land.
50:26 an hundred and ten years old. Joseph lived some fifty-four years after Jacob died, but his life-span was considerably shorter than Jacob’s 147 years. Longevity was still declining as a result of the traumatic changes in earth’s climatology and biology during the Flood. Although Joseph was buried in Egypt, the Israelites under Moses eventually reburied him in Canaan as he had requested (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32).
50:26 coffin in Egypt. Note the dramatic significance of this ending. The book of Genesis begins with the magnificent words: “In the beginning God created.” But sin and the curse intervened, and it ends with the sad testimony of God’s people away from the land of promise, and their leader “in a coffin in Egypt.”