Genesis 50 · Parashat Vayechi

And Yosef fell on his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

And Yosef commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Yisra᾽el.

And forty days were fulfilled for him: for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed: and Miżrayim wept for him seventy days.

And when the days of his mourning were past, Yosef spoke to the house of Par῾o, saying, If now I have found favour in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Par῾o, saying,

My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have dug for myself in the land of Kena῾an there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come back.

And Par῾o said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

And Yosef went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Par῾o, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Miżrayim.

And all the house of Yosef, and his brothers, and his father’s house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.

And they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Yarden, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father of seven days.

And when the inhabitants of the land, the Kena῾ani, saw the mourning at the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to Miżrayim: so that the name of it was called Avel-miżrayim, which is beyond the Yarden.

And his sons did to him according as he had commanded them:

for his sons carried him into the land of Kena῾an, and buried him in the cave of the field of Makhpela, which Avraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace from ῾Efron the Ḥittite, before Mamre.

And Yosef returned to Miżrayim, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

And when Yosef’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, What if Yosef will hate us, and will pay us back the evil which we did to him.

And they sent word urgently to Yosef, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,

So shall you say to Yosef, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brothers, and their sin; for they did evil to thee: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Yosef wept when they spoke to him.

And his brothers even went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we are thy servants.

And Yosef said to them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?

But as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it to pass at this day that much people should be saved alive.

Now therefore fear not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke kindly to them.

And Yosef dwelt in Miżrayim, he, and his father’s house: and Yosef lived a hundred and ten years.

And Yosef saw Efrayim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Makhir the son of Menashshe were born on Yosef’s knees.

And Yosef said to his brothers, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the land of which He swore to Avraham, to Yiżĥaq, and to Ya῾aqov.

And Yosef took an oath of the children of Yisra᾽el, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.

So Yosef died, being a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Miżrayim.