Recognized Mourning

 Recognized Mourning

Genesis 50: ¹⁰ Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they mourned there with a great and very solemn lamentation. He observed seven days of mourning for his father. ¹¹ And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a deep mourning of the Egyptians.” Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.

 

¹² So his sons did for him just as he had commanded them. ¹³ For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite as property for a burial place. ¹⁴ And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who went up with him to bury his father.

 

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After leaving Egypt, Joseph and the rest of the funeral processional arrived at the burial site. The inhabitants saw the mourning. Joseph mourned an additional seven days on top of the seventy and the forty done in Egypt.

 

My Observations:

• The Philistines recognized that Joseph and the Egyptians were not trying to raid the land, rather they were in mourning.
• The locals saw that the Egyptians mourned, and were so amazed that they named the place Abel Mizraim, which means “Where Egyptians Mourn.”
• Almost a third of a year was spent mourning over Jacob.

 

When Jacob made his sons promise to go back and bury him in the place where Abraham and Isaac were buried, they may have had mixed emotions. They had to go back to the place where they plotted against Joseph and near the place where they murdered someone out of vengeance.

 

They had been gone for almost twenty years, but the feelings may have still been there. The locals saw that they were minimally armed so they left them alone. Egypt and the Philistines were not friends, so this funeral was strange. GOD provided a peaceful mourning time.

 

Challenge

• Why does GOD tell Moses about the inhabitants of the Canaanites?
• Have you ever been at odds with someone but saw that they were going through something?
• Can you recognize that someone you may be arguing with may be going through something only GOD can see?