1. Joseph flung himself upon his father and wept over him as he kissed him.
2. Then Joseph ordered the physicians in his service to embalm his father. When the physicians embalmed Israel,
3. they spent forty days at it, for that is the full period of embalming; and the Egyptians mourned him for seventy days.
4. When the period of mourning was over, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s household. “If you please, appeal to Pharaoh, saying:
5. My father made me swear: ‘I am dying. Bury me in my grave that I have prepared for myself in the land of Canaan.’ So now let me go up to bury my father. Then I will come back.”
6. Pharaoh replied, “Go and bury your father, as he made you promise on oath.”
7. So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went all of Pharaoh’s officials who were senior members of his household and all the other elders of the land of Egypt,
8. as well as Joseph’s whole household, his brothers, and his father’s household; only their children and their flocks and herds were left in the region of Goshen.
9. Chariots, too, and horsemen went up with him; it was a very imposing retinue.
10. When they arrived at Goren-ha-atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they held there a very great and solemn memorial service; and Joseph observed seven days of mourning for his father.
11. When the Canaanites who inhabited the land saw the mourning at Goren-ha-atad, they said, “This is a solemn funeral on the part of the Egyptians!” That is why the place was named Abel-mizraim. It is beyond the Jordan.