Genesis 50:25

And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel,.... Not of his brethren only, but of their posterity, as many of them as were now grown up, that so it might be communicated from one to another,

And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. No JFB commentary on this verse.

Joseph took an oath, for the same reason which moved Jacob to require an oath from him, ,31, of the children of Israel: he saith not, of his brethren, but of Israel’ s children; under which his grandchildren are comprehended, and seem principally intended here; either because his brethren were most of them dead, or rather because he knew that they were not to go out of Egypt in his brethren’ s time, but in their second or third generation. My bones, i.e. my dead body: but he mentions only his bones, because part of his body was corrupted, and the other part, though preserved from corruption by the embalming, yet was so changed and adulterated with the spices, and other materials which they used, that it looked like another thing: only his bones remained entire and unchanged. Quest. Why did he not desire to be presently carried thither, and buried there, as his father did? Answ. 1. Lest he should disoblige the Egyptians, and provoke them against his brethren and children. The removal of his father thither was necessary, and forced from him by an oath, but the order for the removal of himself would have been voluntary and designed, and therefore could not have escaped the censure of an ungrateful contempt of the land of Egypt, which as it was thought good enough for him and his to live in, should have been judged so too for his burial. 2. That by these his remains his memory might be the longer and better preserved, both with the Egyptians, who for his sake might show kindness to his near relations; and with the Israelites, to whom this was a visible pledge of their deliverance, and a help to their faith, and all obligation to them to persist in the true religion.

Verse 25. Ye shall carry up my bones] That I may finally rest with my ancestors in the land which God gave to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and which is a pledge as it is a type of the kingdom of Heaven. Thus says the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 11:22: "By FAITH Joseph, when he died, (τελευτων, when dying,) made mention of the departure (εξοδου, of the EXODUS) of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones. From this it is evident that Joseph considered all these things as typical, and by this very commandment expressed his faith in the immortality of the soul, and the general resurrection of the dead. This oath, by which Joseph then bound his brethren, their posterity considered as binding on themselves; and Moses took care, when he departed from Egypt, to carry up Joseph's body with him, Exodus 13:19; which was afterwards buried in Shechem, Joshua 24:32, the very portion which Jacob had purchased from the Amorites, and which he gave to his son Joseph, Genesis 48:22; Acts 7:16. See the reason for this command as given by Chrysostom, vol. ii., p. 695, sec. D.E.

25. Joseph took an oath] The fulfilment of this oath and Joseph’s burial at Shechem, in the land of Ephraim, are duly recorded in Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32. For these dying words of Joseph, cf. Hebrews 11:22, “by faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.” As Jacob, his father, had done, Joseph forewarns his kindred that the day of the Exodus would come.

25. Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel — “He could have commanded them to carry his body immediately to Canaan, as he had already carried that of Israel there; but he commanded that it