47:27-31 At last the time drew nigh that Israel must die. Israel, a prince with God, had power over the Angel, and prevailed, yet must die. Joseph supplied him with bread, that he might not die by famine, but that did not secure him from dying by age or sickness. He died by degrees; his candle gradually burnt down to the socket, so that he saw the time drawing nigh. It is an advantage to see the approach of death, before we feel it, that we may be quickened to do, with all our might, what our hands find to do. However, death is not far from any of us. Jacob's care, as he saw the day approach, was about his burial; not the pomp of it, but he would be buried in Canaan, because it was the land of promise. It was a type of heaven, that better country, which he declared plainly he expected, Heb 11:14. Nothing will better help to make a death-bed easy, than the certain prospect of rest in the heavenly Canaan after death. When this was done, Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head, worshipping God, as it is explained, see Heb 11:21, giving God thanks for all his favours; in feebleness thus supporting himself, expressing his willingness to leave the world. Even those who lived on Joseph's provision, and Jacob who was so dear to him, must die. But Christ Jesus gives us the true bread, that we may eat and live for ever. To Him let us come and yield ourselves, and when we draw near to death, he who supported us through life, will meet us and assure us of everlasting salvation.

Verse 30. - But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place. The request of the venerable patriarch, while due in some respect to the deeply-seated instinct of human nature which makes men, almost universally, long to be buried in ancestral graves, was inspired by the clear faith that Canaan was the true inheritance of Israel, and that, though now obtaining a temporary refuge in Egypt, his descendants would eventually return to the land of promise as their permanent abode. And he (i.e. Joseph) said, I will do as thou hast said - literally, according to thy word.

But I will lie with my fathers,.... Abraham and Isaac, whose bodies lay in the land of Canaan, where Jacob desired to be buried; partly to express his faith in the promised land, that it should be the inheritance of his posterity; and partly to draw off their minds from a continuance in Egypt, and to incline them to think of removing thither at a proper time, and to confirm them in the belief of their enjoyment of it; as well as to intimate his desire after, and faith in the heavenly glory he was going to, of which Canaan was a type:

and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt; into the land of Canaan:

and bury me in their burying place; in the burying place of his fathers, in the cave of Machpelah, near Hebron; see Genesis 49:30,

and he said, I will do as thou hast said; Joseph promised his father to fulfil his request, and do as he had desired of him.

Genesis 47:30 Parallel Commentaries

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