Genesis 50:26

‘So Joseph died being a hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt.'

This verse is not a conclusion but a hesitation, for it describes a temporary situation. The final conclusion awaits the return of his bones to the promised land when God visits His people.

“One hundred and ten years old.” It is repeated and thus emphasised that he lived a full and complete life. And the very fact that this is done in terms of Egyptian thought must surely confirm to us that this was written down at a time when Egyptian thought was primarily influencing the writer and that suggests it was by someone not too long after his death as befitted a great Vizier of Egypt.

“And they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt.” This is his temporary resting place. He will not remain in Egypt, any more than will the children of Israel. The same embalming and mourning that followed the death of Jacob follows here. But the writer omits it. He mentions only the coffin into which he is placed, richly made and shaped roughly in the form of a man. For the reader is expected to wait expectantly for the next episode. After all, this is the story of God.