What Does Genesis 50:13 Mean?
For his sons lifted him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a holding of a grave of Ephron the Hittite, facing Mamre.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.THE KEY
Jacob is carried to a grave on land his family has purchased: belonging here has a place you can point to.
THE MEANING
The sons bear their father into Canaan and lay him in a family burial place. The verse makes belonging concrete through the body carried, the ground purchased, and the grave named. Machpelah (מַכְפֵּלָה, Makhpelah, “double”) carries the sense of doubling into this place of family burial.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that death leaves a person without a place: Jacob is carried to a specific grave on ground his family holds.
THE ROOT
לַאֲחֻזַּת
laʾăḥuzzat
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾ-ḥ-z
To grasp, seize, or hold.
The word translated “possession” grows from the language of taking hold. The burial place is a holding in Canaan, so the verse makes the family’s belonging to this ground tangible.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: To grasp, seize, or take hold.
אָחַז
This is the root verb beneath the family’s holding of the burial ground.
ʾăḥuzzāh: A holding, possession, or estate.
אֲחֻזָּה
This is the noun used for the purchased ground that serves as a burial place.
וַיִּקְבְּרוּ
wayyiqberū
GROWS FROM
קבר
q-b-r
To bury or entomb.
“buried” in this verse is wayyiqberū. The same root names both the act of burial and the grave itself. The verse repeats that root across the action and the “buryingplace,” joining what the sons do to the place where Jacob rests.
ALSO GROWS
qeber: A grave or burial place.
קֶבֶר
This is the noun used in the phrase “a buryingplace,” echoing the sons’ act of burial.
qevurah: Burial or interment.
קְבוּרָה
This related noun names the act of placing a body in its grave.
מַכְפֵּלָה
Makhpelah
GROWS FROM
כפל
k-p-l
To double, fold, or make twofold.
“Machpelah” in this verse is Makhpelah. The place-name carries the sense of doubling. Here, the same family burial ground receives another generation, and the name’s doubled meaning sits beside that return.
ALSO GROWS
kāphal: To double or make twofold.
כָּפַל
This verb carries the action at the root of the place-name’s sense.
kephel: A doubling or a twofold amount.
כֶּפֶל
This noun preserves the doubled sense carried by Machpelah’s name.
THE PATTERN
Burial makes kinship visible through the people who carry a body and the place they give it.
And he commanded them, and said to them, I am gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.And they lifted Asahel, and buried him in the grave of his father, which was in Bethlehem. And Joab and his men walked all night, and came to Hebron at the light of the morning.And reverent men carried Stephen to his burial, and beat their breasts over him in great mourning.THE THREAD
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre, which is Hebron in the land of Canaan.Genesis 23:19 uses the same Hebrew root for “buried” as Genesis 50:13, and names the same cave of Machpelah. The grave Abraham bought for Sarah is the place Jacob’s sons return him to, carrying one family burial place across generations.
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