sojourners and promises

Thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them, for his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place.

Genesis 50:12-13

For every one of the lifetimes of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the Promised Land was a cemetary... it was their final bodily destination, but never a permanent home. They were all sojourners, nomads of faith, trusting in promises much bigger than their own lives. And the firmest part of those promises that God made, ended for them in a tomb.

As Jacob’s sons faithfully obeyed their father’s wishes to be buried in the field cave east of Mamre, a sort of mini-preview of the Exodus for Egypt was played out in the funeral procession. They carried the embalmed body of their father up from Egypt. The Canaanites know that something is going on of significance. They once again lay claim to their ancestral burial plot before returning back to Egypt, but certainly not home to Egypt.

Thus, all the twelve tribes of Israel knew that Egypt was not the home that God had promised them. They knew that Canaan was their true home. And later, as Joseph lay on his death bed, he instructed his family to carry his bones from Egypt when the day came for them to go back home to Canaan. All of them were sojourners, waiting still for God’s promise, and looking to Him for a better country.