The Torah describes <strong>Jacob's</strong> burial as a solemn procession to Canaan. Targum Jonathan turns it into an epic confrontation complete with a golden deathbed, a eulogy comparing Jacob to a cosmic tree, a seventy-day mourning that credited his righteousness with ending the famine, and a violent showdown at the cave of Machpelah.
Joseph laid his father "upon a couch of ivory framed with pure gold, inlaid with precious stones, and secured with cords of fine linen." There they poured fervent wines and burned costly perfumes. The chiefs of Esau's house and the chiefs of Ishmael's house stood present. Then Judah—called "the Lion of Judah, the strength of his brethren"—delivered a eulogy unlike anything in the Torah: "Come, let us raise up to our father a tall cedar whose head shall reach to the top of heaven, and its branches overshadow all the inhabitants of the earth, and its roots extend to the depths of the abyss. From it have arisen the twelve tribes, and from it will arise kings, princes, and priests."
The Egyptians mourned Jacob for seventy days, and the Targum gives their reason: "Come, let us lament over Jacob the Holy, whose righteousness turned away the famine from the land of Egypt. For it had been decreed that there should be forty-two years of famine, but through the righteousness of Jacob forty years are withheld from Egypt, and there came famine but for two years only." Jacob's mere presence had reduced a forty-two-year catastrophe to just two years.
The burial journey proceeds normally until the procession reaches Hebron. Then everything falls apart. When Jacob's sons arrive at the Cave of Machpelah, "Esau the Wicked journeyed from the mountain of Seir with many legions and came to Hebron, and would not suffer Joseph to bury his father in the Double Cave." Esau showed up with an army and blocked the burial.
Naphtali—the fastest runner among the brothers—sprinted all the way to Egypt and back in a single day to retrieve the legal document proving Esau had sold his share of the cave. But the crisis was not resolved by paperwork. The Targum says Joseph "beckoned to Hushim the son of Dan, who unsheathed the sword and struck off the head of the Wicked Esau." Hushim, according to rabbinic tradition, was deaf and could not understand why the burial was being delayed. When he learned Esau was obstructing his grandfather's funeral, he simply cut off Esau's head. The head "rolled into the midst of the cave and rested upon the bosom of Isaac his father." Esau's body was buried separately in the field.
After the burial, Joseph's brothers feared retaliation because Joseph "did not return to eat together with them." They sent Bilhah—not a messenger, but their father's concubine—to plead their case. Joseph's response in the Targum is more theological than the Torah's version: "The Word of the Lord thought on me for good." He explains that his father had seated him at the head of the table, and it was Jacob's honor—not resentment—that kept him separate.
Joseph's final prophecy contains a remarkable detail. He makes his brothers swear to tell their children: "You shall not presume to go up out of Egypt until the time that two Deliverers shall come, and say to you, Remembering, remember ye the Lord." Two redeemers, not one—traditionally identified as Moses and Aaron. And when Joseph died, "they embalmed him with perfumes, laid him in an ark, and submerged him in the midst of the Nile." His coffin was sunk in the river itself, where it would remain hidden for generations.