Jacob gives his final instruction: bury me in the cave at Machpelah, with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Leah. Then he draws up his feet, breathes his last, and is gathered to his people. Joseph falls on his father's face and weeps. The Egyptians embalm Jacob—forty days—and mourn for seventy. A Hebrew shepherd receives a state funeral from the most powerful empire on earth. The procession to Canaan is enormous: Pharaoh's servants, elders of Egypt, chariots and horsemen, a company so vast the Canaanites name the place "mourning of Egypt." But at the cave, it's the sons who carry their father. Not servants. The sons. They lay him with three generations of patriarchs and matriarchs—bones resting in the land of promise, testifying to a future they won't see. Then Joseph returns to Egypt. The burial is complete. The waiting continues.

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