Genesis 50:1. Then Joseph fell on his father’s face, and wept over him, and kissed him.
2. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel;
3. forty days were required for it, for so many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.
"it is apparent from that anointing that the Egyptians had excellent spices—myrrh, balsam, and cassia—which could preserve a body for 70 days. For to myrrh they attribute the power to prevent putridity and stench. When Augustus had come to Egypt, they showed him the bodies of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy, who had been buried for many years. He was greatly surprised by the fact that the bodies could be preserved in such a way that the skin and all the members were still in existence. They say the same thing about the corpse of the emperor Titus. Accordingly, these were very precious spices with which they made cadavers incorruptible for so many years; for the region was very hot, and this heat destroys bodies very quickly.
In winter we keep meat from putrefaction with cold instead of with myrrh, especially in the northern areas, in Denmark and elsewhere. This is our German myrrh. But it is truly wonderful that there, under such a burning sun, they were able to keep putridity and stench from corpses. God wanted to point out that the dead in Christ have been anointed with myrrh. Christ is our myrrh, just as myrrh is also offered to Him by the Magi, as Matt. 2:11 tells. For if we believe in Him, we are anointed with myrrh, so that we do not decay but are preserved for the future resurrection."
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