b) The Messiah, who comes from the tribe of Judah, is called the Expectation of the Gentiles in the prophecy of Jacob According to this prophecy, the Lord Jesus, in order to enter Jerusalem, sat on a young donkey, which did not yet wear the yoke, and thus formed the pagans, who did not know the yoke of the law, who walked according to the will of their hearts and waited a long time for the Savior. "The sitting on the donkey of King Christ prefigured, according to the teaching of the Church, the indomitable nature of the pagans, transformed from unbelief into faith" (see the stichera on the feast of Vai, I cried out to the Lord). Such a prophetic significance must be attributed to the binding of the donkey to the vine mentioned in the prophecy of Jacob. Is not the owner who binds the donkey to the vine an image of the Lord Jesus, who leads the Gentiles to His spiritual vineyard, that is, to the Church, and binds them to Himself as to a life-giving vine (Jn 15:1)?

Chapter: XXXV. Paremia at Vespers on the Friday of the sixth week of Great Lent (Gen 49:33; 50:1-26).

This paremia tells about the death and burial of Jacob and about the last days of Joseph.

Hl. 49. Art. 33. And Jacob bequeathed to his son: And Jacob laid his nose on his bed, and died, and was gathered to his people.

Jacob, bequeathing to his son His prophetic discourse about the fate of his sons, Jacob concluded by bequeathing them to bury him in the land of Canaan in the cave of Machpel, which Abraham had bought with an adjoining field for the burial of Sarah (Gen 23:4-20), and in which, in addition to her, Abraham himself, Isaac, Rebekah and Leah were buried (Gen 49:31). Jacob consoled himself with the fact that at least his bones would lie in the land which, according to God's promise, his descendants would possess. Having declared his last will, Jacob fell silent, and laid his nose on his bed, and died. James delivered his prophetic speech and testament while sitting on his bed, with his legs dangling; but now he raised them on his bed, lay down and died quietly, at peace with his conscience, with the consciousness of his duty fulfilled and his destiny. His swift and quiet death is all the more striking, the stronger was the enthusiasm with which, a moment before, he revealed to his children the suggestions of their fate of the Spirit of God and his last will. And thou didst gather thyself unto thy people, — thou didst unite thy soul with thy fathers and kinsmen who had departed (Gen 15:15, Paremia XXII).

Hl. 50. Art. 1. 2. And Joseph fell on his father's face, weeping (bitterly) for him, and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servant to bury his father: and he buried the gravers of Israel.

Joseph falls on his father's face, of course, in order to close his eyes, as the Lord promised Jacob, comforting him (Gen. 46:4). By the burial, which Joseph ordered to be arranged for his father, it is not understood that the body was transferred with the usual ceremonies to the tomb, which, as we shall see, was performed later, but the actual preparation for the burial. This preparation consisted of embalming. Burials are a class of people who practiced this art in order to protect bodies from rotting. For this purpose they used various incense resins and balms, and with them they rubbed the corpses on the outside and filled them inside, for which purpose they first removed the brain from the head through the nostrils, and the inside of the womb through the opening in the left side. The embalmed body was immersed in saltpeter, then wrapped in linen, covered with a resinous substance and placed in a box. The bodies thus prepared are called mummies, which are still in Egypt today. Among the Egyptians, embalming was associated with the belief that the soul does not leave the body until it rots. Joseph, no doubt, did not share this belief and ordered the embalming of his father's body only so that it would not emit an unpleasant smell during the long rites of mourning for him and transferring him to Canaan. Burials (embalmers) were, as a rule, free people and received an agreed payment for their work. But for such a nobleman as Joseph, they belonged to the number of his slaves.

3. And he was fulfilled with forty days: for thus are the days of burial. And Egypt wept for him seventy days.

The embalming of Jacob lasted forty days, but the mourning lasted seventy days, including 40 days of embalming. The mourning of the dead consisted of the following rites: men and women stained their faces and heads with mud, walked through the city with loose hair, in holey rags, struck themselves on the bare chest, filled the air with cries of extreme sorrow, withdrew from baths, wine, meat and all kinds of bliss. The Egyptians thus mourned a stranger to them solely out of respect for their benefactor, Joseph.

4. 5. 6. And when the days of mourning had passed, Joseph spake unto the nobles of Pharaoh, saying, If thou hast found grace before you, speak for me in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father hath cursed me before he was finished, saying, In the tomb which thou hast dug for thyself in the land of Canaan, there thou shalt bury me. Now I have gone up to the burial of my father, and I will return. And he spoke to Pharaoh according to the word of Joseph.