What Does Exodus 13:19 Mean?

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, "God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here." The bones of Joseph are the narrative's most touching connection between the Exodus and the patriarchal stories.

Joseph's deathbed oath-requirement (Genesis 50:24-25), "God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here", is three generations old by the Exodus. Moses' carrying of Joseph's bones is the fulfillment of that patriarch's faith-act: Joseph died in Egypt believing that Israel would eventually leave, and he arranged to leave with them.

The Exodus community carrying Joseph's bones is simultaneously a historical act (returning Joseph to the land his father Jacob returned to) and a theological act (honoring the patriarchal faith that the Exodus would happen). Joseph's bones are the most ancient Exodus traveler: older than any living Israelite, present for the departure from Egypt because Joseph insisted on it before he died. The bones connect the departing community to the founding generation of Israel's Egyptian sojourn.

Hebrews 11:22 lists Joseph's bone-oath as an act of faith: "By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones." Joseph's trust that Israel's God would bring Israel out of Egypt was so certain that he planned his burial accordingly: not in Egypt where he died but in Canaan where YHWH's promise said Israel would go. The bones are faith's most physical artifact: the last physical remains of a man who believed in the Exodus before any plague had occurred, before Moses was born, before the oppression that would make the Exodus necessary had fully developed.