Genesis 50:10 names the threshing floor at Atad (Goren ha-Atad - גרן האטד) by the river Yarden (Jordan) as the place where Yoseph mourned seven days for his father Ya'akov-Yisra-El; its name was changed (50:11) because of this to Avel-Mitsrayim (אבל מצרים) which means "the meadow of Egypt", but really "the Grief of Egypt" - see my notes to AVEL-MITSRAYIM for a fuller explanation of this.
GOREN (גרן) is a threshing floor in Yehudit. The root word for Atad appears to be "to establish" or "to make firm", whose connection to this tale is not clear.
The Atad is also the buckthorn, which is linked to various Mysteries, especially when it grows under the Holm oak.
The Atad is also the buckthorn, which is linked to various Mysteries, especially when it grows under the Holm oak.
Probably, in the context of Kena'an, it is the alder buckthorn, Rhamnus Lycioides, which is common in the woodlands and shrublands of modern Israel, and can be found among the mountain vegetation on Mount Chermon, usually alongside the Kermes oak, the Aleppo pine, and juniper, though it rarely grows to more than five or six feet, unlike its European siblings, which can reach as much as forty feet. When Isaiah 7:24/25 speaks of a wasteland comprised of thorns and briers, it is most likely the buckthorn that he had in mind.
The key to Atad is the fact that it was a threshing-floor, which links it to the corn-god. In the non-synoptic gospels, the stable in which Jesus was born was said to have been the threshing-floor at Bethlehem, and of course Beit Lechem means "The House of Bread", which is to say the sacrificial temple of the corn-god; and specifically, because its full name is Beit Lechem Ephratah, "The House of the Corn-God of the Euphrates", a shrine of Tammuz.
Throughout the Egyptian sections of Genesis and Exodus, in the tales of famine and store-cities, we witness Yoseph as the priest of the corn-god, from whose granaries the corn was distributed by the priests, who held sway over the economic life as well as the spiritual.
Although Yoseph mourned for Ya'akov at Atad (Genesis 50:10), we are told three verses later that he was not buried there, but rather at Machpelah, alongside Av-Raham and Sarah and his own father Yitschak. The Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 13a) contains a fascinating legend about the burial of Ya'akov, in which Esav first refuses to let his brother be buried at Machpelah, arguing that there is only room for six - Av-Raham and Sarah, Yitschak and Rivkah being already present - and that Ya'akov had given his own place to Le'ah (Rachel had been buried at Beit-Lechem). Yoseph replies that Esav sold this birthright to Ya'akov, and therefore Ya'akov has the right to be buried next to Le'ah, but still Esav resists. One of the grandsons - Chushim ben Dan - who is also said to be deaf, clubs Esav to death in anger at this refusal. Esav's head falls into the lap of his father Yitschak, and the body is taken away for burial on Mount Se'ir.
Although Yoseph mourned for Ya'akov at Atad (Genesis 50:10), we are told three verses later that he was not buried there, but rather at Machpelah, alongside Av-Raham and Sarah and his own father Yitschak. The Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 13a) contains a fascinating legend about the burial of Ya'akov, in which Esav first refuses to let his brother be buried at Machpelah, arguing that there is only room for six - Av-Raham and Sarah, Yitschak and Rivkah being already present - and that Ya'akov had given his own place to Le'ah (Rachel had been buried at Beit-Lechem). Yoseph replies that Esav sold this birthright to Ya'akov, and therefore Ya'akov has the right to be buried next to Le'ah, but still Esav resists. One of the grandsons - Chushim ben Dan - who is also said to be deaf, clubs Esav to death in anger at this refusal. Esav's head falls into the lap of his father Yitschak, and the body is taken away for burial on Mount Se'ir.
Given the penchant for oracular skulls in the ancient world, we have to assume that the head was kept at Machpelah; but Esav was an Edomite, and Chevron was never an Edomite shrine. Or was it? A case has long been made that the Kenizites were an Edomite clan, and Kalev ben Yephuneh, one of the twelve spies sent by Mosheh to reconnoitre in Kena'an, and who then received Chevron as his inheritance as a reward for bringing back good report, was a Kenezite (Numbers 32:12, Joshua 14:13-14). So perhaps the oracular skull at Chevron was indeed Esav's, and this, the privilege of interment at Chevron, was the birthright that he had thought to have sold!
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