While Joseph's Tomb is said to be holy to Jews, Samaritans, Muslims and Christians as it is the burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph.
The Tomb is located in the Samaritan city of Shechem The precedent of Jacob’s and Joseph’s remains being returned to the land of Canaan was followed, in wish at least, by every pious Jew.
On the death of Jacob in Egypt Joseph carried him to Canaan, and laid him in the cave of Machpelah, the burying-place of his fathers. Joseph lived “a hundred and ten years,” having been more than ninety in Egypt … ” (Genesis 50:26) His trust Moses kept, and laid the bones of Joseph in his inheritance in Shechem, in the territory of Ephraim his offspring. His tomb is, according to tradition, about a stone’s throw from Jacob’s well.
“Joseph,” A Dictionary of the Bible, paragraph 3990.
“So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
Genesis 50:26 KJV
“And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.”
Exodus 13:19 KJV
“And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.”
Joshua 24:32 KJV
On one occasion, however, it refers to the coffin containing Joseph’s remains that were carried from Egypt back to Canaan at his request. His bones were eventually buried at Shechem in a plot of land bought by Jacob, his father, from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem described in Josh. 24:32.
“BIER,” Expository Dictionary Of Bible Words, paragraph 2364.
Joseph's Tomb is a tomb complex located at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, 300 metres northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, near Tell Balata, the site of Shakmu in the Late Bronze Age and later biblical Shechem. One biblical tradition identifies the general area of Shechem as the resting-place of the biblical patriarch Joseph, and his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh.
