The Route of Yaakov's Funeral Procession: Reading the Psukim Precisely

Rabbi Zweig analyzes the seemingly puzzling geographic language used by the Torah (תורה) to describe Yaakov Avinu's funeral procession in Parshas Vayechi. The Torah states that the entourage came to "Gorin HaAtad asher b'Ever HaYarden" and conducted a seven-day mourning there, after which the sons carried Yaakov "eretz Canaan" and buried him in Me'aras HaMachpela. The basic geographic problem is glaring: if the funeral procession is traveling from Egypt (southwest of Eretz Yisrael) to Hebron (in central Eretz Yisrael), they should be approaching from the west. Yet the Torah describes them as being at "Ever HaYarden"—a term that throughout Tanach consistently refers to the east side of the Jordan River. How could they possibly be on the east bank of the Jordan when coming from Egypt to Hebron? The Chizkuni attempts to resolve the difficulty by proposing that in this instance, "Ever HaYarden" means the west side of the Jordan. But Rabbi Zweig demonstrates that this approach is untenable on multiple grounds. First, it is a massive departure from the universal usage of the term throughout Torah. Second, and more critically, Rashi (רש"י)'s comment on the next pasuk—"Vayisu oso banav eretz Canaan"—indicates that the phrase means "le-Eretz Canaan" (to the land of Canaan), implying they were not yet in Eretz Canaan when they set out. If they were already west of the Jordan as the Chizkuni suggests, they would already be in Eretz Canaan, making the language impossible to understand.