Atad

Atad is the threshing-floor beyond the Jordan where the funeral procession bringing Jacob from Egypt halts to mourn. The place is named only here, in the closing chapter of Genesis, and the same passage records the renaming that follows.

The Sons of Jacob Mourn

When the procession reaches the spot, "they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and intense lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days" (Ge 50:10). The seven-day mourning is held at this site before the procession continues to the burial.

Renamed Abel-mizraim

The Canaanite inhabitants observe the rite and rename the spot accordingly: "And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: therefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan" (Ge 50:11). The threshing-floor of Atad becomes Abel-mizraim — "the mourning of Egypt" — by the Canaanites' naming, recorded in the same breath that names Atad itself.