ויקרבו ימי ישראל למות. כל מקום שנאמר קריבה לא הגיע לימי אבותיו וכן ויקרבו ימי דוד לא הגיע לימי בעז ועובד וישי שחיו יותר מד' מאות שנה ודוד לא חיה כי אם ע' שנה: ויקרבו ימי ישראל למות, “Israel’s days of living approached their end;” wherever the expression קריבה, “approach,” is used in the Torah in connection with death, it signals that the person concerned died prematurely, i.e. before the time originally allocated to him at birth, or younger than the lifespan of his father. We find the same type of wording in Kings I 1,2 ויקרבו ימי דוד למות, where the approach of death of King David is discussed, the reason being that he did not live as long as his paternal forefathers Boaz, Oved, and Yishai Their combined lifetimes were over 400 years, whereas David died at the age of 70. (Compare B’reshit Rabbah 96,4)
ועשית עמדי חסד ואמת. כלו' אמרת שאתה חייב לקברני בארץ כנען לכך אני מפייס אותך שתעשה עמי חסד ואמת ותטרח לקברני לשם: ועשית עמדי חסד ואמת, “and perform for me an act of true kindness;” the reason why Yaakov used both the adjectives “kind, and true,” was that Joseph, as his son, was obligated to bury his father, whereas he was not obligated to transport his remains to the cave of Machpelah in the land of Canaan. Yaakov is aware that what he is asking is more than he has a right to ask of a person of such a high rank.
אל נא תקברני במצרים. מה שפרש"י לפי שעתיד להיות עפר ארץ מצרים כנים לא נהירא לי דמזה לא היה לו לירא דהשתא בנימין בנו לא שלטה בו רמה כל שכן אביו אם לא נאמר שזה לא היה יעקב יודע. ואומר ר"ת שהיה ירא שלא ינצלו מצרים מעשר מכות בעבורו אם יקבר במצרים שהרי נקרא ישראל שה פזורה ומצרים נקראים חמורים שנאמר אשר בשר חמורים בשרם וכתיב פטר חמור תפדה בשה: אל נא תקברני במצרים “please do not bury me in Egypt.” When Rashi explains Yaakov’s motivation as being that he foresaw that Egypt would be smitten with the plague of lice, etc., this does not sound plausible. He had no reason to fear that his remains would be affected by that plague, seeing that we have a tradition that even his son Binyamin was not affected by that plague; his father Yaakov surely would be even less affected by it. (Talmud tractate Baba Batra folio 17) In order for Rashi to be correct, we would have to assume that Yaakov was unaware that his son Binyamin and his descendants would not be afflicted by these lice, something that seems unlikely. One of Rashi’s grandsons, Rash’bam, claims that Yaakov wanted to prevent the Egyptians of being spared the ten plagues seeing that he had been buried in that soil. This would be due to his having been named Yisrael, which conferred a much higher spiritual status on him. (Compare Jeremiah 50,17 where he has been referred to as שה פזורה, “a scattered sheep,” as opposed to the Egyptians who are referred to by several of our prophets as donkeys, i.e. their flesh being described as similar to the flesh of donkeys. (Ezekiel 23,20) The Torah writes that the firstborn male donkey has to be redeemed by a שה, i.e. a sheep or lamb (Exodus 13,13) the implication being that only descendants of Yaakov can possibly serve as redemption for Egyptians. If that animal is not redeemed, it must be killed by its owner. (B’reshit Rabbah 96,5)