Genesis 50:12-13

"And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them: for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, for a possession of a burying-place, of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre."

These two verses are clearly a summary of the whole event, as the words "as he commanded them" indicate. There is no evidence whatever here that the floor of Atad was east of the Jordan, despite the preponderance of scholarly opinion to the contrary. John Skinner stated that "practically all commentators" agree that the words for east of in Genesis are "in front of," not "beyond,"[13] as was noted earlier in our studies of Genesis 2:14. Therefore, if the text here was saying that Atad was east of Jordan, the words would have been "in front of," not, "beyond." Of course, the location of the place is unknown, and some have eliminated the difficulty by translating "near Jordan," instead of "beyond Jordan,"[14] but receiving these verses as a summary of the whole event makes such a device totally unnecessary. Since the whole party admittedly entered Canaan from the east, it is just as reasonable that they stopped on the west bank for the seven days of mourning as to suppose that they stopped on the east bank. Certainly, it was on the way to Machpelah, and perhaps near there. It appears that the great company of the Egyptians, at this point, returned to Egypt and permitted Joseph and his brothers to inter Jacob's body in the cave with some degree of privacy that they no doubt desired; or, that if they did not do that, might merely have remained in camp until the brothers returned from Machpelah. And then all returned to Egypt together, as seems to be indicated in Genesis 50:14. Such a conjecture is not required by the text, but Genesis 50:14 does not deny the possibility of it, for Genesis 50:14 is also a summary of the entire return of the whole company to Egypt.