The family was unable to remove Yosef’s body from Egypt. Indeed, had Yosef not been under oath to remove Yaakov’s body from Egypt for burial, it would also have been impossible. Horav Avigdor Miller, Shlita, suggests that these instances demonstrate the enormous impossibility of having procured permission for the entire Bnei Yisrael to leave Egypt. Since this was the situation under Yosef’s rule, how much more inconceivable would this venture be some 210 years later under the tyrannical Egyptian bondage. They might have despaired and completely assimilated in response to the hopeless situation, had it not been for Yosef’s dying…
