What is the meaning of the "gathered to his people" idiom?

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In the Old Testament, when someone dies, he is sometimes said to be "gathered to his people" or a close variant:

Genesis 15:15 As for you [Abraham], you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.

Genesis 25:8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people.

Genesis 35:29 Isaac breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, an old man of ripe age; and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Genesis 49:29 I [Jacob] am about to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.

Numbers 20:24 Aaron will be gathered to his people; for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the sons of Israel, because you rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.

Judges 2:10 All that generation [Joshua’s] also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.

My hunch is that it refers to them being reunited to people of God who died before them, but I’d like to hear actual evidence that takes into consideration the ancient near eastern context. What does it mean?