“He ran, fell on his neck & kissed him” – Brad Jersak

“He ran, fell on his neck, and kissed him.”

“Fell on his neck” is such a strange idiom. My inner literalist chuckles if I picture it out of context. It sounds more like a professional wrestling move than an affectionate hug.

That said, in my early college days (circa 1982), when my roommate returned from a date, I was heard to ask, “So,… did ya neck?” Not that he’d kiss and tell but his blush and a hickey gave him away every time. But at least that gives me a grid for bearhug instead of a headlock.

In the biblical context, the expression appears just four times—three times in Genesis and once in a Gospel parable. The phrase is always connected to family and always to a moment of reunion/reconciliation.

The exact verses are:

• Between Jacob and Esau (twin brothers) – Genesis 33:4

But Esau ran to meet [Jacob], and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.  

• Between Joseph and Benjamin (brothers) – Genesis 45:14

Then [Joseph] fell on [Benjamin’s] neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. 

• Between Joseph and Israel [Jacob] (son to father) – Genesis 46:29

 So Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet his father Israel; and he presented himself to him, and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. 

• Between the younger prodigal and his father – Luke 15:20

“And [the son] arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” 

In this article, I will zoom in on the parallels between the first story and Jesus’ parable, suggesting that the linguistic similarities are deliberate and invite a closer reading of the carefully chosen words in our key verses.

The Younger Reconciles to His Brother – Genesis 32-33

The reunion of estranged twins begins with Jacob’s angsty anticipation of their encounter. And no wonder, given their tense history of rivalry, deception, and Jacob’s conniving theft of his older brother’s birthright. The broken trust and betrayal led to years of alienation. Now, the prospect of seeing the brother he’d screwed over face-to-face had Jacob worried.

When he discovered Esau was approaching with four hundred men, his fears were only amplified. Was revenge in the cards? As a precaution, he divided his people and possessions into two camps, hoping at least one group would survive if his brother attacked. He also decided to send a generous advance gift of livestock as a peace offering.

The night before their meeting, Jacob, alone, has one of Scriptures most perplexing encounters. He meets ‘a man’ with whom he has an all-out grapple until daybreak (32:24). Who started it? Why wrestling? And although Jacob later concludes his opponent was ‘God,’ Jacob is somehow able to overcome. As a younger man, he had stolen his brother’s blessing, but now he wins God’s blessing in a grappling match for the ages (but not without sustaining a permanent hip injury). His recap of the battle royal is, “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

The next morning, it’s time to meet his brother. Though Jacob expects the worst, Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.  

And in response, Jacob is so moved that he says, “Truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God”(Genesis 33:10), which, you’ll remember, happened just hours previously.

The Younger Reconciles to His Father

I’m positing that when Jesus composed the parable of the prodigal son(s)—a tale of two estranged brothers, with the younger likewise far from home—he may have been using that backstory for a purpose, and signals to us through verbal cues.

• Returning home

For example, there’s an echo from Genesis 32:9, when Jacob prays, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you’…”  is a little bit like the prodigal’s moment of clarity: “…when he came to himself, he said, ‘… I will arise and go to my father,…”

• Not worthy

But all the more so when both follow up with a confession of unworthiness:

Jacob to God (prior to the reunion with his brother): “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies.”

Prodigal to his father (prior to the reunion with his brother): ”Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

• He ran, fell on his neck, and kissed him

And now we come to the most precise parallel that I’ve been mulling over:

The proliferation of verbs in both stories fills these narratives with intense emotion. For Esau, he

1. ran 
2. to meet, 
3. and embraced him, 
4. and fell on his neck 
5. and kissed him, 
6. and they wept. 

And in the parable, the father

1. saw him 
2. and had compassion, 
3. and ran 
4. and fell on his neck 
5. and kissed him.”

In Your Experience…

The words or so loaded that I think it’s better for you, dear reader, to meditate on the depth of meaning that each storyteller wants us to feel and in that, what the Holy Spirit wants us to hear… about God’s heart, God’s desire, God’s orientation to every wayward child, and about redemption, forgiveness, hospitality, and superabundant grace. Don’t rush these questions. Contemplate them with vivid imagery as you embrace the role of the penitent child.”

1. What does it mean for you to be and to feel seen by God?
2. How do you feel knowing God’s primary disposition to you when you’re still a long way off is only compassion? 
3. What do you feel as you realize God is running to meet you? Why is God running?
4. How have you or might you experience the embrace of God? 
5. What is evoked by the phrase, God fell on your neck and kissed you? What is Jesus conveying about his Father? About his affection for you? About his enthusiastic love gushing over you? What does this say about infinite Love and its expressions in your life? Where might you see it and position yourself to receive it?
6. Do you know the weeping of reunion, reconciliation, and restoration? How might we step into that space?

The Older Brother’s Choice

 If Jesus was indeed adapting the ancient tale of two estranged brothers and weaving it into his parable, I wonder if his self-righteous, elder-brother antagonists noticed.

Remember, the parable was one of three (the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost son) addressed at a dinner party where “the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them. So he spoke…”

The contrasts between the stories then become their own challenging messages. For example, we can enter through a variety of doors:

• The elder brother (Esau) welcomed his younger brother, but the elder brother in the parable did not. You are clearly the elder brother here today… but which elder brother will you be?
• You call yourselves the sons of Israel—yes, the conniving, thieving, manipulating younger brother. But even your older brother Esau (the patriarch of the enemy Edomites condemned in Obadiah) is showing you up in the story of hospitality and forgiveness.
• Your younger brothers and sisters at this party come with the humility of Jacob (who even supplied the barbecue at his own reconciliation meal). Will you reciprocate with the welcome of Esau and the prodigal father, or continue slaving the fields of your own resentment?
• Jacob saw the face of God in the midnight stranger and in the face of his brother. Can you see him now in these brothers and sisters? Can you see the face of God in the One addressing you?

We only get to see their response by reading all the way down to Luke 16:14. “Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided [literally, ‘turned up their nose at’] Him.

How tragic. But not nearly so tragic as it would be if those who claim to follow Jesus emulate the scribe’s and Pharisees’ self-righteousness in the name of Jesus.

Who knows: if we become more forgiving and generous like Esau in the Genesis account, perhaps those who feel perpetually unworthy and afraid will see the face of God in our compassionate welcome.

---