And he came near, and kissed him. Originally the act of kissing had a symbolical character. Here it is a sign of affection between a parent and a child; in Genesis 29:13 between relatives. It was also a token of friendship (Tobit 7:6; 10:12; 2 Samuel 20:9; Matthew 26:48; Luke 7:45; Luke 15:20; Acts 20:37).
The kissing of princes was a symbol of homage (1 Samuel 10:1; Psalms 2:12; Xenoph; 'Cyrop.,' 7. 5, 32). With the Persians it was a mark of honor (Xenoph; 'Agesil.,' 5. 4). The Rabbins permitted only three kinds of kisses—the kiss of reverence, of reception, and of dismissal.
The kiss of charity was practiced among disciples in the early Christian Church (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14; vide Kitto's' 'Cyclopedia,' art.
Kissing). And he smelled the smell of his raiment,—not deliberately, in order to detect whether they belonged to a shepherd or a huntsman (Tuch), but accidentally while, in the act of kissing. The odor of Esau's garments, impregnated with the fragrance of the aromatic herbs of Palestine, excited the dull sensibilities of the aged prophet, suggesting to his mind pictures of freshness and fertility, and inspiring him to pour forth his promised benediction—and blessed him (not a second time, the statement in Genesis 29:23 being only inserted by anticipation), and said,—the blessing, as is usual in elevated prophetic utterances, assumes a poetic and antistrophical form (cf.
Esau's blessing, verses 39, 40)—See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field—the first clause of the poetic stanza clearly connects with the odor of Esau's raiment as that which had opened the fount of prophetic song in Isaac's breast, so far at least as its peculiar form was concerned; its secret inspiration we know was the Holy Ghost operating through Isaac's faith in the promise (vide Hebrews 11:20)—which the Lord hath blessed.
The introduction of the name Jehovah instead of Elohim in this second clause proves that Isaac did not mean to liken his son to an ordinary well-cultivated field, but to "a field like that of Paradise, resplendent with traces of the Deity—an ideal field, bearing the same relation to an ordinary one as Israel did to the heathen—a kind of enchanted garden, such as would be realized at a later period in Canaan, as far as the fidelity of the people permitted it" (Hengstenberg).