Luke 15:20

καὶ�. A mere flash of remorse is not enough; a journey must be taken: the back must be at once and finally turned on the far land; and all the shame of abandoned duties and forsaken friends be faced. “The course to the unific rectitude of a manly life” always appears to the sinner to be, and sometimes really is, “in the face of a scorching past and a dark future.”

ἔτι δὲ αὐτοῦ μακρὰν�. “Now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ,” Ephesians 2:13.

ἐσπλαγχνίσθη, καὶ δραμὼν ἐπέπεσεν ἐπὶ τὸν τράχηλον αὐτοῦ. The δραμών, especially in the case of an old man and an Oriental, marks the intensity of his love. On this full, frank, absolute forgiveness see Psalms 103:8-10; Psalms 103:12. On the tender Fatherly love of God see Isaiah 49:15; Matthew 7:11, &c.

καὶ κατεφίλησεν αὐτόν. For the verb see Luke 7:38-45. ‘Kissed him warmly or closely,’ Genesis 33:4; Matthew 26:48.