Kiss

A kiss is a physical gesture of greeting, farewell, family affection, reconciliation, homage, or betrayal, and Scripture records it in all of those registers, from household partings to the gathered worship of the church. In the original languages the Hebrew verb is nashaq and the Greek noun is philema, with the intensified verb kataphileo used for a warm or repeated embrace; this is established linguistic fact, not a specifically theological point.

The text says that kisses frequently accompany blessing and covenant farewell: Isaac kisses Jacob before pronouncing the blessing (Genesis 27:27), Laban kisses his sons and daughters and blesses them before departing (Genesis 31:55), Esau runs, embraces, and kisses Jacob at their reconciliation (Genesis 33:4), and the aged Israel kisses and embraces Joseph's sons (Genesis 48:10). The same gesture marks the father's welcome of the returning son (Luke 15:20) and the tearful parting of the Ephesian elders from Paul (Acts 20:37). In these passages the kiss is not decoration but the bodily seal of a relationship being confirmed, restored, or ended.

Scripture also records that a kiss can be false or costly. The text says Joab takes Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him and then strikes him with the sword (2 Samuel 20:9–10), and Proverbs 27:6 sets "the wounds of a friend" over against "the kisses of an enemy," which are profuse. The Gospels place a kiss at the arrest of Jesus (Luke 22:48). A different register appears in Luke 7:38, where a woman weeps over Jesus' feet, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and anoints them — a gesture of homage and penitence toward a superior, which is the established cultural sense of foot-kissing in the ancient Mediterranean world.

The text says the churches were told, "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Romans 16:16), and "Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss" (1 Thessalonians 5:26). Historically, the kiss of peace was a standard element of early Christian assembly, attested in second- and third-century sources, and it remains a liturgical act in several traditions today, while others read the command as a culture-specific form of ordinary greeting and substitute a handshake, bow, or words of peace. Traditions also differ over related gestures of veneration, such as kissing a cross, icon, or relic: some regard this as the same scriptural principle of holy greeting and reverence applied to sacred objects, while others hold that such kisses fall outside the New Testament's intent and reserve the gesture for people.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.