Luke 7:38

stood at his feet behind him This is explained by the arrangement of the triclinia,by which the guest reposed on his elbow at the table, with his unsandalled feet outstretched on the couch. Each guest left his sandals beside the door on entering. Literally the verse is, "And standing behind beside His feet weeping, with her tears she began to bedew His feet, and with the hairs of her head she wiped them off, and was eagerly kissing His feet, and anointing them with the perfume." As she bent over His feet her tears began to fall on them, perhaps accidentally at first, and she wiped them off with the long dishevelled hair (1 Corinthians 11:15) which shewed her shame and anguish, and then in her joy and gratitude at finding herself unrepulsed, she poured the unguent over them. The scene and its moral are beautifully expressed in the sonnet of Hartley Coleridge.

"She sat and wept beside His feet. The weight

Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame

And the poor malice, of the worldly shame

To her were past, extinct, and out of date:

Only the sin remained the leprous state.

She would be melted by the heat of love,

By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove

And purge the silver ore adulterate.

She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair

Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch;

And He wiped off the soiling of despair

From her sweet soul, because she loved so much."

No one but a woman in the very depths of anguish would have violated all custom by appearing in public with uncovered head (1 Corinthians 11:10).

weeping Doubtless at the contrast of His sinlessness and her own stained life. She could not have done thus to the Pharisee, who would have repelled her with execration as bringing pollution by her touch. The deepest sympathy is caused by the most perfect sinlessness. It is not impossible that on that very day she may have heard the "Come unto me" of Matthew 11:28.

kissed The word means -was earnestly" or -tenderly-kissing," as in Acts 20:37.