Verse 38 Wash his feet, &c. In these expressions, Luke adopts the phraseology used by Jesus in Luke 7:44. It seems that the woman, partaking of the excitement which our Savior's presence and preaching produced among the multitude, and overwhelmed with contrition for her past sins, and full of grateful feeling at the offers of forgiveness, came in, and prostrated herself at his feet, as he was reclining at the table, and kissed them, in token of adoration and gratitude. While in this posture, the Savior's feet were wet with her tears, and covered with her hair. Whatever of impropriety there might have been in the act,--and the strong excitement of her feelings, taken in connection with the probable freedom of her past habits of life, might easily have carried her beyond the bounds of decorum,--Jesus does not censure it, but represents her action in the figurative language of washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair. Though scrupulously attentive himself to all the proprieties of life, he pitied the anguish of mind which led to this apparent violation of them in her, and took the unhappy sinner's part against the censorious Pharisee, by language which put upon her conduct a favorable and yet a just construction.