ויפול על צוארו, “he (Esau) embraced his neck”; the letter י in the word צואריו, is missing here.

וישקהו, “he kissed him;” this word has dots above the letters.

?מי אלה לך, “how are these related to you?” Esau wanted to know if these people were Yaakov’s children or members of his household not biologically related to him, or if they were his slaves.

השפחות, הנה וילדיהן ותשתחוין, “the servant maids, they and their children, and they prostrated themselves; but their children did not prostrate themselves, seeing that they were only children of servants, Esau would not insist on their making an obeisance to him. An alternate exegesis: the children only approached Esau as a sign of courtesy together with their respective mothers. They were not willing to prostrate themselves together with their mothers. Their reasoning was that their mothers being servants themselves naturally had to make an obeisance; however they, who were sons of Yaakov, were not prepared to make any obeisance to anyone. When the sons of Leah and Rachel saw that their mothers made an obeisance they decided to do the same. This is why the Torah in verse 7 writes twice: וישתחוו, “they prostrated themselves,” in the masculine mode.

נגש יוסף ורחל, Joseph and Rachel approached; it is customary for the Torah when referring to a man and a woman in the same story to mention the name of the man first. Earlier, in verse 2, the Torah had mentioned the women first, even Rachel before Joseph. If you were to ask why Yaakov had not hidden Rachel just as he is supposed to have hidden Dinah? We would have to answer that all of Avraham’s descendants up to that time had strictly refrained from violating a married woman sexually. There was therefore no reason to suspect Esau of doing such a thing. Dinah, was single however, so that Yaakov reasoned that he might violate her. Joseph was not so sure and therefore insisted on walking ahead of his mother. [Seeing that he was at most seven years old at the time, it is difficult to see how he could have protected his mother in such a case. Ed.]

כי על כן ראיתי פניך , “for I have made a special effort to meet you face to face in order to present you with this gift. The word: ראיתי, in the past tense, although at the time described Yaakov had not yet met Esau face to face, may be understood in the same way as when Avraham said to Efron, concerning the money for the field and cave of Machpelah, “נתתי כסף השדה, “I have given the money for the field;” (he had not yet given it though he kept it at hand) (Compare 23,13) Compare also the expression: הרימותי ידי ,“I have raised my hand in an oath,”(14,23) where Avraham is prepared to swear that he will not accept any loot from the King of Sodom. He was about to swear this oath, but had not yet done so.

כראות פני אלוהים, “as if being received by G’d.” (After a pilgrimage) The Torah demanded from each pilgrim to Jerusalem during the three festivals not to appear empty-handed. (Deuteronomy 16,16,(Bereshit Rabbah 78,12.)

כי הילדים רכים, “for the children are frail;” when speaking of the flocks, Yaakov had expressed the fear that they die if rushed;” we find reference to something like this in Job 21,11: וילדיהן ירקדון, “and their children skip about.” Yaakov’s wives and children were riding slowly on camels. (Compare 31,17.)

עד אשר אבוא אל אדוני שעירה, “until I shall join up with my lord in Seir. Yaakov meant that once he had settled his wives and children and had made suitable arrangements for his flocks and herds, he would visit his brother in his homeland, Seir. At that time there would be an opportunity to celebrate their reunion with joy.

וישב ביום ההוא עשו, “on that day Esau returned;” according to Rashi, from this verse we derive that the four hundred men who had formed Esau’s entourage had simply melted away, seeing Esau is described as returning alone. They had clearly still been with him in verse 15.

ויבא יעשב שלם, “Yaakov arrived intact at Shalem; he arrived at a town named Shalem, a suburb of Sh’chem, named after the ruler of that region. We find similar examples of capitals being identified with the names of their respective rulers, such as in Numbers 21,26, Sichon and Cheshbon. A different interpretation: The place called Shalem was actually the city Sh’chem. As long as Yaakov had not suffered the indignity of Dinah’s rape, his return to the land of Canaan, had been shalem, perfect, without incident. The “Shalem” mentioned here is not the same as the one we have heard about in Genesis 14, i.e. Jerusalem, over which Malki Tzedek was king, because we never found that Sh’chem ruled over Jerusalem.

ויחן את פני העיר, “he encamped next to the city.” One reason was that he had too many possessions to be absorbed inside the city, and he did not feel comfortable about mingling with the inhabitants of that city.

ויקרא לו, He called it אל, the construction is similar to Genesis 20 13: אמרי לי אחי הוא, “say, concerning me, that he is my brother.” The word לו here may be understood as if it had been עלי, “on it,” in other words: he proclaimed the altar as dedicated the G-d Who is the G-d of Israel. This is also how Onkelos translates it. Rashi emphasises that it was not the altar that was called: “the G-d of Israel,” by the nations of the world, but that Yaakov called it by a name that symbolised the special relationship between G-d and Israel on account of all the miracles He had performed for him. It is not so different from when he called the site where he had the dream with the ladder 34 years earlier, Beyt El (Genesis 5,7), after he erected an altar there. We find a similar construction in Judges 6,24 where Gideon built an altar in honour of G-d, and named it: ה' שלום. This is also how we understand the name Moses gave the altar he built after having fought off the Amalekites in Exodus 17,17 which became known as ה' נסי, “the Lord is my Banner.”