Is “wept on his neck” a Hebrew idiom?

Question

In a number of places, the English Standard Version uses a phrase like "wept on his neck," e.g.

Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. —Genesis 45:14

Is this a Hebrew idiom? What does it mean? My best guess is that it means that he cried while he hugged him (in which case, ESV, bad translation!) To fall upon someone's neck sounds to me like you are hanging off it, but that's obviously not what's happening.

Answer 1

It appears to refer to a hug in which the hugger buries his face in the neck of the huggee. Another use of this is in Gen 33:4:

וַיָּרָץ עֵשָׂו לִקְרָאתוֹ וַיְחַבְּקֵהוּ, וַיִּפֹּל עַל-צַוָּארָו וַיִּשָּׁקֵהוּ; וַיִּבְכּוּ.

And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.

A rabbinic midrash from Midrash Rabbah (search here for "and kissed him") holds that Esav tried to bite Yaakov, but Yaakov's neck was miraculously hardened so he couldn't. In order for that to happen his mouth would have had to have been near his neck. Of course, midrash is not biblical text; I bring this to show how the rabbis commenting at the time understood "falling on (one's) neck".

Answer 2

The complete list from the OT:

1. Gen 33:4
2. Gen 45:14
3. Gen 46:29

The expression is not found in Hebrew outside the OT (and indeed only in Gen.) and is not used in modern Hebrew except when intent is mock Biblical.