Ritual Embrace

Keven Barrney in Ritual Embraces and the Atonement explains where the word atonement comes from and it's meaning. He tells us how

"Nibley, in his Ensign series on “The Atonement of Jesus Christ” connected this conception of atonement to ritual embraces. From the basic sense of covering or encircling with the arms comes the Arabic kafata or suppliant embrace, which he sees as underlying 2 Nephi 4:33: “O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy rightesousness!” For visual representations of such embraces, he points to the ritual embrace (hpt) of the Egyptian funerary texts (for illustrations, see link in this post, 'The Ritual Embrace'). And, of course, although Nibley doesn’t explicitly make the connection, he certainly intends for us to extend the concept to our own ritual form of embrace, which we experience in the temple.
"Such an embrace represents a return to the presence of our Father, a reunion, where we may be reconciled to him and once again be “at one” with him."

Hugh Nibley in 'The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment' explains, "one of the most puzzling episodes in the Bible has always been the story of Jacob's wresting with the Lord. When one considers that the word conventionally translated by 'wrestled' (yeaveq) can just as well mean 'embrace,' and that it was in this ritual embrace the Jacob received a new name and the bestowal of priestly and kingly power at sunrise (see Genesis 32:23ff), the parallel to the Egyptian coronation embrace becomes at once apparent." (pg. 243.)

Compare Acts 20:10, where Paul raises a man from the dead with a sacred embrace. Also the Jewish apocryphon, Joseph And Aseneth, where Joseph gives his bride eternal life with an embrace and a kiss (15:5-6; 19:10-11).

Also See:
The Atonement of Jesus Christ
By Hugh W. Nibley
Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4
The Ritual Embrace
Holy Kiss