“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
Parallel Translations
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“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
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Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Show all 3 translations
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Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not murder.
(20-13) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
(20-13) Thou shalt not steal.
(20-13) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (6)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
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Commandments (5)
The laws of the Torah, each cited and shown as a primary source.
Cross-references (117)
- Ephesians 6:1-3 (v12) Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise:…
- Colossians 3:20 (v12) Children, obey your parents in all things, for this pleases the Lord.
- Deuteronomy 5:16 (v12) “Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you; that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the…
- Romans 13:9 (vv13–15) For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever…
- Hebrews 13:4 (v14) Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
Show all 100 cross-references
- Deuteronomy 5:18 (v14) “You shall not commit adultery.
- Deuteronomy 5:17 (v13) “You shall not murder.
- Mark 7:10 (v12) For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’
- Romans 7:2-3 (v14) For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of…
- Proverbs 23:22-25 (v12) Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and don’t sell it. Get wisdom,…
- Leviticus 19:3 (v12) “ ‘Each one of you shall respect his mother and his father. You shall keep my Sabbaths. I am Yahweh your God.
- Proverbs 30:17 (v12) “The eye that mocks at his father, and scorns obedience to his mother: the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, the young eagles shall…
- Proverbs 19:5 (v16) A false witness shall not be unpunished. He who pours out lies shall not go free.
- Ephesians 4:28 (v15) Let him who stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, producing with his hands something that is good, that he may have something to…
- Proverbs 1:8-9 (v12) My son, listen to your father’s instruction, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching: for they will be a garland to grace your head, and…
- Leviticus 19:11 (vv15–16) “ ‘You shall not steal. “ ‘You shall not lie. “ ‘You shall not deceive one another.
- Exodus 21:17 (v12) “Anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
- Proverbs 20:20 (v12) Whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.
- Matthew 19:19 (v12) ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ And, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
- Luke 18:20 (v12) You know the commandments: ‘Don’t commit adultery,’ ‘Don’t murder,’ ‘Don’t steal,’ ‘Don’t give false testimony,’ ‘Honor your father and…
- Matthew 19:18 (vv13–16) He said to him, “Which ones?” Jesus said, “ ‘You shall not murder.’ ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ‘You shall not steal.’ ‘You shall not…
- Exodus 21:15 (v12) “Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
- Mark 10:19 (v12) You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not give false testimony,’ ‘Do not defraud,’…
- Genesis 9:5-6 (v13) I will surely require accounting for your life’s blood. At the hand of every animal I will require it. At the hand of man, even at the hand…
- Psalms 15:3 (v16) he who doesn’t slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his friend, nor casts slurs against his fellow man;
- Exodus 23:1 (v16) “You shall not spread a false report. Don’t join your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness.
- Matthew 15:4-6 (v12) For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you…
- Exodus 21:14 (v13) If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
- Leviticus 19:13 (v15) “ ‘You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. “ ‘The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.
- Leviticus 20:10 (v14) “ ‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the…
- Deuteronomy 4:40 (v12) You shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you,…
- Deuteronomy 19:15-21 (v16) One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin that he sins. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth…
- Deuteronomy 32:47 (v12) For it is no vain thing for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over…
- 2 Kings 2:12 (v12) Elisha saw it, and he cried, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” He saw him no more. Then he took hold of his…
- Matthew 5:21-22 (v13) “You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, ‘You shall not murder;’ and ‘Whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But…
- Matthew 5:27-28 (v14) “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery;’ but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has…
- Matthew 26:59-60 (v16) Now the chief priests, the elders, and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus, that they might put him to death; and they…
- Revelation 21:8 (v14) But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in…
- Proverbs 15:5 (v12) A fool despises his father’s correction, but he who heeds reproof shows prudence.
- Leviticus 19:32 (v12) “ ‘You shall rise up before the gray head and honor the face of the elderly; and you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh.
- Leviticus 24:21 (v13) He who kills an animal shall make it good; and he who kills a man shall be put to death.
- Deuteronomy 19:11-13 (v13) But if any man hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises up against him, strikes him mortally so that he dies, and he flees into one…
- Deuteronomy 25:15 (v12) You shall have a perfect and just weight. You shall have a perfect and just measure, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh…
- 1 Kings 2:19 (v12) Bathsheba therefore went to king Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah. The king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself to her, and sat…
- Proverbs 3:16 (v12) Length of days is in her right hand. In her left hand are riches and honor.
- Proverbs 10:18 (v16) He who hides hatred has lying lips. He who utters a slander is a fool.
- Proverbs 28:24 (v12) Whoever robs his father or his mother and says, “It’s not wrong,” is a partner with a destroyer.
- Proverbs 30:11 (v12) There is a generation that curses their father, and doesn’t bless their mother.
- Malachi 1:6 (v12) “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect…
- James 2:11 (v13) For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have…
- Exodus 21:20 (v13) “If a man strikes his servant or his maid with a rod, and he dies under his hand, the man shall surely be punished.
- Leviticus 18:20 (v14) “ ‘You shall not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife, and defile yourself with her.
- Mark 10:11-12 (v14) He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her. If a woman herself divorces her husband,…
- 1 Corinthians 6:10 (v15) nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom.
- James 2:13 (v13) For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
- 1 John 3:12-15 (v13) unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s…
- Leviticus 6:1-7 (v15) Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “If anyone sins, and commits a trespass against Yahweh, and deals falsely with his neighbor in a matter of…
- Proverbs 1:13-15 (v15) We’ll find all valuable wealth. We’ll fill our houses with plunder. You shall cast your lot among us. We’ll all have one purse.” My son,…
- Isaiah 26:21 (v13) For, behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her…
- Jeremiah 5:8-9 (v14) They were as fed horses roaming at large. Everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife. Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says…
- Acts 6:13 (v16) and set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.
- 1 Timothy 1:9 (v13) as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the…
- Exodus 23:6-7 (v16) “You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. “Keep far from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent and…
- Leviticus 19:35-37 (v15) “ ‘You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures of length, of weight, or of quantity. You shall have just balances, just…
- Deuteronomy 4:26 (v12) I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to…
- Deuteronomy 24:7 (v15) If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the children of Israel, and he deals with him as a slave, or sells him, then that thief…
- 2 Samuel 11:27 (v14) When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that…
- Psalms 101:5-7 (v16) I will silence whoever secretly slanders his neighbor. I won’t tolerate one who is arrogant and conceited. My eyes will be on the faithful…
- Proverbs 1:11 (v13) If they say, “Come with us. Let’s lay in wait for blood. Let’s lurk secretly for the innocent without cause.
- Proverbs 1:18 (v13) but these lay in wait for their own blood. They lurk secretly for their own lives.
- Proverbs 11:1 (v15) A false balance is an abomination to Yahweh, but accurate weights are his delight.
- Amos 8:4-6 (v15) Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail, Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we…
- John 12:6 (v15) Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and having the money box, used to steal what was put into…
- Galatians 5:21 (v13) envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice…
- Ephesians 4:31 (v16) Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander be put away from you, with all malice.
- Ephesians 5:3-5 (v14) But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints; nor filthiness, nor…
- Ephesians 5:21 (v12) subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.
- Leviticus 19:16 (v16) “ ‘You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people. “ ‘You shall not endanger the life of your neighbor. I am Yahweh.
- Deuteronomy 25:13-16 (v15) You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, one heavy and one light. You shall not have in your house diverse measures, one large and…
- 1 Samuel 22:8-19 (v16) that all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a treaty with the son of Jesse, and…
- Proverbs 11:13 (v16) One who brings gossip betrays a confidence, but one who is of a trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret.
- Amos 3:10 (v15) “Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”
- Micah 7:3 (v15) Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil…
- Zechariah 5:3-4 (v15) Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land; for everyone who steals shall be cut off according…
- Malachi 3:5 (v14) I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the…
- Matthew 21:13 (v15) He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!”
- Luke 3:13-14 (v15) He said to them, “Collect no more than that which is appointed to you.” Soldiers also asked him, saying, “What about us? What must we do?”…
- 1 Thessalonians 4:6 (v15) that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as…
- 1 Timothy 1:10 (v16) for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound…
- 2 Timothy 3:3 (v16) without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good,
- James 4:11 (v16) Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the…
- Genesis 4:8-23 (v13) Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” While they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed…
- Exodus 21:16 (v15) “Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
- Exodus 21:29 (v13) But if the bull had a habit of goring in the past, and this has been testified to its owner, and he has not kept it in, but it has killed a…
- Numbers 35:16-34 (v13) “ ‘But if he struck him with an instrument of iron, so that he died, he is a murderer. The murderer shall surely be put to death. If he…
- 2 Samuel 12:9-10 (v13) Why have you despised Yahweh’s word, to do that which is evil in his sight? You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have…
- 2 Kings 21:16 (v13) Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; in addition to his sin with which…
- 2 Chronicles 24:22 (v13) Thus Joash the king didn’t remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. When he died, he said, “May…
- Job 20:19-22 (v15) For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up. “Because he knew no quietness…
- Psalms 10:8-11 (v13) He lies in wait near the villages. From ambushes, he murders the innocent. His eyes are secretly set against the helpless. He lurks in…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (117 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv12–16 By the parents also is meant all that have…
By the parents also is meant all that have authority over us.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Exo 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that…
Exo 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Ver. 12. Honour thy father, &c.] Philo well! observeth, that this fifth commandment, which therefore he maketh a branch of the first table, and so divides the tables equally, is a mixed commandment, εντολη μικτη; and differs somewhat from the rest of those in the second table. They consider man as our neighbour, in nature like us: this, as God’s deputy, by him set over us, and in his name, and by his authority, performing offices about us.
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That thy days may be long.] A good child lengtheneth his father’s days; therefore God promiseth to lengthen his. Ill children, as they bring their parents’ "gray hairs with sorrow to the grave"; so they are many times cut off in the midst of their days, as Abimelech was: God rendering upon him the evil that he did to his father. {Jdg 9:56} Besides the punishment they have in their posterity, to whom they have been peremptores potius quam parentes. {a} One complained, that never father had so undutiful a child as he had: yes, said his son, with less grace than truth, my grandfather had. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Exo 20:17"}
{a} Bernard.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv12–16 The word honour doth not only note the reverence,…
The word honour doth not only note the reverence, love, and obedience we owe them, but also support and maintenance, as appears from Mat 15:4-6, and from the like signification of that word, 1Ti 5:3,17, which is so natural and necessary a duty, that the Jews say a man is bound even to beg, or to work with his hands, that he may relieve his parents.
The
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father is put first here, and the
mother Lev 19:3, to show that we owe this duty promiscuously and indifferently to both of them. Compare Exo 21:15,17; Deu 21:18; 27:16; Pro 20:20; 30:17. And because these laws are brief, and yet comprehensive, under these are contained all our superiors and governors.
That thy days may be long, Heb. that they, i.e. thy parents, may prolong thy days, or the days of thy life, to wit, instrumentally, by their prayers made to God for thee, and by their blessing in my name conferred upon thee; though the active verb is commonly taken impersonally, as Job 7:3; Pro 9:11; Luk 12:10; and so it may be here, they prolong, for be prolonged.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v12 We have here the laws of the second table,…
We have here the laws of the second table, as they are commonly called, the last six of the ten commandments, comprehending our duty to ourselves and to one another, and constituting a comment upon the second great commandment, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. As religion towards God is an essential branch of universal righteousness, so righteousness towards men is an essential branch of true religion. Godliness and honesty must go together.
I. The fifth commandment concerns the duties we owe to our relations; those of children to their parents are alone specified: Honour thy father and thy mother, which includes, 1. A decent respect to their persons, an inward esteem of them outwardly expressed upon all occasions in our conduct towards them. Fear them (Lev 19:3), give them reverence, Heb 12:9. The contrary to this is mocking at them and despising them, Pro 30:17. 2. Obedience to their lawful commands; so it is expounded (Eph 6:1-3): "Children, obey your parents, come when they call you, go where they send you, do what they bid you, refrain from what they forbid you; and this, as children, cheerfully, and from a principle of love." Though you have said, "We will not," yet afterwards repent and obey, Mat 21:29. 3. Submission to their rebukes, instructions, and corrections; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward, out of conscience towards God. 4. Disposing of themselves with the advice, direction, and consent, of parents, not alienating their property, but with their approbation. 5. Endeavouring, in every thing, to be the comfort of their parents, and to make their old age easy to them, maintaining them if they stand in need of support, which our Saviour makes to be particularly intended in this commandment, Mat 15:4-6. The reason annexed to this commandment is a promise: That thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Having mentioned, in the preface to the commandments, has bringing them out of Egypt as a reason for their obedience, he here, in the beginning of the second table, mentions his bringing them into Canaan, as another reason; that good land they must have upon their thoughts and in their eye, now that they were in the wilderness. They must also remember, when they came to that land, that they were upon their good behaviour, and that, if they did not conduct themselves well, their days should be shortened in that land, both the days of particular persons who should be cut off from it, and the days of their nation which should be removed out of it. But here a long life in that good land is promised particularly to obedient children. Those that do their duty to their parents are most likely to have the comfort of that which their parents gather for them and leave to them; those that support their parents shall find that God, the common Father, will support them. This promise is expounded (Eph 6:3), That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. Those who, in conscience towards God, keep this and the rest of God's commandments, may be sure that it shall be well with them, and that they shall live as long on earth as Infinite Wisdom sees good for them, and that what they may seem to be cut short of on earth shall be abundantly made up in eternal life, the heavenly Canaan which God will give them.
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II. The sixth commandment concerns our own and our neighbour's life (Exo 20:13): "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not do any thing hurtful or injurious to the health, ease, and life, of thy own body, or any other person's unjustly." This is one of the laws of nature, and was strongly enforced by the precepts given to Noah and his sons, Gen 9:5, Gen 9:6. It does not forbid killing in lawful war, or in our own necessary defence, nor the magistrate's putting offenders to death, for those things tend to the preserving of life; but it forbids all malice and hatred to the person of any (for he that hateth his brother is a murderer), and all personal revenge arising therefrom; also all rash anger upon sudden provocations, and hurt said or done, or aimed to be done, in passion: of this our Saviour expounds this commandment, Mat 5:22. And, as that which is worst of all, it forbids persecution, laying wait for the blood of the innocent and excellent ones of the earth.
III. The seventh commandment concerns our own and our neighbour's chastity: Thou shalt not commit adultery, Exo 20:14. This is put before the sixth by our Saviour (Mar 10:19): Do not commit adultery, do not kill; for our chastity should be as dear to us as our lives, and we should be as much afraid of that which defiles the body as of that which destroys it. This commandment forbids all acts of uncleanness, with all those fleshly lusts which produce those acts and war against the soul, and all those practices which cherish and excite those fleshly lusts, as looking, in order to lust, which, Christ tells us, is forbidden in this commandment, Mat 5:28.
IV. The eighth commandment concerns our own and our neighbour's wealth, estate, and goods: Thou shalt not steal, Exo 20:15. Though God had lately allowed and appointed them to spoil the Egyptians in a way of just reprisal, yet he did not intend that it should be drawn into a precedent and that they should be allowed thus to spoil one another. This command forbids us to rob ourselves of what we have by sinful spending, or of the use and comfort of it by sinful sparing, and to rob others by removing the ancient landmarks, invading our neighbour's rights, taking his goods from his person, or house, or field, forcibly or clandestinely, over-reaching in bargains, nor restoring what is borrowed or found, withholding just debts, rents, or wages, and (which is worst of all) to rob the public in the coin or revenue, or that which is dedicated to the service of religion.
V. The ninth commandment concerns our own and our neighbour's good name: Thou shalt not bear false witness, Exo 20:16. This forbids, 1. Speaking falsely in any matter, lying, equivocating, and any way devising and designing to deceive our neighbour. 2. Speaking unjustly against our neighbour, to the prejudice of his reputation; and (which involves the guilty of both), 3. Bearing false witness against him, laying to his charge things that he knows not, either judicially, upon oath (by which the third commandment, and the sixth of eighth, as well as this, are broken), or extrajudicially, in common converse, slandering, backbiting, tale-bearing, aggravating what is done amiss and making it worse than it is, and any way endeavouring to raise our own reputation upon the ruin of our neighbour's.
VI. The tenth commandment strikes at the root: Thou shalt not covet, Exo 20:17. The foregoing commands implicitly forbid all desire of doing that which will be an injury to our neighbour; this forbids all inordinate desire of having that which will be a gratification to ourselves. "O that such a man's house were mine! Such a man's wife mine! Such a man's estate mine!" This is certainly the language of discontent at our own lot, and envy at our neighbour's; and these are the sins principally forbidden here. St. Paul, when the grace of God caused the scales to fall from his eyes, perceived that this law, Thou shalt not covet, forbade all those irregular appetites and desires which are the first-born of the corrupt nature, the first risings of the sin that dwelleth in us, and the beginnings of all the sin that is committed by us: this is that lust which, he says, he had not known the evil of, if this commandment, when it came to his conscience in the power of it, had not shown it to him, Rom 7:7. God give us all to see our face in the glass of this law, and to lay our hearts under the government of it!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Honour thy father and thy mother, &c. Which is…
Honour thy father and thy mother, &c. Which is the fifth commandment of the decalogue, but is the first commandment with promise, as the apostle says, Eph 6:2 and is the first of the second table: this, though it may be extended to all ancestors in the ascending line, as father's father and mother, mother's father and mother, &c. and to all such who are in the room of parents, as step-fathers and step-mothers, guardians, nurses, &c. and to all superiors in dignity and office, to kings and governors, to masters, ministers, and magistrates; yet chiefly respects immediate parents, both father and mother, by showing filial affection for them, and reverence and esteem of them, and by yielding obedience to them, and giving them relief and assistance in all things in which they need it; and if honour, esteem, affection, obedience, and reverence, are to be given to earthly parents, then much more to our Father which is in heaven, Mal 1:6.
that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee; that is, the land of Canaan, which he had given by promise to their fathers, and was now about to put them, their posterity, into the possession of: this further confirms the observation made, that this body of laws belonged peculiarly to the people of Israel: long life in any place or land is a blessing in itself, not always enjoyed by obedient children, thou obedience to parents often brings the judgments of God on persons; so that they sometimes die an untimely or an uncommon death, as in the case of the rebellious son, for whom a law was provided in Israel, and Absalom and others, see Lev 20:9 Aben Ezra takes the word to be transitive, and so the words may be read, "that they may prolong thy days"; or, "cause thy days to be prolonged"; meaning either that the commandments, and keeping of them, may be the means of prolonging the days of obedient children, according to the divine promise; or that they, their father and mother, whom they harbour and obey, might, by their prayers for them, be the means of obtaining long life for them; or else that they, Father, Son, and Spirit, may do it, though man's days, strictly speaking, cannot be shortened or lengthened beyond the purpose of God, see Job 14:5 the Septuagint version inserts before this clause another, "that it may be well with thee", as in Deu 5:16 and which the apostle also has, Eph 6:3 and where, instead of this, the words are, "and thou mayest live long on the earth"; accommodating them the better to the Gentiles, to whom he writes.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv12–16 We have here the laws of the second table,…
We have here the laws of the second table, as they are commonly called; the six last commandments which concern our duty to ourselves, and one another, and are a comment upon the second great commandment, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. As religion towards God is, an essential branch of universal righteousness, so righteousness towards men is an essential branch of true religion: godliness and honesty must go together. The fifth commandment is concerning the duties we owe to our relations; that of children to their parents is only instanced in, honour thy father and thy mother, which includes,
1. an inward esteem of them, outwardly expressed upon all occasions in our carriage towards them; fear them, Lev. xix, 3, give them reverence, Heb. xii, 9. The contrary to this is mocking at them or despising them,
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2. Obedience to their lawful commands; so it is expounded, Eph. vi, 1-3. Children obey your parents; come when they call you, go where they send you, do what they bid you, do not what they forbid you; and this cheerfully, and from a principle of love. Though you have said you will not, yet afterwards repent and obey.
3. Submission to their rebukes, instructions and corrections, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.
4. Disposing of themselves with the advice, direction and consent of parents, not alienating their property, but with their approbation.
5. endeavouring in every thing to be the comfort of their parents, and to make their old age easy to them; maintaining them if they stand in need of support. That thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee - This promise, (which is often literally fulfilled) is expounded in a more general sense Eph. vi, 3. That it may be well with thee, and thou mayst live long on the earth - Those that in conscience towards God keep this and other of God's commandments, may be sure it shall be well with them, and they shall live as long on the earth as infinite wisdom sees good for, them, and what they may seem to be cut short of on earth, shall be abundantly made up in eternal life, the heavenly Canaan which God will give them.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Against disrespect and disobedience to parents.
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
Against disrespect and disobedience to parents.
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Verse 12. Honour thy father and thy mother] There is a degree of affectionate respect which is owing to parents, that no person else can properly claim. For a considerable time parents stand as it were in the place of God to their children, and therefore rebellion against their lawful commands has been considered as rebellion against God. This precept therefore prohibits, not only all injurious acts, irreverent and unkind speeches to parents, but enjoins all necessary acts of kindness, filial respect, and obedience. We can scarcely suppose that a man honours his parents who, when they fall weak, blind, or sick, does not exert himself to the uttermost in their support. In such cases God as truly requires the children to provide for their parents, as he required the parents to feed, nourish, support, instruct, and defend the children when they were in the lowest state of helpless in fancy. See Clarke on Ge 48:12. The rabbins say, Honour the Lord with thy substance, Pr 3:9; and, Honour thy father and mother. The LORD is to be honoured thus if thou have it; thy father and mother, whether thou have it or not; for if thou have nothing, thou art bound to beg for them. See Ainsworth.
That thy days may be long] This, as the apostle observes, Eph 6:2, is the first commandment to which God has annexed a promise; and therefore we may learn in some measure how important the duty is in the sight of God. In De 5:16 it is said, And that it may go well with thee; we may therefore conclude that it will go ill with the disobedient; and there is no doubt that the untimely deaths of many young persons are the judicial consequence of their disobedience to their parents. Most who come to an untimely end are obliged to confess that this, with the breach of the Sabbath, was the principal cause of their ruin. Reader, art thou guilty? Humble thyself therefore before God, and repent.
1. As children are bound to succour their parents, so parents are bound to educate and instruct their children in all useful and necessary knowledge, and not to bring them up either in ignorance or idleness.
2. They should teach their children the fear and knowledge of God, for how can they expect affection or dutiful respect from those who have not the fear of God before their eyes?
Those who are best educated are generally the most dutiful. Heathens also inculcated respect to parents.
Ουδεν προς θεων τιμιωτερον αγαλμα αν κτησαιμεθα πατρος και προπατορος παρειμενων γηρᾳ, και μητερων την αυτην δυναμιν εχουσων· οὑς ὁυταν αγαλλῃ τις, τιμαις γεγηθεν ὁ θεος. - Πας δη νουν εχων φοβειται και τιμᾳ, γονενων ευχας ειδως πολλοις και πολλακις επιτελεις γενομενας.
Plato de Leg., lib. xi., vol. ix, p. 160. Ed. Bipont.
"We can obtain no more honourable possession from the gods than fathers and forefathers worn down with age, and mothers who have undergone the same change, whom when we delight, God is pleased with the honour; and every one that is governed by right understanding fears and reverences them, well knowing that the prayers of parents oftentimes, and in many particulars, have received full accomplishment."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Exo 20:12. We have here the laws of the…
Exo 20:12. We have here the laws of the second table, as they are commonly called, the last six commandments, which concern our duty to ourselves and one another, and are a comment upon the second great commandment, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. As religion toward God is an essential branch of universal righteousness, so righteousness toward men is an essential branch of true religion: godliness and honesty must go together. The fifth commandment is concerning the duties we owe to our relations; that of children to their parents is only instanced in, honour thy father and thy mother — Which includes, 1st, An inward esteem of them, outwardly expressed upon all occasions in our carriage toward them. The contrary to this is mocking at them or despising them. 2d, Obedience to their lawful commands; so it is expounded, Eph 6:1-2, Children, obey your parents; come when they call you, go where they send you, do what they bid you, do not what they forbid you; and this cheerfully, and from a principle of love. Though you have said you will not, yet afterward, repent and obey. 3d, Submission to their rebukes, instructions, and corrections, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. 4th, Disposing of themselves with the advice, direction, and consent of parents, not alienating their property, but with their approbation. 5th, Endeavouring in everything to be the comfort of your parents, and to make their old age easy to them; maintaining them if they stand in need of support. That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee — This promise (which is often literally fulfilled) is expounded in a more general sense, Eph 6:3, “That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” Those that, from conscience toward God, keep this and other of God’s commandments, may be sure it shall be well with them, and they shall live as long on the earth as infinite wisdom sees will be good for them; and what they may seem to be cut short of on earth, shall be abundantly made up in eternal life, the heavenly Canaan, which God will give them.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Honour. Love, respect, feed, if requisite; support the infirmities…
Honour. Love, respect, feed, if requisite; support the infirmities of parents. See Numbers xxiv. 1; 1 Timothy v. 3, 17. They are ministers of God in the production of children; and those who offer an affront to his minister, irritate God. (Philo) --- Land of Chanaan. The promises are of a temporal nature; but they should bring to our reflection the eternal rewards which attend the virtuous. The duties of parents are not specified, as nature would shew their extent, and as the obligations of parents and children are reciprocal. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv12–16 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT, Exo_20:12.
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT, Exo_20:12.
12. Honour thy father and thy mother — This commandment belongs properly to the “first table,” as we have shown above, for it inculcates a form of piety as distinguished from morality. “For a considerable time,” observes Clarke, “parents stand, as it were, in the place of God to their children, and therefore rebellion against their lawful commands has been considered as rebellion against God.” The death penalty was enjoined for him who smote or reviled his parents. Exo_21:15; Exo_21:17. The proverb (in Pro_30:17) shows how execrable the dishonouring of parents was considered: “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” See also the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, Exo_3:1-16. The filial relation best represents the true relationship of man to God as his author and preserver, and, accordingly, he who disrespects its sacredness exhibits one of the most notable marks of impiety. But loyalty and devotion to parents tend to cultivate reverence for God, and for rulers, ministers, and teachers, who hold positions of responsibility and are set to guard the public weal. It is worthy of note that in Lev_19:3, this law and that of the sabbath are united together thus: “Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, and keep my Sabbaths.” These two are the only commandments of the decalogue which are expressed in positive form.
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That thy days may be long — The apostle calls this “the first commandment with promise.” Eph_6:2. It is the only one in the decalogue which has a specific promise attached to it.
The land which the Lord thy God giveth thee is here to be understood first of the promised land of Israel, the land of Canaan. Comp. Deu_4:26; Deu_4:40; Deu_30:18; Deu_32:47. But in the wider scope which this commandment has, as being grounded in the nature of the family, and so alike binding upon all men, it is to be understood of the land or country of any and every individual. “Filial respect,” says Cook, in The Speaker’s Commentary, “is the ground of national permanence. When the Jews were about to be cast out of their land, the rebuke of the prophet was that they had not walked in the old paths, and had not respected the voice of their fathers as the sons of Jonadab had done. Jer_6:16; Jer_35:18-19. And when in later times the land had been restored to them, and they were about to be cast out of it a second time, the great sin of which they were convicted was that they had set aside this fifth commandment for the sake of their own traditions. Mat_15:4-6; Mar_7:10-11. Every other nation that has a history bears witness to the same truth. Rome owed her strength, as well as the permanence of her influence after she had politically perished, to her steady maintenance of the patria potestas. (Maine, Ancient Law.) China has mainly owed her long duration to the simple way in which she has uniformly acknowledged the authority of her fathers.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv12–16 12. The fifth commandment. Honour to be paid to…
12. The fifth commandment. Honour to be paid to parents. Cf. in H Lev_19:3. The position accorded to parents is a high one: they are mentioned in the first table of the Decalogue, and duty towards them stands next to duties towards God (so in Exo_21:17 and Lev_20:9 [H] the penalty for cursing them is the same, viz. death, as the penalty for blaspheming God, Lev_24:15 f. [H]). Cf. the development of the command in Sir_3:1-16; and the warnings addressed to those who disregard it, Pro_20:20; Pro_Exo_30:17 (cf. 11). In the NT. see Mat_15:4-6 (||Mar_7:10-13). As Kn. ap. Di. shews, the command is in the spirit of the best minds of antiquity: Plato, for instance (Legg. iv. 717 c–d), lays it down that after the gods and demi-gods parents ought to have the most honour, and that through his whole life every man should pay his parents the utmost deference and respect (cf. xi. 930 e–932 a); and Aristotle, Eth. Nic. ix. 2, 8, says that it is proper to pay them ‘honour such as is given to the gods’ (τιμὴν καθάπερ θεοῖς): other Greek writers also speak similarly. Cf. further on Exo_21:15.
that thy days may be long &c.] The ‘first commandment with promise’ (Eph_6:2). A spirit of filial respect implies a well-ordered life in general; and so tends to secure prosperity both to the individual and to the nation (the commandments are addressed throughout not only to the individual as such, but also to the individual as representing the nation). The terms of the promise are strongly Deuteronomic: see Deu_6:2; Deu_25:15, and (in the form ‘prolong days’) Deu_4:26; Deu_4:40, Deu_5:33, Deu_11:9, Deu_17:20, Deu_22:7, Deu_30:18, Deu_32:47; and, for the following clause, upon the land, &c., Deu_3:20, Deu_11:17; Deu_11:31, Deu_15:7, Deu_16:20, Deu_17:14, Deu_18:9, &c., and especially Deu_4:40, Deu_25:15.
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giveth] is giving (i.e. is in the course of giving, is about to give); so in all the passages of Dt. just quoted (and in many similar ones in the same book besides). The standpoint of the Exodus is assumed. The land is not, as ‘giveth’ in itself might suggest, the possession of the individual Israelite, but Canaan.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv12–16 (12) Honour thy father and thy mother.—It is not…
(12) Honour thy father and thy mother.—It is not a matter of much importance how we divide the commandments; nor is it historically certain how they were originally distributed between the two tables. But, practically, the view that the fifth commandment begins the second table, which lays down our duty towards our neighbours, is to be preferred for its convenience, though it trenches upon symmetrical arrangement. Of all our duties to our fellow-men, the first and most fundamental is our duty towards our parents, which lies at the root of all our social relations, and is the first of which we naturally become conscious. Honour, reverence, and obedience are due to parents from the position in which they stand to their children :—(1) As, in a certain sense, the authors of their being; (2) as their shelterers and nourishers; (3) as their protectors and educators, from whom they derive the foundation of their moral training and the first elements of their knowledge. Even among savages the obligations of children towards their parents are felt and acknowledged to a greater or a less extent; and there has never been a civilised community of whose moral code they have not formed an important part. In Egypt the duty of filial piety was strictly inculcated from a very early date (Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne, vol. i., pp. 342, 343), and a bad son forfeited the prospect of happiness in another life (ibid., pp. 513, 514). Confucianism bases all morality upon the parental and filial relation, and requires the most complete subjection, even of the grown-up son, to his father and mother. Greek ethics taught that the relation of children to their parents was parallel to that of men to God (Aristot. Eth. Nic. 8:12, § 5); and Rome made the absolute authority of the father the basis of its entire State system. The Divine legislation of Sinai is in full accord, here as elsewhere, with the voice of reason and conscience, affirming broadly the principles of parental authority and filial submission, but leaving the mode in which the principles should be carried out to the discretion of individuals or communities.
That thy days may be long upon the land.—The fifth commandment (as all allow) is “the first commandment with promise” (Eph_6:2); but the promise may be understood in two quite different senses. (1) It may be taken as guaranteeing national permanence to the people among whom filial respect and obedience is generally practised; or (2) it may be understood in the simpler and more literal sense of a pledge that obedient children shall, as a general rule, receive for their reward the blessing of long life. In favour of the former view have been urged the facts of Roman and Chinese permanence, together with the probability that Israel forfeited its possession of Canaan in consequence of persisting in the breach of this commandment. In favour of the latter may be adduced the application of the text by St. Paul (Eph_6:3), which is purely personal and not ethnic; and the exegesis of the Son of Sirach (Wis_3:6), which is similar. It is also worthy of note that an Egyptian sage, who wrote long before Moses, declared it as the result of his experience that obedient sons did attain to a good old age in Egypt, and laid down the principle broadly, that “the son who attends to the words of his father will grow old in consequence” (Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne, vol. i., p. 342).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Honor thy father and thy mother. The obligation of…
Honor thy father and thy mother. The obligation of filial respect, love, and reverence is so instinctively" felt by all, that the duty has naturally found a place in every moral code. In the maxims of Ptah-hotep, an Egyptian author who lived probably before Abraham, "the duty of filial piety is strictly inculcated" (Birch, Egypt from the Earliest Times, p. 49). Confucius, in China, based his moral system wholly upon the principle of parental authority; and in Rome it may be regarded as the main foundation of the political edifice. In the Decalogue, the position of this duty, at the head of our duties towards our neighbour, marks its importance; which is further shown by this being "the first commandment with promise". (Eph_6:2) It is curious that the long life here specially attached to the observance of this obligation, was also believed to accompany it by the Egyptians. "The son," says Ptah-hotep, "who accepts the words of his father, will grow old in consequence of so doing;" and again obedient son will be happy by reason of his obedience; he will grow old; he will come to favour." Modern commentators generally assume that the promise was not personal, but national the nation"s days were to be "long upon the land," if the citizens generally were obedient children. But this explanation cannot apply to Eph_6:1-3. And if obedience to parents is to be rewarded with long life under the new covenant, there can be no reason why it should not have been so rewarded under the old. The objection that good sons are not always long-lived is futile. God governs the universe by general, not by universal laws.
The Fifth Commandment: the commandment for children.
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I LOOK AT THIS COMMANDMENT AS IT CONCERNED THE PARENTS.
1. This commandment gave the parents an opportunity for telling the children how it originated. Not only an opportunity, but we may say a necessity. It was a commandment to children, through their parents. All the commandments, statutes, and judgments, were to be taught diligently to the children, (Deu_6:7) and this one here would require very earnest and special explanation in the family. It will be seen that it was a commandment which could not be isolated; a self-willed parent could not quote it with any advantage for the sake of upholding arbitrary authority. The Israelite parent had to explain how these commandments were given; he had to narrate the events in Sinai, and these in turn compelled a reference to the exodus and the bitter experiences of Egypt. Parents had well to consider how much depended on themselves in making their children duly acquainted with all the glorious doings and strict requirements of Jehovah. If a parent had to deal with a disobedient and despising child, he was able to point out that this requirement of honouring father and mother was God"s most strict requirement, and God was he who had rule and authority over parent and child alike.
2. Thus father and mother were evidently required to honour themselves. No special verbal utterance was here required, telling father and mother to remember the obligations to offspring, and anyway this was not the proper place for it. The commandments here are universal commandments, such as all men incur the temptation of breaking. Thus it was eminently fitting to have a word for children, enjoining upon them the proper feeling towards parents; as all know the filial relation, but all do not know the parental one. One of the merits of the Decalogue is its brevity and sententiousness. No father could expect his children to honour the parental relation unless he did so himself; and in measure as he more and more comprehended the import of the relation, in that measure might his children be expected to respond to his treatment of them. "Honour all men," says the apostle Peter; and to do this we must begin at home in our own life, and put the proper value on ourselves. God has put immense honour on father and mother; and it is the curse, loss, and fearful reservation of penalty for many parents that they do not see what momentous interests have been put in their stewardship.
3. God thus showed his earnest desire to help parents in their arduous, anxious work. The work of a parent in Israel who had weighed all his responsibilities was no light matter. Great opportunities were given him, and great things might be done by him; things not to be done by any other teacher or guide, and he had thus a very comforting assurance that God was his helper. Helper to the father, and, bear in mind, to the mother also. It is worthy of note that father and mother are specially mentioned. She is not left in the obscurity of a more general term. God would give to both of them according to their peculiar opportunities all understanding, wisdom, forbearance, steadfastness, discrimination of character, that might be necessary for their work.
II AS IT CONCERNED THE CHILDREN. A commandment was not needed to teach children as to the making of some sort of distinction between their father and mother and other men and women. But, in order that the distinction might be a right one, and evermore real and deepening in its presence and influence, such a commandment as this was imperatively needed. As we have said, it was a commandment universal in its scope, because all are or have been in the filial relation, but as a matter of fact it would address itself directly to the young. They were laid hold of as soon as anything like intelligence, power to obey, and power to understand the difference between right and wrong manifested themselves. God came and made his claim upon them, in a way as suitable as any to their childish consciousness. They were to honour father and mother, not because father and mother said so, but because God said so. Plainly the honouring included both deep inward feeling and clear outward expression. The outward expression, important as it was, could only come from real and habitual feeling within. Outward expression by itself counted for nothing. Honouring with the lips while the heart was far removed from the parent would be reckoned a grievous sin against God. The child had to grow up esteeming and venerating the parental relation everywhere. It could not honour its own father and mother and at the same time despise the parents of other children. The promise here given obviously a suitable one for children. To them the prospect of a long life, in the land already promised, was itself a promise agreeable to the limitations of the old covenant, when there could be no pointing in clear terms to the land beyond death; and we may be very sure that, according to this promise, filial obedience had a corresponding temporal reward. Y.
The commandment with promise.
I THE DUTY IMPOSED.
1. Its reasonableness. Reverent, loving subjection to parents is obedienceto the deepest instincts of the heart.
2. Its pleasantness. This subjection is rest and joy: it is ceasing from doubtand inner conflict; it lets into the spirit the sunshine of a parent"s loving approbation.
II THE PROMISE: "That thy days," etc. Obedience to parents is the condition of national prosperity.. It is respect for law and loyal acceptance of the teachings of the past.. It is denial of the spirit of self will and self pleasing.. It guards youth from excess and vice.. It prepares for the understanding of and submission to the will of God.
It lays broad and deep in the nation"s life the foundations of industry and strength and of moral, as well as material, greatness. U.
Previous commandments have dealt with the object and manner of worship; this deals with the nursery and school of worship. Consider:
I THE INJUNCTION IN ITSELF.
1. Absolute; parents to be honoured, whether living or departed, known or unknown, good or evil.
2. Hard to obey in some cases; yet always possible, for remember the father and mother may be honoured, even though the individuals fall short of the ideal they should exemplify. One can honour from the standpoint of the child, even those who from any other standpoint may be despicable. Illust.: Dr. Macdonald"s story of "Robert Falconer;" the father is a reprobate scamp, yet the son, persistently honoring his fatherhood, at length wins him back to respectability.
3. Mischief of thoughtless disrespect. No honourable shame to be ashamed of one"s own parentage, especially when, if rightly looked at, there is nothing to be ashamed of in it. No doubt apparent disrespect may sometimes grow out of a wholesome familiarity; still, even so, painful to the parent, whilst it injures the child in the opinion of rightminded people. Common shame of doing, or refusing to do things out of respect to a parent"s wishes. At most, if the wish is respected, it is merely a "humouring of the old people," as though the command were "humour," instead of "honour" "thy father and mother." Why chafe at such simple duties as those which spring from the most sacred of relations. There is a far worse bondage than that of "a mother"s apron strings;" it is not well to rupture needlessly those cords of a man which are the bonds of love. If you want a reason for the command:
II HOME REVERENCE IS THE ROOT OF WORSHIP. That ladder which Jacob saw is always reared within the shadow of the home. Even with him, an exile, it was the God of his father who stood above it. The parents, or those who stand in the place of parents, are the only God a child knows at first. Worship, like other things, comes by practice and experience: the first lessons are learnt in the home. Practically, God is revealed through the parent; other things equal, no reverence for parents, there will be no reverence for God. No doubt there are homes and homes; some where you can almost catch the rustle of the angel wings; others, withered husks of home, blasted before the breath of hell. Still, even in the worst homes the ladder is planted, could one but see it. Take away home and its associations, and you leave it with no ground to stand on. Notice in this light the great responsibility of parents. Further:
III HOME REVERENCE IS THE SOURCE OF INDIVIDUAL AND NATIONAL PERMANENCE. The position of the commandment teaches its connection with worship, the promise attached to it its connection with prosperity. It ensures:
1. The prosperity of the individual. The man who does not honour and respect his parents has not gained the habit of reverence; he does not honour God, he does not honour all men. What follows?
(1) Not honouring God, there is no power but self to restrain self. Impulses, desires, etc., are likely, unreined, to run away with him. A man so run away with is rushing post haste to death.
(2) Not honouring men, he will hold aloof from men. They may hinder, they are not likely to help him. The friction of life intensified; all that is done done with twice the effort. Such a man may be successful, not likely to be long-lived. The needless friction must wear out the life. Could the test be applied, an insurance company would be justified in charging a lower premium on one who kept this commandment, than on one who habitually disregarded it.
2. The prosperity of the nation. For
(1) That nation is most stable which founds itself in reverence for the past. The "Land of settled government" is the land
Where Freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent.
(2) That nation is most stable which adopts the principle of the fourth commandment and respects authority above numbers. The commandment does not say, "Honour the family vote," it says, "Honour thy father and thy mother.
Conclusion. Home is linked with heaven; the earthly parent with the Father of eternity. Would you reach heaven, then reverence home; would you worship God, then honour your parents. G.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Honour thy father and thy mother.
Exo_20:12
Honour thy father and thy mother.
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The Fifth Commandment
I. The relationship in which we stand to our parents, a relationship based upon the fact that we owe our existence to them, that we are made in their image, that for so long a time we depend on them for the actual maintenance of life, and that, as the necessary result of all this, we are completely under their authority during childhood. This relationship is naturally made the highest symbol of our relationship to God Himself.
II. Honouring our parents includes respect, love, and obedience, as long as childhood and youth continue, and the gradual modification and transformation of these affections and duties into higher forms as manhood and womanhood draw on.
III. The promise attached to the Commandment is a promise of prolonged national stability. St. Paul, slightly changing its form, makes it a promise of long life to individuals. Common experience justifies the change.
IV. There is one consideration that may induce us to obey this Commandment which does not belong to the other nine: the time will come when it will be no longer possible for us to obey it. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
The duties of youth
I. Consider various ways in which a man may honour his father and mother.
1. By doing his best in the way of self-improvement.
2. By habits of care and frugality.
3. By keeping himself in soberness, temperance, and chastity.
II. Honour to parents is only the principal and most important application of a general principle. The apostle bids us honour all men, and again, In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
III. From the conception of love due to father and mother we rise to the conception of the love due to God. By what heavenly process shall we melt the cold, hard law which forbids idolatry, into the sweet, gentle principle of heart-worship and love? I believe that in this respect the First Commandment is much indebted to the Second, which is like unto it, Honour thy father. And so, when God condescends to call Himself our Father, the clouds which conceal Him from our sight seem to break and vanish, and we feel that we can love and houour Him, not merely acknowledge Him, and refuse to accept others besides Him: not merely fear Him, as one too powerful to be safely set at naught; not merely philosophize about Him, and try to express His Infinite Being in some scientific formula of human words. No; but love Him as a father ought to be loved--with all our hearts, and souls, and strength. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.)
A promise and a duty
I. The promise. Expanded in Deu_5:16. The promise is of a long and prosperous life. It is so plain that it can admit of no other interpretation. The only question can be, Is it an individual or a national life that is here meant? But this is answered, first, by noticing that the command can only be kept by an individual person; and by a nation only as a number of individuals; and hence, as the command is only addressed to the individual, the prolongation of the individual life must be intended. The thy of thy days must refer to the same person as the thyof thy father and thy mother. It is answered, secondly, that a long national career of prosperity presupposes and implies a goodly degree of personal longevity and prosperity, and that the latter is a cause of the former, while the former could in no sense be considered a cause of the latter.
II. The nature of the duty enjoined, The word cabbed is very strong; it strictly means load with honour, and is often used in reference to the Deity. Obedience is only one of the more prominent practical forms of this honour. The honour strikes deeper than mere obedience--it touches the heart, it bespeaks the affections. It is a reverence inwoven in the very nature, connected with all the chords of being, and so coming to the surface in obedience and outward respect. We notice--
1. That the command is not Honour thy father and thy mother when they do right. Our parents, like ourselves, are frail, and may commit error. If their error absolved their children from respect, there could be no filial piety in the world. While the honour due to parents will not go to wicked or foolish lengths, it will go to all reasonable and allowable lengths. It will submit to inconvenience and loss; it will hold its private judgment of what is better in abeyance; it will even keep its own clearly superior wisdom subject to the parental prejudice. So long as conformity to the views and expressed wishes of parents does not harm any third party, a right respect for father and mother will gracefully yield and lay the self-denial on the altar of filial piety.
2. The command is not, Honour thy father and thy mother while thou art a little child. Many act as if they had no parents after they had reached their full stature, and some use this theory even earlier. Now, if to anybody this command is not given, it is to the little child, for in his case nature and necessity teach some degree of obedience and respect to parents, and hence the command is comparatively unnecessary to these.
III. Lastly I would ask if there is not need that Gods will in this matter be often rehearsed in our ears. I would say not to little children, Be obedient to your parents, but rather to parents, Make your children obedient. It is all in your power. If you indulge your little ones in little irreverences and little disobediences because it looks so cunning, and foolish friends urge you to the dangerous pastime, then you will have the little disobedient children grow to be big disobedient children, and they will bring down your grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Or if, through sheer carelessness and selfish laziness, you avoid the active watchfulness and discipline that are necessary to ensure obedience, and to promote an obedient habit, you will obtain the same disastrous result. Beware, too, how, in your anxiety to have your boy a man before the time, you consent to his consequential swagger at sixteen, and furnish him with a night-key as a help to independence, in which you are destroying the bonds of dutiful humility and respectful submission with which God bound him to you to preserve. It is in this way I would apply the Fifth Commandment to young children through the parents, who are responsible before God and man. But I also make the special application of the text to children of maturer growth. Let our continued reverence for parent or parents still living, be of itself a glorious example, deeply written on the thoughts and future memories of your own children. Surround the old age which adorns and honours your household with the tribute of your assiduous care, jealous of its comfort and its dignity, and cover its defects with the mantle, not of your charity, but of your filial love and sympathy. (H. Crosby, D. D.)
The Fifth Commandment
I. The Divine mandate.
1. It is not an arbitrary edict; but a natural principle, having its constitutional basis in the very essence of the relation which subsists between parents and children. The parent is to his child, in a certain sense, the representative and symbol of God. It is a significant fact that the Romans denoted dutifulness to the gods and dutifulness to parents by the same word, namely, pietas. Allegiance, or amenability to law, this is a constitutional, constituent part of manhood. And it is the parent (father and mother equally) who is the natural symbol of authority. Parentage, in simple virtue of its being parentage, is inherently imperative; it is of the very essence of parentage that it is constitutively and rightfully authoritative. Authorhood, genealogically as well as etymologically, is the sire of authority.
2. But you interrupt me with a question, Must the child always obey his parents? In the sphere of fundamental moral obligations, my father and I stand on an equality before God; in this sphere he has no more right to command me than I have to command him. But in the sphere of incidental, shifting duties, my father is over me, and has a right to command me.
II. The Divine promise. Nothing is more certain, at least in a physiological way, than this: Respect for parental authority tends to longevity; filial reverence is itself an admirable hygiene. What was it that gave to Rome its long-continued tremendous power and majesty? It was the patria potestas, or paternal authority, before which every Roman youth unquestioningly bowed; for loyalty is the sire of royalty. Even China herself, although her civilization was long ago arrested and petrified, owes, I doubt not, her preservation through millenniums to the fealty of her children to their ancestral commandments and traditions.
III. The parent is a symbol of the State. What the parent is to the child, that the State in many particulars is to the citizen, only vastly augmented. In fact, no sooner is the infant born than he enters the jurisdiction of law. As soon as he is able to notice relations and reason about them, so soon does he perceive that he is under authority. One of the first lessons he learns is this: There are some things which he must do, and some things which he must not do; and these commands and prohibitions awaken the ideas of law and subordination. As he grows older, these ideas become more vivid and dominant. And, finally, when he leaves home to take his position as a member of society, he finds that the authority which had hitherto resided in his parents has been transferred to the State. Accordingly, parental authority is the grand, divinely-appointed educator for citizenship. Loyalty to parental law prepares the way for loyalty to civic law.
IV. Our theme is especially pertinent to our own times. There are two tendencies in our land and age which make the discussion of the Fifth Commandment particularly appropriate.
1. And first, our age is an age of innovation. Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. Therefore do I lift up my voice in behalf of reverend antiquity; doubly reverend, first, because it is antiquity; and secondly, because, being antiquity, it is an oracle.
2. Secondly, our age is an age of anarchy or moral lawlessness.
V. Human parentage is a symbol of the Divine. The Creator ordained it, not so much for mans sake as for His own sake, meaning that it should serve as the ladder by which we may ascend to His own blessed fatherhood, and joyously feel His paternal sway. And this is majesty indeed. It is told of Daniel Webster that, when a party of distinguished gentlemen were dining with him at his Marsh field home, and one of his guests asked him what single thing had contributed most to his personal success, the famous statesman paused for a moment, and then, with great solemnity, replied, I think that the most fruitful and elevating influence I have ever felt has been my impression of my obligation to God. Believe me, no man is ever so sublime as when he is consciously loyal to the King of kings; no man is ever so supremely blessed as when he reverently sits at the feet of the Infinite Father. (G. D. Boardmen.)
The parent and the nation
1. First, Jehovah is the source of all life. In Him we have our being. But the parent is Gods means by which He imparts life, the human channel through which Divine life creates. The parent is the shrine of Divine power working creatively. The parent, therefore, as the secondary author of life, is to the child a representative of God. A Divine sacredness, a reflection of the Creator, invests parents through whom life came and grew and was begotten into time. In the mysterious law of life, the link between the child and God is the parent.
2. Secondly, it is true that parental honour is here set down as a statute law of Israel, but have we yet to learn that these Ten Words express the profoundest principles of human life? We may rest assured that the honour which God claims for father and mother forms the germ of man at his best and noblest state. Plato would fain have reconstructed the Athenian national life without the family life. Disraeli once said in the House of Commons, The family is the unit of the nation. Plato came to the opposite conclusion, viz., the family life is the bane of the nation. He thought it bred selfishness, that it was detrimental to courage, that it narrowed mens interests and dulled the spirit of patriotism, which prefers country to everything. Blot out reverence for parents and life neither at the beginning nor the end is safe. What is the true wealth of a nation? Is it not patriotic men and virtuous women? But family life alone can produce these; the family life which is overshadowed by a sense of God. Home obedience is the spirit which expands into the fine feeling of the sanctity of law. Parental honour develops into loyalty to the Queen and reverence for the constitution. The love of home and its dear ones grows big with the love of country and with the self-sacrificing energies of patriotism. But so it is also that the decline of home life, the loss of parental and filial feeling, is the sure precursor of national decline. Loyalty, reverence, faith--lose these, and the soul is lost out of the body politic. Its very heart and strength are gone when these are gone. But these are the fruit of home. There are three sources of danger--literary, political, and social.
1. As to the first, all atheistic theories which take away the glory from the head of the parent rob the parental tie of its highest sanctity. When life is only the result of material laws, reverence cannot rise higher than the nature of the fact. A mere flesh and blood relationship will not yield a spiritual feeling. Reverence cannot sustain itself on humanity alone, without God in the background; no, neither reverence for man as man, nor for woman as woman. All lustre dies away, and only commonness remains, barren of the emotions which are the riches of human life.
2. Again, in the sphere of politics it has begun to look wise and liberal, and the only practical thing, to separate civil life from religion, and to draw a line of distinction between Christianity and the nation. The tendency is setting in to look to citizenship in the narrowest sense of commerce and material progress. As certain as moral feeling is the truth of manhood, so certain is it that education or legislation which forgets or ignores the heart is guilty of a fatal defect. When cleverness is divorced from the fear of God, rational selfishness takes the place of honour and faith. It is this radical bias of the heart which will confound all the hopes of mere secularists. Morals need to be sustained in the affections or they are barren precepts only; and they cannot be sustained there except by a power which is able to cope with our radical selfishness and overcome it. We have strong reasons, derived from history and human nature, for believing that Christianity alone is capable of this. The immoral or even the selfish will never think rightly. Stop wrong feeling in one direction, it will burst out in another. Out of the heart are the issues of life. The voice of prudence will never be the law of morals. It is an inference almost as certain as actual fact that the spirit of atheistic communism has had no true home, that is, no true moral training of the heart. It drifted loose from true feeling before it drifted loose from true reasoning, though the two processes were doubtless deeply and inextricably intermingled.
3. But let us turn to the enemies of home in the social sphere. I pass by the danger of conceited superficiality at home. But there is one danger to the English home which must be patent to all, vast, portentous, fearful--the public-house. It swallows up comforts, decencies, and every possibility of religiousness and good citizenship. Materially and morally it works an awful ruin. Homes being deteriorated and parents degraded, then young people abandon them as early as possible. Novelty and sensation are the order of the day. Like a fever it penetrates the very blood. To sit still, to meditate, to enjoy home is getting beyond us. The Church, too, has been compelled to enter into the competition. She must do it to fight against social temptations and moral decline. But let the Church of Christ ever keep her high purpose in view. Let her not degrade herself into a mere rival of sensational amusement. She is the mother of the nation, the ideal of the true home. Let her seek to restore it on the Divine pattern by setting up the family altar and the Word of God. So shall it be well with us, and so will our children live long on the earth. (W. Senior, B. A.)
Parent and child
The command is reflexive. It speaks to the child and says, Honour; but in that very word it springs back upon the parent and says, Be honourable; because in your honourableness your child shall grow reverent. Of all things in this world the soul of a reverent child is the most beautiful and precious, and therefore of all things in this world honourable parents are the most important. One thing cannot be too strongly insisted on. Parental goodness must be genuine and unaffected, of the heart, flowing easily through the life, in order to evoke reverence. Unreality is sure to be detected by-and-by, and when children find out unreality in those who stand in the place of God--God help them! It never does to give precept instead of example. Children have strangely sensitive natures. They dont see through pretence, but after a while they do more, they feel it. Brethren, there is much talk of culture now-a-days. I venture to suggest, in the light of the requirements of this Commandment, that the finest culture of all lies within the sphere of home life, the life we seem to be in danger of losing. The finest culture would come from the endeavour to be worthy of a childs reverence, and trust, and love. What does it need in the parent to be the childs ideal? It needs the cultivation of truthfulness, and love, and unselfishness. To your own selves, to your own higher nature, you must first be true in order to be true to them. The true heaven of home can only be entered by the parents becoming as their own darling child in innocence, sweetness, and goodness. There is even something higher still. It is through true parentage that the heart of God is best understood, and best realized. He calls Himself Father, and likens Himself to a Mother. The names are revelations; they are profound instructions. God wants to shine down into His childrens hearts through father and mother. Only two last words.
1. First, to the young unmarried. Some may be thinking of marriage. Well, marriage is of God, but mark the solemn importance with which this Commandment invests it. It is for God also. Marriage means parentage, and parentage involves all this home life, all these influences of which we have been speaking. Are you morally equal to marriage? Are you fit to be a parent when yon think of all that is in this word honour? What sort of a mother shall you give your children? What sort of a father?
2. Secondly, a word to the married who have children. It is in the nature of things that parents love their children more than children love their parents. The world is all new, to the young, their interests fly abroad. The parents have more or less gone through that phase of life, and now concentrate their thoughts and hopes upon the childrens welfare. The child turns from the parent after the illusions of life, the parent begins to live over again in the child. The child accepts all the thoughts, and love, and sacrifice as a matter of course, unable, in fact, to realize the hidden life below them. Yes, such times bring moments of almost anguish, but parents see. We are only feeling in our turn what our parents felt before over us. Love on, and knowledge of you and reverence shall surely come to your children. You shall have your reward, it may be, even here, in the protecting love which clings to your old age, and warms and beautifies it, and prolongs the joys of home to the very gates of death, and fills beyond them with visions of union and perfect bliss. But if not here, then when the green sod covers you your reward shall come in tears which melt the soul of your wilful boy back into your arms; in memories which make your wayward girl long passionately to be pressed to a mothers bosom. Then, I say, your love shall have its due reward. Only be true and faithful, and kind and upright, and father and mother shall be known at last. Be comforted, your love is never lost. (W. Senior, B. A.)
The Fifth Commandment
I. Who is meant here by father?
1. The political father, the magistrate. These fathers are to be honoured; for,
(1) Their place deserves honour.
(2) God hath promoted kings, that they may promote justice.
These political fathers are to be honoured: honour the king. And this honour is to be shown by a civil respect to their persons, and a cheerful submission to their laws, so far as they agree and run parallel with Gods law.
2. There is the grave ancient father who is venerable for old age, whose grey hairs are resembled to the white flowers of the almond-tree. There are fathers for seniority, on whose wrinkled brows, and in the furrows of whose cheeks is pictured the map of old age. These fathers are to be honoured: thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man.
3. There are spiritual fathers, as pastors and ministers. The spiritual fathers are to be honoured.
(1) In respect of their office (Mal_2:7; 2Co_5:20).
(2) Ministers, these spiritual fathers, are to be honoured for their works sake.
4. There is the economical father, that is, the master; he is the father of the family, therefore Naamans servants called their master, father. And the centurion calls his servant, son.
(1) In obeying his master in things that are lawful and honest (1Pe_2:18).
(2) In being diligent in his service.
(3) By being faithful. That servant who is not true to his master, will never be true to God or his own soul.
(4). The servant is to honour his master by serving him, as with love, for willingness is more than the work, so with silence, that is, without repining, and without replying: exhort servants to be obedient to their masters, not answering again; Greek, not giving cross answers.
5. The natural father, the father of the flesh. Honour thy natural father. Children are the vineyard of the parents planting, and honour done to the parent is some of the fruit of the vineyard.
II. Wherein are children to show their honour to their parents?
1. In a reverential esteem of their persons.
(1) Inwardly, by fear mixed with love.
(2) Outwardly, in word and gesture.
2. In a careful obedience.
(1) In hearkening to their counsel.
(2) In subscribing to their commands.
(3) In relieving their wants.
It is but paying the just debt. The young storks, by the instinct of nature, bring meat to the old storks, when by reason of age they are not able to fly. The memory of Eneas was honoured, for carrying his aged father out of Troy when it was on fire. (T. Watson.)
The law of subordination
The importance of this commandment is indicated by
1. Its positive form;
2. Its relative place; and,
3. Its accompanying promise.
I. The scope of this precept embraces an universal law of subordination with corresponding relative duties.
1. A law of subordination is implied in the relation of a child to its parent.
2. This law of subordination is seen in similar relations to be the foundation of society.
(1) Everywhere the older men are in authority, and the new comers must accept subjection.
(2) Rank, wealth, station, genius, scholarship, and other phases of power exist around us, distinguishing certain individuals, and enriching them with definite advantages which in effect do subordinate other persons to them.
(3) The king is the father of a larger household. Patriotism is the love of home upon a grander scale.
3. The law of subordination being thus the broad foundation of society, and the principle on which it is evidently constituted, this Divine order witnesses for the Divine origin of man. Society is now seen to be not a heap of unconnected sand, but a living tree, whose multitudinous branches, meeting in one stem, have their root in Him from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.
II. Some of the more prominent applications of this Law. All these include responsibility as well as authority in the superior, and therefore rights as well as duties in the subordinate.
1. There is first the typical ease of parent and child.
2. Closely connected with the relation of parent and child, and even influencing it, is that mutual bond of husband and wife which affords the next great instance of the law of subordination. In her motherhood woman is the equal, in her wifehood the subordinate of man.
3. There are manifold other relations which illustrate the law of subordination--teachers and pupils, seniors and juniors, masters and servants, monarchs and subjects, magistrates and citizens, pastors and people. (W. J. Woods, B. A.)
Lessons from the position of the Fifth Commandment
The position of this Commandment among the others has important teachings. It is the centre, the heart of the whole law. Not only has God given us the power to love, but He has placed us in relationships which call this power into exercise and give it right direction, especially the relationship of parents and children. God says here to parents: As you love your children, so I love you. As you yearn for their responsive love, so I yearn for yours. I am your Father. God says here to children: Love your parents, and therein learn to love Me, your Father. The position of this Commandment among the others has a further teaching of great importance. The place of division into the Two Tables of the Law is somewhat indistinct. It is in this Commandment, but whether it belongs to the First Table, or to the Second, is not quite clear. It certainly treats of duties to man, and so must belong to the Second Table. But hold! May not the parents be regarded as the representatives of God? Then it belongs to the First Table. There is certainly a strong analogy in the relationships. The parents are the nearest cause to the child of its being, its continued existence and its welfare, and this through that wonderful thing God has given them, parental love, which allies them so closely to Himself. We need not try to determine what God seems purposely to have left indistinct. In the indistinctness is the lesson. We are apt to consider duties to man separately, but God joins them indissolubly with duties to Himself. The position of the Commandment in this indistinctness also shows its great importance. Considering it as the last of the First Table we see that in order that children shall become men and women worshipping God in spirit and in truth, they are to be taught and trained by honouring their parents. Considering it as the first of the Second Table, we see that in order that children shall become men and women fulfilling their duties in the various relations of life, they are to be taught and trained by honouring their parents. Both religion and morality have their foundations laid in the home life of children. (F. S. Schenck.)
Reasons for honouring parents
1. The first and greatest is because God commands. His command is written in our own natures and in this holy law. This reason is above all others and embraces all.
2. Such conduct gives the greatest pleasure to our parents, as the reverse conduct brings to their hearts the keenest suffering. We can never fully appreciate all the care and love father and mother have bestowed upon us in infancy and youth, in sickness and in health, and the yearning of their hearts for our love. Surely we should respond to their love--we should seek their happiness.
3. Such conduct is itself excellent. There is something within us that approves it, and condemns the reverse.
4. The Commandment itself contains a reason for obedience, in that it gives a promise, an assurance that in the providence of God obedience to this Commandment will result in long life and prosperity. This sets forth a general rule in the Divine government of the race, promoting stability in social welfare. The child honouring his parents learns self-control, and obedience to law, submission hearty and prompt to rightly constituted authority as a principle of action. Such a child will in all probability become a man of like character. He will obey the laws of health. Entering business he will obey the laws of success, industry, perseverance, economy, enterprise. His powers under full control, he will be also a law-abiding citizen in society. Such character tends to long life and the enjoyment of the gifts of God. A good citizen enjoys the protection of the state not only, but helps to form a condition of social well-being. The child, on the other hand, who is disobedient and disrespectful to his parents, who sets aside their authority and Gods authority, is cultivating a law-breaking character. He will in all probability become a self-willed man, setting at defiance the laws of God and man. Such a life tends to the undermining of health by excesses, to the waste of property by abuse, to the running into dangers recklessly, and to the overthrow of social well-being. Such a character tends to shorten life and to forfeit the gifts of God. (F. S. Schenck.)
Forbearance towards erring parents
How is a religious son or daughter to act towards an irreligious parent? To answer that question in, detail would require a long discourse. Circumstances sometimes make the duty of a child very perplexing. When a father comes home drunk three times a week, violently abuses his daughter who opens the door for him half dead with weariness and fright, curses her, sometimes strikes her, drinks half her wages and nearly all his own, what ought she to do? The principle which determines her duty is clear. The obligation to honour her father is not relaxed. You are not released from a debt because the man to whom you owe it is a drunkard or a profligate; and so irreligion, or even vice in a parent, cannot release a child from filial duty. The application of the principle to particular eases is, I acknowledge, sometimes extremely difficult. Parental cruelty occasionally becomes intolerable. For a child to remain in some houses is to suffer perpetual misery. But the noble and Christian course, as long as your strength is not utterly exhausted, is to manifest the charity which endureth all things. If your religion makes you more sensitive to the vices which disgrace the character of your parents, it should also enable you to bear their ill-treatment with more meekness and patience. The consciousness of your own sins should make you more merciful to theirs. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
Filial duty
Tenderness and sympathy were conspicuously displayed in the character of the late Dr. Alexander Waugh. A young man of unimpeachable character was desirous of entering upon missionary labour, and was recommended to the notice of the London Missionary Society. He had passed through the usual examination, but stated that he had one difficulty--he had an aged mother dependent upon an elder brother and himself for maintenance; in case of his brothers death, he wished to be at liberty to return home to support her. Scarcely had he made this natural request than he heard the voice of one of the directors exclaim, If you love your mother more than the Lord Jesus, you wont do for us. The young man was abashed and confounded, and he was asked to retire while his case was considered. Upon his return, Dr. Waugh, who was in the chair, addressed him with patriarchal dignity, telling him that the committee did not feel themselves at liberty to accept his services on a condition involving uncertainty as to the term; but immediately added, We think none the worse of you, my good lad, for your beautiful regard to your aged parent. You are following the example of Him whose gospel you wish to proclaim among the heathen, who, when He hung upon the cross in dying agonies, beholding His mother and His beloved disciple standing by, said to the one, Behold thy son! and to John, Behold thy mother!
Filial piety
David Livingstone is said to have learned Gaelic in order that he might be able to read the Bible to his mother in that language, which was the one she knew best.
Obligation to parents
The celebrated Jonathan Edwards, who had the advantage of being trained by singularly pious and judicious parents, wrote, when about twenty years of age, in his diary: I now plainly perceive what great obligations I am under to love and honour my parents. I have great reason to believe that their counsel and education have been my making; notwithstanding in the time of it, it seemed to do me so little good.
A noble sentiment
A little boy hearing a party of gentlemen applauding the sentiment, an honest man is the noblest work of God, boldly said, No; and being asked, What do you think is the noblest work of God? replied, My mother. That boy made a good man. Who can doubt it?
Archbishop Tillotsons respect for his father
There are some children who are almost ashamed to own their parents, because they are poor, or in a low situation of life. We will, therefore, give an example of the contrary, as displayed by the Dean of Canterbury, afterwards Archbishop Tillotson. His father, who was a plain Yorkshireman, approached the house where his son resided, and inquired whether John Tillotson was at home. The servant, indignant at what he thought his insolence, drove him from the door; but the Dean, who was within, hearing the voice of his father, came running out, exclaiming, in the presence of his astonished servants, It is my beloved father! and falling down on his knees, asked for his blessing.
Honouring a parent
Frederick the Great one day rang his bell several times, and nobody came. He opened the door, and found his page asleep in an arm-chair. Advancing to awake him, he perceived the corner of a note peeping out of his pocket. Curious to know what it was, he took it, and read it. It was a letter from the mother of the youth, thanking him for sending her part of his wages, to relieve her poverty. She concluded by telling him, that God would bless him for his good conduct. The king, after having read it, went softly into his room, took a purse of ducats, and slipped it, with the letter, into the pocket of the page. He returned, and rang his bell so loud, that the page awoke, and went in. Thou hast slept well! said the king. The page wished to excuse himself, and in his confusion put his hand by chance into his pocket, and felt the purse with astonishment. He drew it out, turned pale, and looking at the king, burst into tears, without being able to utter a word. What is the matter? said the king; what hast thou? Ah! Sire, replied the youth, falling on his knees, they wish to ruin me; I do not know how this money came into my pocket. My friend, said Frederick, God often sends us blessings while we are asleep. Send that to thy mother, salute her from me, and say that I will take care of her and thee.
Honour thy parents
An amiable youth was lamenting the death of a most affectionate parent. His companions endeavoured to console him by the reflection that he had always behaved to the deceased with duty, tenderness, and respect. So I thought, replied the youth, whilst my parent was living; but now I recollect, with pain and sorrow, many instances of disobedience and neglect; for which, alas! it is too late to make atonement.
Pleasing parents
Epaminondas, the Theban, after winning a battle, said, My chief pleasure is, that my parents will hear of my victory.
Begin right
If you begin to put up a house, and lay the foundation wrong, or to build a ship, and make a mistake in laying the keel, youll have to take it all down and begin again. Oh, it is very important to begin right! It is so in everything. And it is so in trying to do our duty to our neighbour. The Fifth Commandment shows us how we must begin to do this. We must begin at home. You show me a boy or girl who is not a good son or daughter, who does not honour father and mother, and I will show you one who will not make a good man or woman. (R. Newton, D. D.)
Kindness to parents
There is a celebrated charity school in London, called the Blue Coat School. It bears this name because the scholars there all wear blue coats with long skirts to them. I remember reading about one of the boys in this school, who was in the habit of saving part of his own meals, and all the bits and scraps he could gather from the table after their meals were over. He used to put them in a box near his bed, and keep them there. This led the other scholars to talk against him very much. At first they thought he was greedy, and kept them there to eat at night, when the rest were asleep. Some of them watched him, but he was never seen to eat them. Once or twice a week he used to make a bundle of the contents of the box, and go away with it. Then the boys thought that he meant to sell them and keep the money. They concluded that he was a mean, miserly fellow. They refused to let him play with them. They joked about him, and called him hard names, and persecuted him in many ways. But he bore it all patiently, and still went on, saving and carrying away all he could honestly get. At last they complained of him to their teacher. The boy was watched when he took away the next bundle. He was seen to go into an old, worn-out building, occupied by some of the poorest people in the city. There he made his way up to the fourth storey of the building, and left his bundle with a poor old couple. On inquiry it was found that these were his parents. They were honest, worthy people, whom age and poverty had reduced to such a condition of want that their chief dependence was the food thus furnished by their son. He was willing to deprive himself of food, and bear the reproach and persecution of his schoolmates, in order to do what he could for the support of his parents. When the managers of the school heard of it, they provided relief for the poor boys parents, and gave him a silver medal for his praiseworthy conduct.
Dr. Johnson and his father
The great Dr. Johnson was a very learned man; he wrote a dictionary. I know what I am going to say is true. He lived in Uttoxeter. His father was a bookseller, not in a very grand way, because he used to sell his books in the market-place. One day he asked his son Samuel (for that was the Christian name of Dr. Johnson) to come down and help him in the sale of his books in the market-place. Little Samuel was rather a sort of a dandy, a conceited fellow; and he thought it beneath his dignity to sell books in the market-place. He demean himself to stand in the market.place to sell books, indeed, for his father! He was too great a gentleman for that! Fifty years passed away, and Dr. Johnson had become now an old man. It haunted him; he could not forget, though more than fifty years had passed,--what he had done to his father, in refusing to sell books in the market-place. He was very sad and unhappy about it. So, one day, the doctor took off his hat, and went and stood in the same market-place, on the very spot where he said he would not stand to sell books for his father. And all the boys laughed at him; but there he stood with his bald head, not feeling the rain, or caring for the boys laughter, that he might do a sort of act of penance, to ease his conscience! He did not honour his father when a boy, and he remembered it fifty years after, and it was a pain to him. A statue to Dr. Johnson now stands on the spot, and this noble act of his is depicted upon it. (J. Vaughan.)
Parents are Gods representatives
In battle, men will give their lives to prevent the ragged and shot-torn colours of their country from falling into the hands of the enemy. These ragged colours represent their country. The dust-covered messenger who carries private despatches to an embassy in a foreign country is received with all respect, because he represents his king. Even the child who carries an important message is treated with the reverence due to the sender of the message. So parents are to be honoured, not alone as parents, but as the representatives of God Himself. (S. S. Times.)
That thy days may be long.
Long life
1. My design is to show you that practical religion is the friend of long life, and I prove it first from the fact that it makes the care of our physical health a positive Christian duty. The Christian man lifts this whole problem of health into the accountable and the Divine. He says: God has given me this body, and He has called it the temple of the Holy Ghost, and to deface its altars, or mar its walls, or crumble its pillars, is a sacrilege. The Christian man says to himself: If I hurt my nerves, if I hurt my brain, if I hurt any of my physical faculties, I insult God and call for dire retribution. An intelligent Christian man would consider it an absurdity to kneel down at night and pray, and ask Gods protection, while at the same time he kept the windows of his bedroom tight shut against fresh air. The care of all your physical forces--nervous, muscular, bone, brain, cellular, tissue--for all you must be brought to judgment.
2. Again, I remark that practical religion is a friend of long life in the fact that it is a protest against all the dissipations which injure and destroy the health. Bad men and women live a very short life; their sins kill them. Napoleon Bonaparte lived only just beyond mid-life, then died at St. Helena, and one of his doctors said that his disease was due to excessive snuffing. The hero of Austerlitz, the man who by one step of his foot in the centre of Europe shook the earth, killed by a snuff-box! Oh, how many people we have known who have not lived out half their days because of their dissipations and indulgences! Now, practical religion is a protest against all dissipation of any kind.
3. Again, religion is a friend of long life in the fact that it takes the worry out of our temporalities. It is not work that kills men; it is worry. When a man becomes a genuine Christian he makes over to God not only his affections, but his family, his business, his reputation, his body, his mind, his soul--everything. Oh, nervous and feverish people of the world, try this mighty sedative! You will live twenty-five years longer under its soothing power. It is not chloral that you want, or more time that you want; it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
4. Again, practical religion is a friend of long life in the fact that it removes all corroding care about a future existence. You have been accustomed to open the door on this side the sepulchre; this morning I open the door on the other side the sepulchre. Glory be to God for this robust, healthy religion. It will have a tendency to make you live long in this world, and in the world to come you will have eternal longevity. (Dr. Talmage.)
Vindication of Gods faithfulness, in the performance of the promise o.f long life
We may boldly challenge long life, when all the circumstances of it will tend to our everlasting welfare. But God, who knows how frail and yielding the best of us are, and in the series of His Divine Providence seeth what prevailing temptations we shall be exposed unto, doth oftentimes, in mercy, abridge this promise; and takes us from the world, lest the world should take us from Him; and deals with us, as princes deal with duellists, they make them prisoners, that they might preserve them: so God, that He might preserve His people from their great enemy, commits them to safe custody of the grave. And, if this be to be unfaithful, certainly His faithfulness would be nothing else but an art to circumvent and undo us; should He, only to keep that inviolate, perform those promises, which would be to our hurt and detriment. Nor, indeed, can any man, whom God hath blessed with a right judgment and due esteem of things, be willing to compound for the continuance of this present life, with the hazard or diminution of his future happiness. (Bp. E. Hopkins.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv12–16 Exo_20:12. Upon the land.] More exactly: “upon the ground”…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exo_20:12. Upon the land.] More exactly: “upon the ground” or “soil” (’adhamah, not ’eretz); a term happily used of a people destined to become a nation of agriculturists. Patriotism clings fondly to the “soil” on which a people’s fathers have trod.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_20:12
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
I. Who are we to honour? “Thy father and thy mother.” They have given birth to their children. They have educated them. They have provided for their wants in days of infancy and weakness. They love them as no one else can. They watch them with intense interest, in the opening of their minds to truth, and in their progress in social and commercial life. They are over them in the Lord; and children must give honour not merely in the social and domestic life, but in the moral aspects of the relationship.
II. How are we to honour them? Not by mere verbal expressions of respect; but by true reverence, by constant affection, by untiring obedience, and by every effort calculated to enhance their welfare and delight. Speak well of your parents. Take care of them in old age. Never cause them pain by evil doing. Always commend them to God.
III. Why are we to honour them? “That thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” It is well to observe that this is the only one of the commandments which has a distinct promise connected with it. Hence the apostle says, “Children, obey your parents, which is the first commandment with promise” (Eph_6:12). “Children, obey your parents, that it may be well with you.” We may contrast this with another passage: “Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother.” Children must honour their parents. Because God has commanded it, because blessing will be attached to it, because the high relationship demands it, because self-respect prompts it, and because in the future they will need a like regard.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo_20:12. Some young people may say that their parents are not lovable, and that therefore they cannot love them; not wise, and that therefore they cannot respect them; that they are unreasonable, capricious, and selfish; that they have vices of temper and speech, and, perhaps, vices of a still grosser kind; and that therefore it is simply impossible to honour them. I think that there are not a few children in our days who are disposed to take this ground, and to maintain it as a principle. Our parents have a right to just that measure of respect and affection from us, which they can claim on the ground of their intelligence and worth, no more and no less. At first sight this looks reasonable enough. There is very much to be said for that view of matters. How can I love any one who has very little in her to love, simply because she happens to be my mother? How can I respect any one in whom there is nothing to respect, simply because he happens to be my father? The movements of the heart and the decisions of the judgment are and must be altogether independent of mere relationship, and are determined by the character and power of the people with whom we have to do. That looks very philosophical, no doubt. But, my philosophic young friend, how would it have fared with you if your father and mother had had the same ideas about your claims on them? You want your parents to stand on the same ground as other men and women, and to be loved and respected according to their personal merits, just as if they had no natural relationship to you; what would have happened if they had been equally philosophical and impartial, and if they had given you only as much affection and care as you seemed to deserve, or as you claimed on the ground of your helplessness; if, in short, they had justified themselves in ignoring any special obligation to love you and to care for you, beyond the obligation which would have rested on them to love and care for any child that happened to come into their hands?—R. W. Dale.
The notices of the childhood and youth of Jesus Christ in the Word of God are very few. But let us look now at His obedience to His earthly parents. He honoured them, first by being “subject to them;” He was obedient; He was “full of grace and truth;” He grew in wisdom daily. His understanding and His answers astonished all that heard them, even the most learned doctors of the day; and yet this Son went down to Nazareth with His parents, and was subject to them. What a lesson for all is this! He who was higher than the kings of the earth was subject to His parents; He honoured His father; He obeyed them. And nothing can excuse a child from this duty; it belongs to the relation, and what God has joined no man may put asunder. We find the greatest characters in the Word of God honouring their parents, Joseph, though governor of Egypt, bowed himself with his face to the earth before his father Jacob; and Solomon, the most magnificent of all earthly kings, honoured his mother with the same reverence, rising up to meet her and bowing himself unto her, and giving her the place of honour at his right hand; and “behold a greater than Solomon is here,” “who was subject unto His parents”—not merely courteous and reverential, as the examples I have mentioned may have been, but “subject” unto them, obedient to them. Nor should I conceive, dear friends that age in the least interferes with this duty on the part of children, but that obedience is due from the child to the parent as long as the relationship exists. There may be a variety of reasons why the parent should have no occasion to exercise his authority; but should occasion arise, I conceive that the child, however advanced in years, is in no sense exempt from obedience; because we shall see, as we go on, that the parent is certainly not exempt from the exercise of authority.—J. W. Reeve, M.A.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
THE REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Parental Honour! Exo_20:12. When, after the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, the commandments were graven on two tables of stone, this was placed first upon the second. It is the first commandment with promise. A little boy was once asked in school to explain the fifth commandment. Instead of trying to do so, he covered his face with his hands to hide his blushes, and said, “Yesterday I showed a strange gentleman over the mountain, and the sharp stones cut my feet. When the gentleman saw that they were bleeding, he gave me some money to buy shoes. I gave it to mother, for she had no shoes either, and! thought that I could very well go barefoot to honour my mother.”
“Thou shalt honour thy mother, whose love unto thee
The greatest of God’s earthly blessings shall be.”
Filial Faithfulness! Exo_20:12. George Washington, when quite young, was about to go to sea as a midshipman. Everything was in readiness. His trunk had been taken on board the boat, and he went to bid his mother farewell. Seeing her distress, he turned to the servant, saying: “Go and tell them to fetch my trunk back, for I will not go away to break my mother’s heart.” His mother. struck with his decision, and with mingled tears of joy and sorrow, assured him that God would bless him for thus honouring his mother. And the assurance was realised. The name of General Washington is a world-wide word of valiancy, integrity, and piety. We say that “now we see through a glass darkly.” Suppose, when all is clear in the eternal world, we discover that had Washington gone to sea he would have met with an untimely—or unhonoured—death, whereas by honouring his mother his days were long in the land of his birth.
“How sweet, when we hear the commandment to say,
‘Lord, if THOU wilt help me, I’ll strive to obey;
I’ll bend down the force of my own stubborn will,
And bid every passionate feeling be still.’ ”
Filial Folly! Exo_20:12. In Deu_27:16 we read these solemn words: “Cursed be he that setteth light by father or mother.” In Pro_30:17, God speaks in this awful way: “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out.” In Western Pennsylvania dwelt an Irishman, who had been wealthy at one time. He had an only son, whose wild and wicked ways reduced the father to poverty. With shattered health and fading sight—poor, blind, friendless, and forsaken—the old man found shelter in the Franklin almshouses. One day the wicked and ungrateful son was passing through the city, and was urged to visit his kind father, whom he had ruined. He refused to do so, and proceeded on his journey. A severe storm overtook him, and he caught a severe cold. It fastened on his eyes, from which all sight soon entirely fled. Poverty came; and on the very day that the dead corpse of the father was borne out, his living corpse was borne into the Franklin almshouse. He was put into the same room—died in the same bed—and was borne forth to the same grave.
“Thou shalt honour thy father, the guide of thy youth,
And yield him the homage of love and of truth.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v12 Exo 20:12 - - Exo 20:21.
Exodus
THE DECALOGUE: II.-MAN AND MAN
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Exo 20:12 - - Exo 20:21.
I. The broad distinction between the two halves of the Decalogue is that the former deals with man’s relations to God, and the latter with His relations to men. This double division is recognised in the New Testament summary of ‘all the law,’ as found in two commandments, and is probably implied in the two tables on which it was inscribed. Commentators have been much exercised, however, about how to divide the commandments between these two parts. The fifth, which is the first in this division, belongs in substance to the second half, but its form connects it with the first table. It is like the preceding ones in having a reason appended, and in naming ‘the Lord thy God’; while the following are all bare, curt prohibitions. The fact seems to be that it is a transition commandment, and meant to cast special sacredness round the parental relationship, by paralleling it, in some sense, with that to God, of which it is a reflection. Other duties to other men stand on a different level from duties to parents. ‘Honour,’ which is to be theirs, is not remote from the reverence due to God. They are, as it were, His shadows to the child. The fatherhood of God is dimly revealed in that parting off the commandment from the second table, and assimilating it in form to the laws of the first.
II. The connection of the two halves of the Decalogue teaches some important truth. Josephus said a wise thing when he remarked that, ‘whereas other legislators had made religion a department of virtue, Moses made virtue a department of religion.’ No theory of morals is built upon the deepest foundation which does not recognise the final ground of the obligation of duty in the voice of God. Duty is debitum-debt. Who is the creditor? Myself? An impersonal law? Society? No, God. The practice of morality depends, like its theory, on religion. In the long-run, and on the wide scale, nations and periods which have lost the latter will not long keep the former in any vigour or purity. He who begins by erasing the first commandment will sooner or later make a clean sweep of all the ten. And, on the other hand, wherever there is true worship of the one God, there all fair charities between man and man will flourish and fruit. The two tables are one law. Duties to God come first, and those to man, who is made in the image of God, flow from these.
III. The order of these human duties is significant. We have, next after the law of parental reverence, three commandments, which, in a descending series of importance, forbid crimes against life, marriage, and property. Then the law passes from deeds to the more subtle, and, as men think, less grave, offences of the tongue. Next it crosses the boundary which divides human from divine law, and crimes from sins, to take cognisance of unspoken and unacted desires. So the order of progress in the first table is exactly the reverse of that in the second. There we begin with inward devotion, and travel outwards by deed and word to the sabbatical institution; here we begin with overt acts, and travel inwards, through words, to the hidden desire. The end touches the beginning. For that which we ‘covet’ is our God; and the first commandment is only obeyed when our hearts hunger after Him, and not after earth. The sequence here corresponds to the order of progress in our knowledge and practice of our human duties. The first thing that the rudest state of society has to do is to establish some kind of security for life and property and woman’s honour. The worst men know that much as their duty, however foul may be their lips, and hot their passions. Then the recognition of the sanctity of the great gift of speech, and the supreme obligations of veracity, grow upon men as they get above the earlier stage. Most children pass through a phase when they tell lies as pastime, and most rude societies and half-moralised men have a similar epoch. Last of all, when actions have been bridled and the tongue taught the law of truth, comes the full recognition that the work is not done till the silent longing of a hungry heart is stilled, and that unselfish love of our neighbour is only perfect when we can rejoice in his good and wish none of it for ourselves. The second table is a chart of moral progress.
IV. The scope of these laws has often been violently stretched so as to include all human duty; but without tugging at them so as to make them cover everything, we may note briefly how far they extend. We are scarcely warranted in taking any of them but the last, as going deeper than overt acts, for, though our Lord has taught in the Sermon on the Mount that hatred is murder, and impure desire adultery, that is His deepening of the commandment. But it is quite fair to bring out the positive precept which, in each case, underlies the stern, short prohibition.
The fifth commandment shares with the fourth the distinction of being a positive command. It enjoins ‘honour,’ not ‘love,’ partly because, in olden times, the father was a prince in his house in a sense that has long since ceased to be true, partly because there was less need to enjoin the affection which is in some degree instinctive, than the submission and respect which the children are tempted to withhold, partly in order to suggest the analogy with reverence to God. A strange change has passed over the relations of parents and children, even within a generation. There is more, perhaps, of frank familiar intercourse, which, no doubt, is an improvement on the old style. But there is a great deal less of what the commandment enjoins. City life, education, the general impairing of the idea of authority, which we see everywhere, have told upon many families; and many a father who, by indulgence or by too much engrossment in business, lets the children twitch the reins out of his hands, might lament, as his grown-up children spurn control, ‘If then I be a father, where is mine honour?’ There is no one of the commandments which it is more needful to preach in England than this.
The promise attached to it has another side of threatening. It is a plain fact that when the paternal relation is corrupted, a powerful solvent has been introduced which rapidly tends to disintegrate society. The most ancient empire in the world today, China, has, amid many vices and follies, been preserved mainly by the profound reverence to ancestors which is largely its real working religion. The most vigorous power in the old world, Rome, owed its iron might not only to its early simplicity of life and its iron tenacity, but to the strength of paternal authority and the willingness of filial obedience. No more serious damage can be inflicted on society or on individuals than the weakening of the honour paid to fathers and mothers.
‘Thou shalt not kill’ forbids not only the act of murder, but all that endangers life. It enjoins all care, diligence, and effort to preserve it. A man who looks on while another drowns, or who sends a ship out half manned and overloaded, breaks it as really as a red-handed murderer. But the commandment was not intended to touch the questions of capital punishment or of war. These were allowed under the Jewish code, and cannot therefore be supposed to be prohibited here. How far either is consistent with the deepest meaning of the law, as expanded and reconsecrated in Christianity, is another question. Their defenders have to execute some startling feats of gymnastics to harmonise either with the New Testament.
‘Curus kind o’ Christian dooty,
This ‘ere cuttin’ folks’s throats.’
The ground of the commandment is not given, seeing that conscience is expected to admit its force as soon as stated. But its place at the head of the second table brings it into connection with the first commandment, and suggests that man’s life is sacred because he is the image of God. As Christians, we are bound to interpret it on the lines which Christ has laid down; according to which, hatred is murder, and love is the fulfilling of this as of all other laws. So Luther’s comprehensive summing up of the duties enjoined may be accepted: ‘Patience, gentleness, kindliness, peaceableness, pity, and, of all things, a sweet, friendly heart, without any hate, anger, bitterness, toward any, even enemies.’
In like manner, the seventh commandment sanctifies wedded life, and is the first step in that true reverence of woman which marked the Jewish people through all their history, and was in such contrast to her position in all other ancient societies. Purity in all the relations of the sexes, the control of passion, the reverence for marriage, are subjects difficult to speak of in public. But modern society sorely needs some plain speaking on these subjects-abundance of bread and idleness, facilities for divorce, the filth which newspapers lay down on every breakfast-table, the insidious sensuality of much fiction and art, the licence of the stage. The opportunities for secret profligacy in great cities conspire to loosen the bonds of morality. I would venture to ask public teachers seriously to consider their duty in this matter, and to seek for opportunities wisely to warn budding youth of the pitfalls in its path.
What is ‘stealing’? As Luther says, ‘It is the smallest part of the thieves that are hung. If we are to hang them all, where shall we get rope enough? We must make all our belts and straps into halters.’
Theft is the taking or keeping what is not ‘mine.’ But what do we mean by ‘mine’? Communists tell us that ‘property is theft.’ But that is the exaggeration of the scriptural teaching that all property is trust property, that possessions are ‘mine’ on conditions and for purposes, that I cannot ‘do what I will with mine own,’ but am a steward, set to dispense it to those who want. The Christian doctrine of stewardship extends this commandment over much ground which we seldom think of as affected by it. All sharp practice in business, the shopkeeper’s false weights and the merchant’s equivalents of these, adulterations, pirating trademarks, imitating a rival’s goods, infringing patents, and the like, however disguised by fine names, are neither more nor less than stealing. Many a prosperous gentleman says solemnly every Sunday of his life, ‘Incline our hearts to keep this law,’ who would have to live in a much more modest fashion if his prayer were, by any unfortunate accident, answered.
False witness is not only given in court. The sins of the tongue against the law of love are more subtle and common than those of act. ‘Come, let us enjoy ourselves, and abuse our neighbours,’ is the real meaning of many an invitation to social intercourse. If some fairy could treat our newspapers as the Russian censors do, and erase all the lies about the opposite side, which they report and coin, how many blank columns there would be! If all the words of ill-natured calumny, of uncharitable construction of their friends which people speak, could be made inaudible, what stretches of silence would open out in much animated talk! ‘A man that beareth false witness against his neighbour is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow.’
But deed and word will not be right unless the heart be right; and the heart will be wrong unless it be purged of the bitter black drop of covetousness. The desire to make my neighbour’s goods mine is the parent of all breaches of neighbourly duty, even as its converse ‘love’ is the fulfilling of it all; for such desire implies that I am ruled by selfishness, and that I would willingly deprive another of goods, for my own gratification. Such a temper, like a wild boar among vineyards, will trample down all the rich clusters in order to slake its own thirst. Find a man who yields to his desires after his neighbour’s goods, and you find a man who will break all commandments like a hornet in a spider’s web. Be he a Napoleon, and glorified as a conqueror and hero, or be he some poor thief in a jail, he has let his covetousness get the upper hand, and so all wrong-doing is possible. Nor is it only the second table which covetousness dashes to fragments. It serves the first in the same fashion; for, as St. Paul puts it, the covetous man ‘is an idolater,’ and is as incapable of loving God as of loving his neighbour. This final commandment, overleaping the boundary between conduct and character, and carrying the light of duty into the dark places of the heart, where deeds are fashioned, sets the whole flock of bats and twilight-loving creatures in agitation. It does what is the main work of the law, in compelling us to search our hearts, and in convincing of sin. It is the converse of the thought that all the law is contained in love; for it closes the list of sins with one which begets them all, and points us away from actions and words which are its children to selfish desire as in itself the transgression of all the law, whether it be that which prescribes our relations to God or that which enjoins our duties to man.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v12 The Commandments Concerning the Love of One’s Neighbor
The Commandments Concerning the Love of One’s Neighbor
v. 12. Honor thy father and thy mother, they are to be given the reverence due to them as the representatives of God, with heart, mouth, and hand, in thought, word, and deed. In the home, in the family, is the foundation of all social life, all governments really being dependent upon the relation of parents and children, the existence and the welfare of the nations depending upon the moral stability given them by the home in its proper form, as the promise indicates; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee. It is the first commandment with promise, as St. Paul writes Eph 6:2-3, where he changes the text to apply to all men, and not only to the Jewish nation.
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v. 13. Thou shalt not kill, the duty of preserving the life which God has given to man being enjoined here in all its branches and manifestations.
v. 14. Thou shalt not commit adultery, the word here used including not only the unfaithfulness of men and women within holy marriage, but every form of impurity directed against the holiness of God’s institution of wedlock. Not only is every thought, word, and deed that is sanctioned and commanded within the confines of marriage forbidden outside of these bounds, but also every form of obscenity and every kind of familiarity which is connected with the sexual development of man.
v. 15. Thou shalt not steal, the Lord here protecting the property of one’s neighbor, as the condition of the dignity and peacefulness of life, not only against robbery and theft, but also against unfaithfulness, neglect, and waste.
v. 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, the object being to protect truth, not only in all public, civil relations, but also in the home, the malice of evil tongues being well known.
v. 17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s. Here the thoughts of the entire second table are once more summarized with reference to the source of sin; for it is out of the heart that the evil thoughts proceed which are afterward realized in various actual sins, Mat 15:19. So the admirable and fitting order of the commandments, as Luther cans it, is brought to an end and the circle of injunctions completed; for it is only by the sanctification of the heart according to the Tenth Commandment that the true worship of God according to the First Commandment can be secured. It should be noted here that both the division of the Decalogue as such and the distinction between the Ninth and the Tenth Commandment are matters of no material consequence.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12, 15 You must not commit adultery
You must not commit adultery
"You must not have sex with anyone other than your spouse"
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translationWords
honor
adultery
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12–16 20:12-17 The remaining six instructions all have to do…
20:12-17 The remaining six instructions all have to do with human relationships. Many of the stipulations of the covenant with God relate to how people treat each other. This connection of ethical behavior with religious duty is unique in the Old Testament world. There are several ethical law codes known in the ancient Near East, and several of these predate Moses, but all of them are imposed by a human king and have little to do with religion. The pagan gods, meanwhile, were patently unethical and untrustworthy, unlike the God of Israel, whose people worship him by treating others as he does. See also Matt 19:17-19.
20:12 To honor your father and mother is to recognize that you are not self-sufficient and self-existent. This is one important step on the road to humility. Arrogance may produce notoriety, but humility and gratitude are the foundations of a long, full life. Both Jesus and Paul refer to this command (see Matt 15:4; Mark 7:10; Eph 6:1-3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.