Exodus 20:12
New International Version
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

New Living Translation
“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

English Standard Version
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

Berean Standard Bible
Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

King James Bible
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

New King James Version
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

New American Standard Bible
“Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be prolonged on the land which the LORD your God gives you.

NASB 1995
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

NASB 1977
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

Legacy Standard Bible
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

Amplified Bible
“Honor (respect, obey, care for) your father and your mother, so that your days may be prolonged in the land the LORD your God gives you.

Christian Standard Bible
Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

American Standard Version
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Honor your father and your mother that your days will increase in the land that LORD JEHOVAH your God gives to you.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the good land, which the Lord thy God gives to thee.

Contemporary English Version
Respect your father and your mother, and you will live a long time in the land I am giving you.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be longlived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee.

English Revised Version
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live for a long time in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

Good News Translation
"Respect your father and your mother, so that you may live a long time in the land that I am giving you.

International Standard Version
"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

JPS Tanakh 1917
Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

Literal Standard Version
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days are prolonged on the ground which your God YHWH is giving to you.

Majority Standard Bible
Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

New American Bible
Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

NET Bible
"Honor your father and your mother, that you may live a long time in the land the LORD your God is giving to you.

New Revised Standard Version
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

New Heart English Bible
"Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

Webster's Bible Translation
Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

World English Bible
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

Young's Literal Translation
'Honour thy father and thy mother, so that thy days are prolonged on the ground which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Ten Commandments
11For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. 12Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 13You shall not murder.…

Cross References
Matthew 15:4
For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'

Matthew 19:19
honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Mark 7:10
For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'

Mark 10:19
You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not cheat others, honor your father and mother.'"

Luke 18:20
You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.'"

Ephesians 6:2
"Honor your father and mother" (which is the first commandment with a promise),

Leviticus 19:3
Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must keep My Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God.


Treasury of Scripture

Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long on the land which the LORD your God gives you.

honour

Exodus 21:15,17
And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death…

Leviticus 19:3,32
Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God…

1 Kings 2:19
Bathsheba therefore went unto king Solomon, to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand.

that thy

Deuteronomy 4:26,40
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed…

Deuteronomy 25:15
But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

Deuteronomy 32:47
For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

Jump to Previous
Gives Ground Honor Honour Live Mother Prolonged
Jump to Next
Gives Ground Honor Honour Live Mother Prolonged
Exodus 20
1. The ten commandments are spoken by Jehovah
18. The people are afraid, but Moses comforts them
21. Idolatry is forbidden
23. Of what sort the altar should be














(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" (Ephesians 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 (Ephesians 6:3), which is purely personal and not ethnic; and the exegesis of the Son of Sirach (Wisdom Of Solomon 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).

Verse 12. - 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" (Ephesians 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 - "The 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 Ephesians 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.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Honor
כַּבֵּ֥ד (kab·bêḏ)
Verb - Piel - Imperative - masculine singular
Strong's 3513: To be heavy, weighty, or burdensome

your father
אָבִ֖יךָ (’ā·ḇî·ḵā)
Noun - masculine singular construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 1: Father

and mother,
אִמֶּ֑ךָ (’im·me·ḵā)
Noun - feminine singular construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 517: A mother, )

so that
לְמַ֙עַן֙ (lə·ma·‘an)
Conjunction
Strong's 4616: Purpose -- intent

your days
יָמֶ֔יךָ (yā·me·ḵā)
Noun - masculine plural construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 3117: A day

may be long
יַאֲרִכ֣וּן (ya·’ă·ri·ḵūn)
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - third person masculine plural | Paragogic nun
Strong's 748: To be, long

in
עַ֚ל (‘al)
Preposition
Strong's 5921: Above, over, upon, against

the land
הָאֲדָמָ֔ה (hā·’ă·ḏā·māh)
Article | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 127: Ground, land

the LORD
יְהוָ֥ה (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel

your God
אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ (’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā)
Noun - masculine plural construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 430: gods -- the supreme God, magistrates, a superlative

is giving
נֹתֵ֥ן (nō·ṯên)
Verb - Qal - Participle - masculine singular
Strong's 5414: To give, put, set

you.
לָֽךְ׃ (lāḵ)
Preposition | second person masculine singular
Strong's Hebrew


Links
Exodus 20:12 NIV
Exodus 20:12 NLT
Exodus 20:12 ESV
Exodus 20:12 NASB
Exodus 20:12 KJV

Exodus 20:12 BibleApps.com
Exodus 20:12 Biblia Paralela
Exodus 20:12 Chinese Bible
Exodus 20:12 French Bible
Exodus 20:12 Catholic Bible

OT Law: Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother that (Exo. Ex)
Exodus 20:11
Top of Page
Top of Page