Deuteronomy 5:16 Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you; that your days may be prolonged… I. THE DUTIES of children are, in the language of the Decalogue, summed up in one word, "honour" — "Honour thy father and thy mother." No word could well have been more happily chosen. The duties required by it seem to be reducible under three general heads: 1. Reverence. There may occur cases in which the parental character is as far as possible from all that could inspire either reverence or love. But still, how much soever this may be the case, there is a respect due to the person of a parent, for the very relation's sake; just as there is an official respect due to the person of a magistrate on account of the station he occupies, independently of the claims of personal character. This respect is not the dictate of any servile fear. It is associated with love, and is proportional to it. It might be defined a reverential familiarity. 2. Obedience. 3. Maintenance. This, of course, comes into application only in certain circumstances, but the obligation is universal. II. THE MOTIVES to the fulfilment of this duty are necessarily very much the same as the motives to other duties. 1. The express command of God. Notice the extraordinary energy of the Word of God on this subject (Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20:9; Deuteronomy 27:16; Proverbs 20:20; Proverbs 30:17). And such declarations of the Old Testament have their confirmatory counterparts in the New (Colossians 3:20; 2 Timothy 3:2, 3; Romans 1:30). Observe with what characters the disobedient to parents are classed. 2. The manner in which God has made the paternal and filial relation the image of that which subsists reciprocally between Himself and His people. We are taught to cry unto Him — "Abba, Father!" And this is ever felt by the renewed soul to be the most delightful and endearing view of the Divine Being. 3. The obvious propriety and equity of the precept. "This is right." Nature itself teaches this. The very use of the phrase "natural affection" implies this lesson. The instinct is strong on the part of both parent and child. Yet the affection of the child is not solely instinctive, but in no small degree springs from the early experience of affection and care and kindness on the part of parents. I might show you also how right it is on the two-fold ground of the law of equity and the law of gratitude. 4. The special promise annexed. How is it to be understood as to Israel? How as to us? (1) As to the former question it is only needful to say that it cannot be understood as a promise of long life to every obedient child individually. Were it so interpreted, then no dutiful son or daughter in the land of Israel could ever have died young. The language refers evidently to the continued possession of Canaan by the people collectively, not to longevity in that land to each obedient individual. (2) How is this promise to be understood as to us? The land of Canaan consisted in this, in its being the subject of promise and its being obtained by faith — a faith manifested in obedience, "working by love." The heavenly inheritance must be obtained in the same way. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. |
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