CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exodus 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.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 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” (Ephesians 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
Exodus 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! Exodus 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! Exodus 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! Exodus 20:12. In Deuteronomy 27:16 we read these solemn words: “Cursed be he that setteth light by father or mother.” In Proverbs 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.”