Yeshua Explored

Family matters

Why should we honour and respect our parents … or else?

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Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12)

On the face of it we have moved from viewing God-centred “commandments” to those concerned with how we get on with our fellow human beings. Some would argue otherwise. They would suggest that, at the very least, this fifth “commandment” is a bridge between God-centred rules and man-centred rules. They would insist that, although the wording seems to place it firmly within a human framework, it is very clearly more about our relationship with God than we perhaps realise.

The thinking is that there are three agencies working together to produce every human being; a mother, a father and God Himself. So, to honour your parents is also to honour He who is present in the process and to dishonour them is to dishonour Him too. This commandment has an extra emphasis in the Deuteronomy version:

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you …” (Deuteronomy 5:16)

To honour your parents is a Divine imperative with no ulterior motive. It’s not to sweeten them up for a good inheritance or to gain favour in the family pecking order, or even out of sentimentality or moral obligation. We honour our parents, even if they don’t have two pennies to rub together, or if they favour a sibling, or are thoroughly bad eggs, undeserving of your love. We do it because God has commanded us. They brought you into this world, they gave you life. Even if the subsequent years weren’t exactly a bed of roses, you still honour them and this gratitude is to give you great credit and something that God will not forget. There is a similar command in Leviticus:

‘Each of you must respect your mother and father … ‘(Leviticus 19:3)

Notice the word order. We honour our father first, then our mother, but we respect our mother first, then our father. This is significant, nothing is random in Hebrew Scripture, word orders are very important. The rabbis suggest that we tend to honour our mothers more than our fathers because of our mother’s nurturing role in our upbringing, in contrast with the father’s role in admonishment and punishment. They also suggest that we tend to respect our fathers more than our mothers, possibly out of fear. For this reason, we must honour our father first, as it may not come naturally to us and likewise, we must respect our mother first.

There is a consequence stated in the verse, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. One presumes that this can work both ways, either as a promise (if you are honourable)… or a curse (if you are dishonourable)! So what does this mean in its original context? Is this a magical formula for long life? All you have to do is look after your old parents to the end and then you get your reward? If this was what God intended then we would all be doing it, perhaps through gritted teeth … all for the wrong reasons! Apparently, the original context was an Ancient Near Eastern legal necessity, where children would only inherit their parent’s property if they honoured them properly by looking after them in their old age. More insights can be gleaned by again looking at the longer version of the commandment, in Deuteronomy 5:16:

… so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

The extra words here are in bold above. There are various rabbinical explanations for this addition. Some rabbis say that it’s an extra assurance to those who saw Moses break the first tablets of stone and would fear the removal of the long life that was promised. Also, it has been noticed that the second version has seventeen extra Hebrew letters, which is the numerical equivalent of the word for “goodness”, again intended as an extra assurance.

This is an extract from the book, Sinner’s Charter: Are the ten commandments for today?, available for £10 at https://www.sppublishing.com/the-sinners-charter-260-p.asp