Exodus 20:12 “Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”
Exodus 21:17, “And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”
Matthew 15:4, “For God commanded, saying, Honor thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.”
Ephesians 6:1-3 . Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
This is curious because history is filled with good children who are not long lived and bad children who live a long and full life. Then maybe this idea of a long life is based on Exodus 21:17 where it is a capital crime to curse your parents. Thus, if you honor them then you will not run the risk of cursing them and thus receiving a capital punishment.
Some commentators take the view that this is only meant for the Jews as they entered the land of Israel and if they did not honor their parents by continuing in their faith they would lose the land and their lives in the process of their land being conquered by a foreign power.
Then, of course, there are our dispensationalist friends who say we are no longer under law so the death penalty for cursing your parents is now lifted and we are merely commanded to obey and honor them for this is the right thing to do and will free us from feelings of guilt which will make us miserable. They then give a list of scientific fact as to how miserable people live shorter lives.
Some say it is meant to honor the traditions of not only your immediate parents, but your grandparents and great grandparents. Some say that fathers and mothers are also representative of your spiritual family and you are to honor those who have mentored you in your faith even if they are not blood related. If that is the case then my parents having gone on to be with the Lord does not free me from this commandment. We are reminded that this is the first commandment with promise. The promise seems to be that we will have a long life if we honor our parents which some say means divine healing.
I have even heard some preachers say that the word honor in Greek means not only to show respect but to financially support someone. That is where we get the word honorarium. Since the preacher or pastor considers himself a spiritual father you are not only to respect him but to keep those tithes and offerings coming to support him and you will be rewarded with a long life, like divine healings which will extend your life.
Well, I don’t consider myself a Bible teacher. I do not have a PhD in Biblical studies, and even though I still retain my ordination into the Conservative Baptist denomination, I am no longer a pastor. So you can be blessed by my little studies without being obligated to send any tithes or offerings for I can assure you that any gift to Chaim Bentorah Ministries will not add one extra second to your life span or heal that wart on your finger tip. My area of study is in Biblical history and languages. So I am not qualified to comment on the meaning or doctrinal teaching of this commandment. I can only give you some background on the language and history this was written in.
For one thing, practically every religion in the world has this command to honor your fathers and mothers in their teachings. This seems to be a universal command. In fact this was a very strong religious teaching in Egypt at the time of the Exodus. It seems to just be part of the genetic makeup of the human creature to know that one must respect their parents and take care of them in their old age when they can no longer take care of themselves.
Our nation has gone to great lengths to take care of our elder through elder abuse laws, regulating nursing homes. In fact the nursing home is the most regulated institution in America. Every politician knows that to even touch Social Security would be death to their careers. So every year our government finds ways to fund Social Security and even give us a little raise. After all if there is anyone group who knows how to go out and vote, it is the senior citizens.
I live in the Town of Cicero which is adjacent to Chicago. There is in old saying, that if you are a senior you want to live in Cicero. Cicero does more for its senior citizens than any other surrounding community and oddly enough despite all the money they pour into care for the elderly, transportation, mowing lawns, shoveling snow, house repairs, daily meals at the Olympic stadium and health care, the Town still retains a balanced budget.
So what does it mean to honor your parents. The Greek word for honor as used in Matthew and Ephesians is tima which means not only to respect but to show respect through supporting, offering aid and assistance. II Timothy 5:3 tells us to honor the widows. That means more than to show respect for the widows. Women in those days had no means of support except for a husband and if her husband died she would be destitute. Paul is teaching to make sure women are supported financially as well as legally. The church was to give the same support to a widow as a husband would.
The word in Hebrew for honor is kavod which is often rendered as glory. The word kavod comes from a Semitic root, actually it has it’s in the Egyptian language where the Egyptians carried on massive building projects and the word was used to express the idea of being weighted or a heaviness. Some people claim to feel a heavy weight when worshipping God and call it kavod. That is not the weight kavod is talking about, it is a weight used in building projects to help create a balance when moving or lifting large objects. Kavod is the transference of the weight of one object to another to provide support and make the load easier to carry. Kavod is like balancing a load, creating an equal weight. That is where we get the idea of respect from kavod as you consider someone an equal to yourself. The glory or kavod of God is the respect of God towards us and his taking the weight or a burden off of us. Do you ever pray for someone going through a great difficulty and you ask that the glory of God surround them? You are asking God to share the load and burden that that person is under.
The Aramaic word used in Matthew is yiqar which simply means to bear someone’s burden. Thus in all three languages the idea of honoring out parents means to bear their burdens, to help them, make their burdens lighter. As they age they will more and more need their children to honor them, bear their burdens to the point of even having to feed them and dress them. This is what the commandment is all about. And it doesn’t say you do this if they were good or bad parents, you do it because they are your parents. My parents are no longer here but I serve the parents of others by driving a bus for them for the Town of Cicero. I literally have to almost carry some onto the bus, in that I am practicing kavod, tima, or yiqar, take your pick they all mean to honor.
As far as this long life business, well, I will let the Bible teachers figure that one out.
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