James Nisbet Commentary - Exodus 20:12 - 20:12

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James Nisbet Commentary - Exodus 20:12 - 20:12


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

REVERENCE FOR PARENTS

‘Honour thy father and thy mother.’

Exo_20:12

I. Consider various ways in which a man may honour his father and mother: (1) by doing his best in the way of self-improvement; (2) by habits of care and frugality; (3) by keeping himself in soberness, temperance, and chastity.

II. Honour to parents is only the principal and most important application of a general principle. The Apostle bids us honour all men, and again, ‘In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.’

III. From the conception of love due to father and mother, we rise to the conception of the love due to God. When God calls Himself our Father, the clouds which conceal Him from our sight seem to break and vanish, and we feel that we can love and honour Him. Above all, we can recognise Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in Him, and through His incarnation, has adopted us into the highest condition of sonship, and made us heirs with Him of eternal life.

—
Bishop Harvey Goodwin.

SECOND OUTLINE

I. The Israelite, when he came into the land which the Lord God gave him, may have found many temptations not to honour his father and mother; and unless he believed that God knew what was good for him and for all men, and was commanding the thing that was right and true, and unless he believed that God would give him strength to obey that which He commanded, he would yield continually to his evil nature. But the words would be fulfilled to him. His days would be long in the land which the Lord his God gave him.

II. We too have the land for our inheritance. Our fathers and mothers belonged to it, as their fathers and mothers did, and while we reverence them, every one of us may feel that his days are indeed very long in this country. Yes, for they are not bounded by our birth, or by our death either. The country had people in it who belonged to us before we came into it; it will have those belonging to us when we have gone out of it. It is the Lord God who is, and was, and is to come, who has watched over our family, and will watch over those who shall come hereafter.

III. Count this commandment which God gives thee to be thy life. So out of the earthly honour there will spring one that is eternal. The vision of the perfect Father, the joy and blessedness of being His child, will dawn upon thee more and more, and with the higher blessing there will come a greater enjoyment and appreciation of the lower.

Rev. F. D. Maurice.

Illustration

(1) ‘The Commandment bears the impress of the antique mode of thought in another respect, in that what it enjoins is neither obedience nor love, but “honour.” On the one hand, mere obedience to parental precepts would not suffice; but, on the other, the modern tendency to slur over the idea of parental authority, and melt all other filial duties into that of affection, is entirely alien from the spirit of the Old Testament. “If I be a father, where is mine honour?” says God through the last of the prophets. The Romans made much of the patria potestas, the parental authority, and the Jewish father was to “command his household after him.” The relation seems austere and cold to us, but it would be all the better for many an English household if modern fathers commanded, and children obeyed, a good deal more.’

(2) ‘There is a saloon-keeper in Cincinnati who dwells in a beautiful house, while his old father and mother live in a hovel. Some one asked him why he did not help them. “Help them!” he answered hotly. “Why should I help them?” “Why? Why?” exclaimed the gentleman in surprise. “Because they are your parents, and brought you into the world.” “But I didn’t ask them to bring me. I am under no obligation to them for it. Life is no blessing in itself. They didn’t consult me!” he replied. Now I want to ask any one who does not believe that life is a gift of God, and is (in its potentiality) a good, how is he going to get around the saloon-keeper’s argument? I cannot help thinking that it is into just that awful selfishness that atheism, and perhaps even agnosticism, will land men. Either life is a blessing, and the gift of a loving God, or else it is of no value in itself, and a man has a perfect right to neglect, and even curse, the beings who brought him into it without his consent. On this supposition, what becomes of civilisation? Does anybody believe that civilisation could be perpetuated on the creed of the saloon-keeper? Reverence for children (and childhood) and for parents (and old age) are the two rails on which the car of civilisation runs, and you will ditch it if you take up either one.’