(Exodus 20:12 ESV)
This may be the most difficult commandment for us so far… not because we are teenagers or because we had bad parents… but because this commandment is so positively blunt… and practical.
This one we have to do.
We shouldn’t spend years pondering the deep abstractions of this commandment… (not that we should do that with the other commandments either) our parents are here for the honoring… right. now.
“ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little old man. His eyes blinked and his hands trembled; when he ate he clattered the silverware distressingly, missed his mouth with the spoon as often as not, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. Now he lived with his married son, having nowhere else to live, and his son's wife was a modern young woman who knew that in-laws should not be tolerated in a woman's home.
"I can't have this," she said. "It interferes with a woman's right to happiness." So she and her husband took the little old man gently but firmly by the arm and led him to the corner of the kitchen. There they set him on a stool and gave him his food, what there was of it, in an earthenware bowl. From then on he always ate in the corner, blinking at the table with wistful eyes. One day his hands trembled rather more than usual, and the earthenware bowl fell and broke.
"If you are a pig," said the daughter-in-law, "you must eat out of a trough." So they made him a little wooden trough, and he got his meals in that.
These people had a four-year-old son of whom they were, very fond. One suppertime the young man noticed his boy playing intently with some bits of wood and asked what he was doing.
"I'm making a trough," he said, smiling up for approval, "to feed you and Mamma out of when I get big."
The man and his wife looked at each other for a while and didn't say anything. Then they cried a little. Then they went to the corner and took the little old man by the arm and led him back to the table. They sat him in a comfortable chair and gave him his food on a plate, and from then on nobody ever scolded when he clattered or spilled or broke things.” –smoke on the mountain
How do you treat your parents? How would you have your children treat you when they are your age?
With honor?
What does “honor” mean?
“kabed”This is the word used for “honor” in the commandment. The Hebrew word goes beyond thinking highly of them… thinking they are beautiful, or special or nifty…
It’s most basic meaning is
weighty
You are to see that you parents are weighty.
(don’t tell THEM I said that…)
There are other words the author could have used to instruct us to honor our parents:
“hadar”Lev. 19:32 You shall stand up before the gray head and honor(hadar) the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am YHWH.
Proverbs 25:6 Do not claim honor(hadar) in the presence of the king…
Lamentations 5:12 Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect(hadar) is shown to the elders.
“hadar” means to “swell.” It has the idea of hanging ornaments on something to show it’s splendor. To clothe something in honor.
“yaqar”“yaqar” means precious… the Bible speaks of precious stones, lives, things, thoughts, and people.
Why does God want us to “kabed” our parents… what’s wrong with “hadar-ing” them? Or “yaqar-ing” them?
kabed is used to describe famines:
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe(kabed) in the land. (Gen 12:10 ESV)
kabedis used to describe heavy burdens. It is used to describe the heavy glory of God that weighs down on man’s sinfulness.
Perhaps the word was chosen because of the cultural context of the Hebrews…
Genesis 22 – The Sacrifice of Isaac
Abraham had waited into his old age to have a son from his wife… his son who was promised to him by God.
And then God said, “Take the boy to the mountain and sacrifice him.”
Now in the end, God did not permit Abraham to kill his son…
But if anyone had the right to take Isaac’s life… it was his Father.
Judges 11 – The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter
This is a difficult passage.
Whether or not the Bible condones Jephthah’s approach to honoring God, it doesn’t seem to detract from the father’s right to put his child to death for proper reasons.
“Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.
“Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.
(Exodus 21:15; 17 ESV)
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, [19 ] then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, [20 ] and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ [21 ] Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
(Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ESV)
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you."
ancient hebrew modern america
Agrarian Society vs Industrial Society
Kids = tools (wealth; legacy) Kids = nuisance…
They help put food on the table extra financial burden
OR genuinely loved OR genuinely loved
In an ancient (or modern) agrarian society, kids are assets. They are numbered as a part of Job’s wealth. They are extra workers. And a man’s children give him a legacy to leave behind after he is dead.
If they ended up being a liability... there were proper times and methods of disposing of them.
Not many of us think of our children as extra workers… as assets. If anything they are a burden on our finances. And if we get pregnant at an inconvenient time in our lives... we have methods of disposing...
In either case, parents have the choice to see their kids as things – assets or burdens – or to love them as people God allowed them to help create.
Because of modern advances we are freer than ever to enjoy relationships simply.
Not because of what someone can do for us…
But we can be free to see people as people and value them simply.
Now at last it is possible to honor our parents genuinely, because they no longer have the power to kill us if we don’t.
But we are just as capable as ever to use people to advance us personally (financially, emotionally, etc)… and to despise those who stand in our way.
Why is God serious about parental(kabed) today?
(kabed) today?John 17: 20-25 – ThePrayerOfJesus for us
"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be oneeven as we areone, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.”
Unity is God’s goal. God wants unity to begin in the home.
The home is our source.
It can shape us forever.
we can learn about Unity in diversity… being one part of a whole…honor… respect… help… encouragement…
God’s plan is for a society ofunity.
and He wants unity to be learned in the home.
This is heavystuff… to attack God’s plan for the home is to attack God’s plan for humanity… it is to attack God.
To curse your parents is to curse your Heavenly Father.
To curse your children is to defame the Heavenly Father.
parents… be kabed – worthy, and train your children to kabed you by kabed-ing
your parents in front of your children.
Kids… kabed your parents!
and in doing so, we continue to obey the first 3 commandments.
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