Injuries to parents.

The command to honour father and mother, which is enough for

the conscience, and which, if obeyed, would render all further laws upon the subject
unnecessary, is here reinforced … to restrain those who do not scruple to disobey mere
moral laws. …
When it is considered that our parents represent God to us, that they are in a real
sense authors of our being, that they protect and sustain us for years during which we
could do nothing for ourselves, and that nature has implanted in our minds an instinctive
reverence for them … the punishment of parent strikers … will not seem strange or
excessive. A son must have become very hardened in guilt, very reckless, very heartless,
very brutal, who can bring himself to lift a hand against a father, not to say a mother.
There is as much moral guilt in a light blow dealt to one whom we are bound to love,
honor, and protect from hurt, as in the utmost violence done to a stranger. …
To curse a parent is almost as unnatural as to strike one. All cursing is unsuitable to
such a being as man – so full of faults himself, so liable to misjudge the character and
conduct of others; but to curse those to whom we owe our existence is simply horrible.
The sin is akin to blasphemy, and is awarded the same punishment. …
“Grieve not a parent” is the Christian paraphrase. “Grieve him not by disobedience,
by idleness, by extravagance, by misconduct of any kind. Do not discredit his bringing
up by misbehavior. Do not stab his heart by ingratitude. Do not wither up his nature by
unkindness.” A child may easily, without lifting a finger “bring down the grey hairs” of
his father “with sorrow to the grave.” He may “smite” him in half-a-dozen ways without
touching him. …
We do not now, unless we part with religion altogether, curse any one. But we too
often break the spirit of this law, notwithstanding. We speak slightingly of our parents;
we join in disrespectful comments on their manners or behavior; we use language to
them, face to face, which is wanting in reverence and unsuitable. If we would act in the
spirit of the law, “curse not a parent,” we must avoid all disrespectful words, all
disrespectful thoughts towards them or concerning them; we must give them the honour
due to parents; we must seriously consider their counsels, and as a general rule follow
their advice. As temporal death was awarded to those who “cursed” parents by the
Jewish law, so eternal death will be the portion of such as are determinately “disobedient
to parents” under the Christian dispensation.

The Pulpit Commentary, Exodus II. p 173, Exodus 21:15-17, (George Rawlinson)

Gold Nugget 284

Grieve Not a Parent

http://www.goldnugget.posterous.com