Exodus 20:12

The fifthcommandment. Honour to be paid to parents. Cf. in H Leviticus 19:3. The position accorded to parents is a high one: they are mentioned in the first table of the Decalogue, and duty towards them stands next to duties towards God (so in Exodus 21:17 and Leviticus 20:9 [H] the penalty for cursing them is the same, viz. death, as the penalty for blaspheming God, Leviticus 24:15 f. [H]). Cf. the development of the command in Sir 3:1-16; and the warnings addressed to those who disregard it, Proverbs 20:20; Exodus 30:17; Exodus 30:17 (cf. 11). In the NT. see Matthew 15:4-6 ("Mark 7:10-13). As Kn. ap.Di. shews, the command is in the spirit of the best minds of antiquity: Plato, for instance (Legg.iv. 717 c d), lays it down that after the gods and demi-gods parents ought to have the most honour, and that through his whole life every man should pay his parents the utmost deference and respect (cf. xi. 930 e 932 a); and Aristotle, Eth. Nic.ix. 2, 8, says that it is proper to pay them -honour such as is given to the gods" (τιμὴν καθάπερ θεοῖς): other Greek writers also speak similarly. Cf. further on Exodus 21:15.

that thy days may be long&c. The -first commandment with promise" (Ephesians 6:2). A spirit of filial respect implies a well-ordered life in general; and so tends to secure prosperity both to the individual and to the nation (the commandments are addressed throughout not only to the individual as such, but also to the individual as representing the nation). The terms of the promise are strongly Deuteronomic: see Deuteronomy 6:2; Deuteronomy 25:15, and (in the form -prolong days") Deuteronomy 4:26; Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 5:33; Deuteronomy 11:9; Deuteronomy 17:20; Deuteronomy 22:7; Deuteronomy 30:18; Deuteronomy 32:47; and, for the following clause, upon the land, &c., Deuteronomy 3:20; Deuteronomy 11:17; Deuteronomy 11:31; Deuteronomy 15:7; Deuteronomy 16:20; Deuteronomy 17:14; Deuteronomy 18:9, &c., and especially Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 25:15.

giveth is giving (i.e. is in the course of giving, is about to give); so in all the passages of Dt. just quoted (and in many similar ones in the same book besides). The standpoint of the Exodus is assumed. The land is not, as -giveth" in itself might suggest, the possession of the individual Israelite, but Canaan.