1 Timothy 5:4

ἔκγονα : offspring ought to be the best rendering of this. It has a wider connotation than children and narrower than descendants.

μανθανέτωσαν : It ought not to be necessary to say that the subject of this verb is τέκνα ἢ ἔκγονα, only that Chrys. Theod. Vulg. and [268] agree in referring it to the class χῆραι. (“Requite them in their descendants, repay the debt through the children,” Chrys.; “ Discat primum domum suam regere.” See critical note.) Similarly Augustine says of his mother Monica, “Fuerat enim unius viri uxor, mutuam vicem parentibus reddiderat, domum suam pie tractaverat” (Confessiones, ix. 9). This can only be regarded as a curiosity in exegesis.

[268] The Latin text of Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

πρῶτον : The first duty of children is filial piety. οἶκον, which is usually correlative to parents rather than children, is used here “to mark the duty as an act of family feeling and family honour” (De Wette, quoted by Ell.).

εὐσεβεῖν (domum pie tractare, [269] 82) with a direct accusative is also found in reff. Ellicott supplies an appropriate illustration from Philo, de Decalogo, § 23, “where storks are similarly said εὐσεβεῖν and γηροτροφεῖν ”.

[269] Speculum

προγόνοις : When the term occurs again, 2 Timothy 1:3, it has its usual meaning forefather. It is usually applied to forbears that are dead. Here it means parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents that are living; and this use of it was probably suggested by ̓́κγονα, a term of equally vague reference. Plato, Laws, xi. p. 932, is quoted for a similar application of the word to the living.

τοῦτο γάρ, κ. τ. λ.: Besides being enjoined in the O.T., our Lord taught the same duty, Mark 7:16-23 = Matthew 15:4-6. See also Ephesians 6:1-2.