Fifth Word - Exodus 20: 12

20:12 – The fifth word is “Honour thy father and they mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the lord thy God giveth thee.” This one is tricky for me because, as I’ve mentioned here before, I don’t have good parents and “honouring” them has brought me nothing but heartache. I struggle with anything that says “your parents are good people, you are just making up this story for attention, it didn’t really happen,” because this is what I’ve been told my whole life, especially from church leaders. Even though that’s not what this commandment says specifically, that’s what I get from it, and I understand that I’m projecting, I’m working on it. After I had kids, I thought about this commandment as being for teenage boys who do stupid stuff to listen to their mothers so they wouldn’t die in accidents, that’s what made sense to me at the time.

TB notes that a lot of this commandment is necessary for societal structure and stability saying, “part of the reason for this principle is the centrality of the family in the Lord’s plan for mankind. Family stability is maintained by the proper observance of the authority structure that God set up for families, with the parents at the top of that hierarchy. The violation of this command brings family disintegration; the violation of this command as becoming a society norm brings national disintegration. In the book of Ezekiel (22:7) Ezekiel blames the breakdown of the family as one of the prime reasons that the Lord allowed Judah to be exiled to Babylon.”

I also was surprised and appreciate that the IM made the distinction between “honoring” righteous parents vs. unrighteous parents. The IM notes, “when parents are righteous, God-fearing people, children have little problem understanding the commandment to honor them, although they may have difficulty doing it. When parents are not righteous, however, two questions about this commandment are often raised. First, is one still required to honor unrighteous parents and, second, does honor imply obedience if the parents ask for unrighteous behaviors?” I appreciated that the IM is recognizing the difference and addressing it. The IM explains further, “Anytime a child lives righteously he brings honor to his parents, whether those parents are themselves righteous or wicked… So, honoring parents may not always imply obeying them. In those relatively few cases where parents may ask for or encourage unrighteous behavior in their children, the individual brings dishonor to his parents if he obeys them.” There’s also a bit about shame but I’m not going to go into that part.

I personally am struggling with this right now because even though I’m a woman in my 40’s with grown children, I am still working through a lot of stuff. Maybe I should focus on how my life can honor my Heavenly Father, that I need to and should work on.