Two verses in Yahweh’s second set of rules in Exodus 21 are deadly serious about respect for parents. In verse 15, for instance, “Anyone who attacks his father or mother must be put to death” and in verse 17, “Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.”
But why would smiting or cursing a parent warrant the death penalty for a child? There’s a clue, first of all, in why Yahweh was setting up these rules in the first place. He was building a nation like no other. Crucial to that purpose was “obeying God fully” (19:5-6), because if the Israelites were super careful about following his “decrees and laws,” other nations might wish they had a God that close to them making them “wise and understanding” too (Deuteronomy 4:6-8).
Which is where the attitude of children to their parents comes in, because it’s through the parents that the wisdom and understanding of these “decrees and laws” would be taught and passed on down through the generations. And the health of the entire nation depended on just that happening, on each generation of parents teaching the laws and each generation of children obeying them. Breaking that cycle in a family would not only be going against God’s purpose of Israel becoming “a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), it would also be going against his authority (5).
But could a young child be held responsible for that, who in a moment of frustration has a tantrum and lashes out with arms and legs to resist being restrained – or lets loose with a screaming fit yelling at his parents “I hate you, I wish you were dead”? Would that lapse of uncontrolled childish emotion be reason enough for a young child to be put to death?
But what if Yahweh wasn’t aiming his laws in Exodus 21 at young children? There’s a clue that he wasn’t too, in Exodus 20:12, in the fifth commandment, “Honour your father and your mother.” It was written to people who also understood what “murder” and “committing adultery” meant (the next two commandments) – and were capable of murder and adultery too, meaning adults, not youngsters.
These were adult children capable of independent thinking, the crucial direction and maturing of which would have come from their parents. So continuing to honour and respect their parents, therefore, would effectively keep adult children on track with what their parents had taught them. But in Exodus 21, “What justified killing adult children?”….(next blog)
