Exodus 21:12-17

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 21:12

CASES OF HOMICIDE

A rude state of society requires rough measures for the repression of crime and for the preservation of social order; and in considering the stern severity of the Mosaic code, we must try to project ourselves into that aboriginal state of society, and pronounce our judgments accordingly. Laws which were required in those early times ought not to be needful in these days. It is well that, through the spread of Gospel principles, justice is being more and more tempered by mercy. But mercy must not be allowed to supplant justice. And there is a danger lest in our pity for the man we restrain justice with regard to the criminal.
I. Homicide in effect.—The first case is that of the man who strikes his fellow; strikes in anger, but not with a murderous intention, and yet death is the result of the angry blow. Such a man shall be surely put to death. This is one of the most severe cases of punishment in those early periods. But it is a stern practical comment upon the New Testament words, “He that hateth his brother is a murderer.” Let us then learn to avoid angry feelings towards our brother men. Anger in the heart gives unconscious malicious power to the will. The blow directed by an angry man may be more severe than his better self would approve. The man, then, is responsible for the effects of his anger, even though these effects are more disastrous than he intended. The preservation of the physical life is important, but much more the preservation of the moral life in all its purity.

II. Homicide by mistake.—If a man kill his fellow, not in consequence of an angry blow, but by reason of a stroke given through mischance, then there is to be merciful provision for his safety. It a man kill his fellow through misadventure, then the city of refuge is to be opened for his reception. And cities of refuge were afterwards provided. Into those cities the avenger of blood could not enter. And in the final adjustment of human affairs, merciful consideration will be dealt out to those who have done vast mischief by mistake; upon sins of ignorance will fall the blessed light of Divine mercy. Embrace the glorious truth that through the sternest code the Divine love cannot help revealing its gracious tendencies.

III. Homicide by design.—The last mentioned, in verse fourteen, is a case of real murder. Here are all the marks of the murderer. There is the breaking through, in ebullient rage, the sacred restraints which protect one’s neighbour as God’s image. There is to be no hope for such a man. He is even to be torn away from God’s altar. Death is to be his portion. It is a strange fact that through all times, with very few exceptions, the Mosaic law of death for death has so largely prevailed. A few monarchs have abolished capital punishment; but soon the stern decree has been re-enacted. It is sad to hang a man, but in saying this we seem to forget that it is a sadder thing to murder a man. The sufferer of capital punishment has not such severe measure dealt out to him as the victim who has suddenly been deprived of life. The repression of crime, and not revenge, is the purpose of wisely-constructed and justly-administered penal codes; and if the abolition of capital punishment tend to the diminution of murder, then we do not see that the Bible stands in the way of such a course. Learn the exceeding preciousness of life. How awful to kill the body! More awful still the conduct of those who go about destroy moral life! It is dreadful to be a soul murderer. Life is God’s most sacred gift. He bestows largely for its unfolding. He provides many safeguards for its preservation.—W. Burrows, B.A.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Exodus 21:12. The life of man is dear to God to preserve it; man is God’s image.

Pride, presumption, and treachery, make men truly murderers.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 21:12

GOD’S INDIGNATION AGAINST THE UNFILIAL SPIRIT.—Exodus 21:15

Nothing is more marked, in Old Testament and New Testament alike, than the imperative character of parental claims and filial duties. A special law incorporated in the moral code deals with this subject. These rights and duties arise from the peculiar relation in which parents stand between their children and God. God, through the parent, gives existence to the child, and makes through the same medium provision for its protection and nurture, and the supply of its moral, intellectual, and physical necessities. Parents must be regarded, therefore, as God’s delegated authorities, and must be respected as such. Offences against them God treats as offences against Himself, and punishes them as such. Our text deals with

(1) the unfilial spirit in two aspects; and
(2) with its uniform punishment. Some excellent remarks on this subject and the Rabbinical treatment of it will be found in an article by Dr. Ginsburg in “Cassell’s Bible Educator,” vol. i. pp. 153.

I. The unfilial spirit in two aspects.

1. He that smiteth his father or his mother (Exodus 5:15).

(1.) A child may smite his parent literally, as in the case of those brutes we read of in the newspapers every week.

(2.) A child may smite his parents’ authority by rebellion in thought, word, or deed; e.g., Absalom.

(3.) A child may smite his parents’ wealth by extravagance or carelessness; e.g., ancient and modern spendthrifts.

(4.) A child may smite his parents’ character by an incautious revelation of domestic secrets.

(5.) A child may smite his parents’ health and, by misconduct, bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; e.g., Joseph’s brethren.

(6.) A child may smite his parents’ heart, and break it by disobedience and wilfulness; e.g., sons of Eli

In all these instances (2–6) a child may effectually smite his parents’ without lifting a finger.

2. “He that curseth (lit. revileth) his father or his mother.”

(1.) A child may revile his parents by an assertion of personal independence; as in the case of the prodigal demanding his portion of goods and taking his journey into a far country.

(2.) A child may revile his parents by speaking of them in a careless and irreverent way. What else is it when a youth refers to his father as “the governor,” and to his mother as the “old lady”?

(3.) A child may revile his parents by speaking to them in a familiar or impertinent way.

(4.) A child may revile his parents by treating their counsels with contempt; and
(5.) Alas! a child may revile his parents by cursing them to their face.

II. The uniform punishment of the unfilial spirit.—“Shall surely be put to death.” The letter of this condemnation is now repealed, but its spirit lives on through the ages.

1. An unfilial child dies to the respect of civilised society. All the unwritten codes of humanity agree in condemning it as an unpardonable sin to treat one’s parents with disrespect.

2. An unfilial child is morally dead. If the sign of the moral life is “love of the brethren,” how dead must he be in whom filial respect and love is extinct! It would be easy to show

(1) how all that deserves the name of intelligence,
(2) veneration,
(3) natural affection, and all the higher faculties of the soul, are utterly destroyed before a man can “smite” or “revile” his father or his mother.
3. An unfilial child, inasmuch as he breaks a moral law, and a law that partakes of the qualities of both tables and combines them, dies in a more terrible sense. “The soul that sinneth” (sin is the transgression of the law) “it shall die.”

In conclusion—

(1.) A word to parents. “Provoke not your children unto wrath.” Don’t do anything calculated to excite those distempers which may express themselves in “smiting” or “reviling”; but “train them up in the way they should go,” “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
(2.) A further word to children. “Obey and honour your parents in all things in the Lord.” If there is anything you may deem objectionable, remember (a) your own inexperience, and (b) your indebtedness to those who have given you life and who have preserved and provided for it till now.

PARENT-SMITERS AND MEN-STEALERS

We do not observe any deep metaphysical or psychological reasons for the order and number of these laws. There does not seem to be any great regard for logical order in the Hebrew spirit. We may simply discover the instructive and very suggestive circumstance that the three crimes mentioned in these verses are placed in the same category, and have meted out to them the same awful penalty. Thus, it appears that the man who curses his father or his mother is no better than the man-stealer. And in this respect the social code of Christian England is scarcely equal to the moral code of the Mosaic economy. It is not indeed to be deplored that the penalty of death is less frequently inflicted in these times than in the days of the past; but it is to be lamented that reverence for parents is not now-a-days a virtue very strenuously insisted upon. We should not now think of placing the curser of parents, or even the smiter of parents, on the same level with the man-stealer. Those who make a trade of kid-napping are now reprobated; but cursers of fathers and of mothers are at least not regarded as criminals, if indeed they are not welcomed into good society. There is, however, a similarity of spirit in the two characters. There is a closer connection between the curser of parents and the man-stealer than we may at first imagine. Let us study them together, as placed before us in Holy Writ, and learn to avoid the evils.
I. The crime of cursing father or mother. The order now proposed for discussion as logical is to commence with cursing father or mother, then smiting father or mother, and then man-stealing. This crime of cursing father or mother is one of the letters of the Mosaic economy that has been in too large a measure dropped out of the moral alphabet of modern society. There is a needs be that it stand out in brighter colours. It is not by any means a desirable circumstance that, practically, we are behind the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Egyptians in this particular. We read out to our children the words, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” but society does not on a large scale reprobate those who curse their fathers and their mothers. There are fathers and mothers who entail upon their children a heritage of woe; and we must feel pity for such children, and not be very much surprised if there is a tendency to curse their parents. It is difficult for us to be hard upon those children whose parents, either by their folly or by their wickedness, have entailed upon them a depraved physical or moral nature. Oh, let us be gentle in our speech towards those whose parents have been vile, reckless, and worthless! What a severe lot it is for those children whose homes are the abodes of wretchedness, or the hotbeds of crime! Still, crime in others is no excuse for our crimes. Cursing father or mother is to be condemned under all circumstances. (a.) It is to be condemned, for it is a reflection upon the human authors of our being. And thus it is in a sense a reflection upon God Himself. Instead of thanking God for our creation, we are practically cursing God that ever we were born. There is a great deal in life for which to be thankful; and most shun the process of giving up life. Why, then, should we curse those who have brought us into life? Why should we curse the dear mother whose gentle voice has hushed our sorrowful wailing into peaceful slumbers? Why should we curse the father whose strong hand has shielded from danger and ministered to our necessities? (b.) It is to be condemned, for it is a disparagement of God’s vicegerent. If there is any being in this world placed by God in a position of authority, it is the father. He is the type of the eternal Father. He is God’s true representative on earth. The house is his kingdom, and the children are his subjects, and he has an undoubted right to sway the sceptre of a divinely-constituted authority. How great, then, is the crime of that child who curses his father; who despises God’s representative; who resists the lawful control of God’s vicegerent! Is it much to be wondered at that the penalty for this crime in that early society was death? (c.) It is to be condemned, for it is a subversion of the good order of society. The family constitution is the primal form of government. All true governments are but its development. The true ideal of a nation is that of a family of which the king is the head and father. And our kingdom is established for this, among other reasons, that the throne is built upon the thrones set up in happy English homes. Rightly conducted family life is essential to national life and national prosperity. Rebellion in the household is rebellion in the nation. Cursing the father leads to cursing the king. Anarchy in the home means anarchy in the state, and destruction to the community. We have regretted the fact that we seem behind some other nations in not branding the cursing of parents as a crime of deepest dye; but we have to rejoice in the salutary influence of so many Christian homes, which have been the safeguard of our nation; and we are extremely jealous lest the safeguard should be removed or its power diminished.

II. The crime of smiting father or mother. The man who curses his parents is the man who is prepared to smite them when the occasion arises. That father cannot safely trust himself to that grown-up son who has ventured to curse, and thus shown his contempt for the parental authority. Under certain circumstances it may be right for the father to smite his son. There may be too much leniency, as well as too much severity, in the family; some modern fathers appear to have lost faith in the wisdom of Solomon’s proverbs. They spare the rod, and by bitter experience find that the child is spoiled. The father who never smites his son may thank God if that son never smites him. However, never use the rod in anger. Administer chastisement in the spirit of prayer, for the child’s good, and for the maintenance of authority. But it is not right for the son to smite the father. The son had better suffer undeserved physical injury than venture to smite his father or his mother. The reasons adduced for the condemnation of those who curse their parents, are still more cogent when applied to those hardened children who smite their parents. What a wretch is he who smites the mother that has given of her life for the promotion of his life; who has poured out all the vast wealth of her nature in order to nurture up to glorious manhood. The penalty of death for this crime has no place in our civil code; but the man who smites his father or his mother will find that the stroke has a recoil sooner or later. Years may elapse between the act of smiting and the fact of being smitten. But the return stroke, though long delayed, at last shall come with fearful pains. Better suffer thy right hand to be amputated than use it to strike thy father or thy mother.

III. The crime of man-stealing. We have seen that slavery was allowed to continue; but man-stealing was made subject to the penalty of death. Even in those rude states of society God taught the great lesson that He had made of one blood men of different nations, as well as men of the same nation. It is a crime to steal a man’s property. It is a crime to steal a man’s character by villanons slander. But the crime of crimes is to steal a man’s person. It is a striking fact that this Mosaic enactment has been exerting a powerful influence from age to age; and it has so worked that the kidnapper has never for long occupied a respectable position in society; and the time is fast hastening when the word may be eliminated from our language, and kindred words from all other languages. So great is this crime that the Apostle Paul numbers the men-stealers amongst those lawless and disobedient ones with special reference to whom the law is made. So great is this crime that there is in every rightly-constituted nature—yea, in every man not deeply sunk in sin and thoroughly hardened by iniquity—an instinctive horror of and shrinking from the man-stealer. Executioners appointed by human governments may not now put the man-stealer to death; but his doom is sealed. Fearful is the outlook. Unless he truly repent and forsake his way, his lamp too shall go out in fearful darkness. And the man who smites his father or his mother without any feeling of remorse, and without an earnest effort to restrain himself, is quite prepared to become the man-stealer when the opportunity presents itself; his depravity is sufficiently great to avail himself of the offered power of kidnapping his fellows.

Lessons.—

(1.) These three crimes taken together are suggestive of the genesis of crime. There is the indulgence of evil thinking, then this grows into evil speaking, and then comes evil acting. Inward cursing grows into outward cursing, and this culminates in crime of physical violence. The man who permits himself to curse his father inwardly, will not be long before he curses outwardly. In this respect cursing and smiting follow closely upon one another. And the man who smites his father or his mother is prepared to smite anybody else if there be provocation sufficient and no dread of consequences. The children who forsake their parents, when those parents are God-fearing, commence a downhill course from which return is difficult.

(2.) Gives a word of caution to parents. So live, and work; and pray that your children may not curse you, but have good reason to bless your memories. And, parents, remember that in after years children may think they have reason to curse you for being too indulgent as well as for being too severe.

(3.) Gives a word of caution to children. The wrongdoing of parents is no justification for the wrongdoing of children. Most likely a more severe penalty awaits the child who has been favoured with many privileges and has abused them, than the child whose privileges have been few, and who has accordingly gone astray. Do not dwell upon what your parents might have done for you if they had been different or had acted differently; but reflect upon the more pleasing part of their dealings with you. And try to make the best of unpropitious circumstances. He is the best general who knows how to retrieve mistakes. He is the world’s hero who fights his way through and surmounts difficulties, and achieves moral victories.—W. Burrows, B.A.

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON

Homicide! Exodus 21:12. Pause and look for a moment on these drops of gore that stain the fresh greensward of earth. It rests silent, but how significant, upon the ground! It lies there a memorial of the curse which God had pronounced on man, “Thou shalt surely die.” It lies a mirror, wherein sin may see its foul features most accurately represented, and whence the homicide may start back appalled at his own image. It is an awful thing to send any man into eternity, still more awful if he is unprepared. Anger is too often the fruitful cause of staining the human hand with the “red rain.” All perfumes will not sweeten this hand!

“Will all the mighty ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?
No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.”

—Gilfillan.

Parricide! Exodus 21:15. This was by the Roman law punished in a much severer manner than any other kind of homicide. After being scourged, the delinquents were sewn up in a leather sack with a live dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and then cast into the sea. Solon, in his laws, made none against parricide, conceiving it impossible that any one should be guilty of so unnatural a crime. And yet we are told that Tullia, the wife of Tarquin, drove over the corpse of Tullius, her own father; the wheels of her chariot, dashing through the pool of gore, besprinkling the garments of the parricide with a baptism of blood. By the order of Antipater, in his very presence—some say with his own hands—his mother Thessalonica was put to death because he thought she favoured his brother. When a Tahitian became tired of his aged parent, he would either place him in a separate hut to die of starvation, or thrust him through with a spear. Recently, in the south of France, a young man killed and buried his widowed mother in order to be owner of the little farm.

“Blood of the soul! Can all earth’s fountains
Make thy dark stain disappear!”

—Sigourney.

Slave-Taking! Exodus 21:16. Men defended the modern slave-trade by Scripture allusions; but there was little or no analogy between the two. Ancient heathen nations made slaves either

(1) by sentence of courts for breach of the laws of the land; or
(2) by capture of soldiers in battle; and the Jews may have acted similarly. But there is no warrant for “slave-hunting;” and such pictures of the pursuit of African villagers as modern writers have lined in pathetic language, would have aroused emotions of horror in the Hebrew heart. In Africa, petty wars were got up. Slave-hunting parties were organised for the express purpose of surprising peaceful villages in the interior, capturing the inhabitants, and dragging them into perpetual slavery. These parties were generally headed by base Portuguese, who were assisted in their nefarious enterprise by such depraved negroes from the coast as would enlist for such service. England has, however, secured treaties with Egypt and Zanzibar and Malagasy, empowering her cruisers and soldiers to put down this iniquitous traffic with resolute hand.

“Proudly on Cressy’s tented wold

The lion-flag of England flew;

As proudly gleamed its crimson fold

O’er the dun heights of Waterloo;

But other lyres shall greet the brave;
Sing now, that we have freed the SLAVE.”

Selling Slaves! Exodus 21:16. The Koran justifies slavery on two grounds only:

1. A religious war;
2. Captives in such war. The Sultan of Turkey declares that man is the most noble of all the creatures God has formed in making him free, therefore selling people is contrary to the will of the sovereign Creator. The Pasha of Egypt has also denounced slavery in the strongest terms. The Shah of Persia raised some religious objection to the abolition of the slave-trade, but he was met by the opinion of six of his chief Mollahs that selling male and female slaves is an abomination. It is worthy of remark that Mahomet strove to ameliorate the condition of the slave, and gradually to extirpate slavery itself, which from old times had taken root in Arabia as well as in many other countries.

“Dear as freedom is, and in my heart’s

Just estimation prized above all price,
I would much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.”

Slave-Sellers! Exodus 21:16. The Banians of Zanz bar figure prominently in the literature connected with the East African slave-trade. These men are Hindus, i.e., natives of India. They are to be found in large numbers in Kattywar; but their stronghold is Pylitana. There they have beautiful temples, to which bauds of pilgrims periodically flock from other countries. They possess the most tender feelings for animals, and would run any risk to prevent cruelty to them. But though they have an elaborate system for the protection of even noxious creatures, they have no regard for human life. These are—along with the Bhatias—the slave-dealers in Zanzibar; and when they have acquired by this nefarious traffic a competency, they return to their native laud. Thus

“There’s naught so monstrous, but the mind of man,
In some condition, may be brought to approve.”

—Lillo.