Exodus 21:15

He that smiteth his father.

God’s indignation against the unfilial spirit

I. The unfilial spirit in two aspects.

1. He that smiteth his father or his mother.

(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.

(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.

2. “He that curseth (lit. revileth)

his father or his mother.”

(1) A child may revile his parents by an assertion of personal independence.

(2) A child may revile his parents by speaking of them in a careless and irreverent way.

(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 The letter of this condemnation is now repealed, but its spirit lives on through the ages.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.

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!

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 it shall die.” (J. W. Burn.)

Filial impiety

The books tell us of an old man whose son dragged him, by his hoary locks, to the threshold of his door, when the father said: “Now stop, my son, that is as far as I dragged my father by his hair,” There is still a God that judgeth in the earth. He makes Himself known by the judgments which He executeth. Who has ever seen any one a loser by filial piety, or a gainer by the want of it? There still lives a man who, in a passion, cursed his own father, and then struck him several times with a horsewhip. Judgment against this evil work was not executed speedily. Time rolled on, but no ingenuous repentance followed. After some time the cruel son was blasting rock in a well. The fuse caught fire, and he was blown up with the loss of both his eyes, and his right hand, with which he had struck his father. Soon after this sad occurrence he was received in the year 1868 as a pauper at the county workhouse. He has habitually been restless and miserable. He is happy nowhere. He has gone to another county and to another workhouse. But he is well known as a very wretched man. By the law of Moses, cursing father or mother was punished with death. No reason for the law is given, but the atrocious nature of the act. What fearful force is in such words as these: “Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.” “The eye that mocketh at his father, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it” (Proverbs 20:20; Proverbs 30:17). (W. S. Plumer.)

Cruelty to a mother

A young man, of whom I once heard, was often spoken to and often prayed for by his mother, until he said to her, “Mother, if you don’t give up that praying for me, I will run away to sea.” He ran away. Before he went, his mother packed his box. She put the writing paper at the top, and all she begged of him was, “My boy, when you are far away from me, write to me. I will write to you; but send me an answer.” He went away; he stayed three years, and never sent a single syllable to that loving mother, who oftentimes was kneeling by her bedside praying for that runaway boy. At last he went back to the old village to see how she was. As he walked down the street his heart misgave him. He walked up the path to the house, he knocked at the door; it was opened by a person whom he did not know. He asked for Mrs. So-and-so. “How is she?” The woman looked blank at him. He said, “Is not she here?” “Oh,” said the woman, “you mean the old woman who used to live here. She died eight months ago of a broken heart. She had a bad son, who went away to sea and left her, and she wrote to him, and he never wrote back again.” He turned away and went into the village churchyard. He looked at the graves, he found the one he sought, and threw himself down upon it, saying, “Oh, mother, I never meant it, I never meant it! “ But he did it. (Dr. Morgan.)