Exodus 20:12 (HRV): “Honor your father and your mother, that your
days may be long upon the land which YHWH your Elohim gives you.”
Does the placement of this commandment grab you the way
it grabs me? I’ve been told that the first
four commandments have to do with our relationship with YHWH and the second six
commandments have to do with our relationship with His body. So then, given that the order of these
commandments is given by YHWH and they are precisely placed where He wanted
them to be, does it cause anybody else to pause and wonder why this commandment
comes before, “You shall not murder”? We
tend to think of murder as being “the big one.”
For most of us, it’s the worst sin because it’s so final. If you steal from someone, you can make
reparations. If you rape someone, you
can make restitution and work towards healing.
If you murder someone, there’s no going back.
So, why? Why is
this commandment first? Ignoring the fact that this is the first commandment with a blessing attached for now because it's been covered at length by so many others, here are a few
thoughts to consider. (And by no means is this an exhaustive list.)
This comes first here because it comes first
chronologically in your life as well.
The first four commandments deal with our relationship with YHWH. The second six commandments deal with our
relationship with His body. So that
makes this the first commandment that deals with your relationship with others,
and honoring your father and mother is the first thing you deal with as a
child. So, even though this is fifth in
the list, as a practical matter, this is actually the first one the most of us
face first whether we are aware of it or not.
Another thing that strikes me is that, while the pattern
of the first four commandments are “do not, do not, do not, do” where the
active “do” commandment comes last, the second set of commandments begins with a
“do” commandment. Is it possible that
this is placed here to connect those two “do” commandments more
intimately. God said that He can be seen
in his creation. The physical world (at
least the physical world when working properly the way He set it up and not
when the picture is of a fallen man screwing up) reveals Him. The way He established our physical
relationships likewise reveals what our relationships with Him should be
like. The fourth commandment is intended
to stress the importance of knowing Him as a lover. The fifth commandment, in honoring your
physical mother and father, stresses getting to know Him as a parent. He is both and we should not treat the
existence of one as therefore eliminating the existence of the other. Fear is the beginning of wisdom, but love
should be the end result of wisdom. Are
these two connected to in some way show that the lower commandment, honoring
your mother and father, a picture of reverential fear and respect, leads us to
the higher commandment of loving intimacy?
And lastly, (at least for this blog) I also noticed that
in a greatly male dominated society, and with a lot of emphasis on fathers,
Father God, etc… this is honor your
father AND your mother. Again going back
to the fact that YHWH has revealed Himself through His physical creation, we
have to ask, what does this tell us spiritually? Is God female as well as male?
“Ruach HaKadesh” is the Hebrew term that is used in the Tanak (Hebrew term for Old Testament) for Holy Spirit. Actually, “HaKadesh” is the literal translation for Holy Spirit. Ruach is a feminine indicator. Additionally, the pronouns used to indicate the Holy Spirit are all feminine in the original Hebrew. This was mostly changed in translation, but not entirely. You can still see it in some places where it talks about letting wisdom do HER perfect work in you, and the like. So does this mean God should be female?
God is not male and He’s not female either. He transcends our notions of sexuality. What we need to understand is that both sexes
are a picture of him. We are to honor
both our father and our mother.
Spiritually we are to honor ALL parts of who He is, not just the parts
we agree with or identify with. Honor
your father AND your mother is, in one way, telling us not to ignore certain
commandments because we don’t like where they lead.
(side note: I
wanted to go into this male/female thing a bit more, but this is getting big
enough as it is. For now I’ll briefly
say that from what I can see the female aspects of God were removed in the
bible for two reasons: 1) To a degree,
it was a male dominated culture that wanted women to feel like scripture
supported male dominance, but for the most part it was the fact that; 2)
Specific female pronouns didn’t exist in the English language for
centuries. Not until the sixteen
hundreds did we begin referring to women as “her” and “she”. Before that, everyone was “he” and “him”.
