What the Bible says about Smiting of Parents

Exodus 21:15-17

The Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament (vol. 1, p. 133), commenting on Exodus 21:15-17, reads:

Maltreatment of a father and mother through striking (ver. 15), man-stealing (ver. 16), and cursing parents (ver. 17, cf. Leviticus xx.9) were all to be placed on a par with murder, and punished in the same way. By "smiting" of parents we are not to understand smiting to death, . . . but any kind of maltreatment. The murder of parents is not mentioned at all, as not likely to occur and hardly conceivable. The cursing of parents is placed on a par with smiting, because it proceeds from the same disposition; and both were to be punished with death, because the majesty of God was violated in the persons of the parents.

"The majesty of God was violated"! In this lies the importance of keeping this commandment. The relationship God intends within the family is an exact type of a Christian's spiritual relationship with God the Father and the church as mother.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment (1997)