"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

What Does it Mean to Honor?

Honor (kabad)

to make heavy, to make honorable, to honor or glorify

Before we can properly honor, we must understand what honor requires. There are a number of aspects to it. Honor requires many things of us, and it is not complete except when all of them are fulfilled.

Reverence

To honor somebody is first and foremost to reverence them. Here, again, we must understand what is meant. To revere is to join fear with respect and affection. This is what is due to God. It is not much different than worship. The difference lies in the divine nature of worship. Worship is reserved for God alone, and He will not share it with another. However, here He commands us by His own words to honor, to reverence, our parents. We ought to have a regard for our parents not unlike that we have for God - fear and affection.

Fear is due because of the authority vested in the parent, and is drawn from us because they are empowered to discipline us when we are disobedient.

Dt 21:18-21
18 "If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, 19 then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. 20 And they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.' 21 "Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear.

Respect is due because they are our primary teachers and caretakers, and is drawn from us because of their wise counsel.

Pr 1:8-9
8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction,
And do not forsake your mother's teaching;
9 Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head,
And ornaments about your neck.

Affection is due because of our love for them, and is drawn from us because of the care they take to provide for our every need.

Obedience

We cannot show honor for anybody if we will not obey them. The same issues that are shown in our reverence require of us that we will obey. Our fear of parental authority, and parental powers of discipline should compel us to obey. Our respect for them, being founded on their history of wise counsel, ought to be reason enough for us to obey. Our affection for them ought to be the foundation of a heartfelt desire to obey.

But obedience is not absolute, except when our obedience is to God Himself. He is the Authority over all authority. If our parents require of us things that are opposed to God's rule, we must obey God. Yet, even in this, our duty of honor for our parents remains. However, our obedience is required so long as it does not require breaking with God's laws. No matter how rigid or overbearing their commands for us may be, they remain commands to be obeyed.

This is not to say that God approves of their abuse of position. His instructions to the child are balanced by His instructions to the parent.

Eph 6:4 And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

As parents, we have our own instructions. They are intended to make obedience possible, to make respect reasonable, and to make affection natural. Just as children are instructed to obey in the Lord, and thus know the limits of obedience, we parents are instructed to discipline and instruct in the Lord, and thus know the limits of our authority. The authority we have is the authority God has vested in us, and is subject to Him. We ought to be careful that our instruction, our discipline, is in accord with His will.

Submission

Care

The Foundation of Honor

Is This Duty to God, or Duty to Man?

This commandment stands as the boundary between the two tables of the Law. These tables are generally understood to declare our duties to God in the first table, and our duties to man in the second. This raises a question: Is this duty of honor a duty due to God or man? As we noted, honor is closely related to worship. Worship belongs to God. This, He covered in the very first commandment. Here, then, He follows the same priority in approaching our duty to our fellow man.

Honor is a priority. Why this concern? In the case of parents, the primary reason is that as authorities, parents are deputies of God. He has vested them with the power of authority, and in honoring them, we are honoring Him. By the same token, disrespect shown our parents is disrespect shown to God Himself. But as authority is vested in more than just parents, so honor is due to more than just parents.

Ge 1:27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

As God created parents, and shared His name Father with them, He created all mankind in His image. Each one of us bears the image of God. The worst of sinners still bears that image, however badly it may be distorted. For this reason alone all men deserve to be honored. We don't condone the sin we see in them, yet we must accord them the honor and dignity that they deserve as bearers of God's image. It is upon this basis that God instituted the death penalty for murder.

Ge 9:5-6 - I will require your life from every beast and from every man. Whoever sheds man's blood will be killed by man, for God made man in His own image.

Let this put an end to disputes over the death penalty. Yes, we must do all that is in our power to ensure that justice is done in this case, as in every other case of law. But there can be no question that murder demands the punishment that God has decreed.