I wanted to save for a separate lesson the implications of what God says about parents under this section of law. It’s about respect for God and His choices for us. God chooses the parents to whom we are born.
Respect has never been slavish obedience. That false concept arises from our Western heritage, something unique to the Germanic tribal culture. It was only a pretense even then, but shows up strongly in the absolutist doctrine of obeying the State. In Hebrew culture, respect was simply showing honor to someone.
Thus, the Hebrew term for “curse” in verse 17 is based on the idea of diminishing something. It’s making light of it, mocking, tearing it down. There are other words translated as “curse” in English, but this one is pretty specific to ripping down God’s glory.
We can respect anyone on many different grounds. It’s what we call “civility” — the habit of seeking to keep society stable and reducing unnecessary conflict. While this does manifest in peculiar ways in our Western history, it’s not all that different in concept to what held in the Ancient Near East (ANE). It shows reverence to God to give others a chance to rise to their best self.
This not about rules that can get you into trouble, demanding you drop all your wariness in social situations. You can remain fully alert and capable of defending yourself. And you can rely on God to protect you when someone has prepared an ambush. That’s also part of holiness. But our preference should be to let people be who they are and give them a due measure of respect. It will probably never be what some people demand, but that’s another matter.
With your parents, it’s not giving them everything they demand, either. It’s giving them due respect as God defines it.
