Ephesians 6:1-4

b. Children and parents

Ephesians 6:1-4

1,2Children, obey your parents in the Lord:1 for this is right. Honor thy father and [thy]2 mother; which is the first commandment with promise; 3That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 4And, ye fathers, provoke [or fret] not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture [discipline] and admonition of the Lord.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The precept for children; Ephesians 6:1-3.Ephesians 6:1. Children, τὰ τέκνα.—The next step from the married state is the family. The wedded pair become parents through God’s gift, which may also be denied. The address to children in a letter to the Church presupposes, that the Apostle regards them as belonging to the Church, present at public worship, understanding the word read to and applicable to them; indeed they must be regarded as baptized, since Ephesians 6:1 : “in the Lord,” Ephesians 6:4 : “in the admonition of the Lord,” obliges us to do so (Stier, Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, II., 2, p. 192.)3 See Doctr. Note 1.

Obey your parents in the Lord [ὑπακούετε τοῖς γονεύειν ὑμῶν ἐν κυρίῳ].—The verb coming first has the emphasis: this one precept comprises the main part of filial duty in itself. The word is stronger than ὑποτάσσεσθαι (Bengel: id plus etiam dicit quam subordinamini; obedire est imperitioris: subordinari cujusvis inferioris). To the more mature and experienced persons, who are God’s representatives and the child’s supporters, and guides in fidelity, love and wisdom, obedience is to be rendered, not because they are Christians, or good and rich, or masters over the child, but because they are the parents (“your parents”), with the duty of bringing up (Ephesians 6:4) as they have brought forth. As Christians the children, however, must obey “in the Lord,” in Christ (Ephesians 6:10; Ephesians 6:21; Ephesians 2:21; Ephesians 4:1; Ephesians 4:17; Ephesians 5:8; Winer, p. 364); analogous to “in the fear of Christ” (Ephesians 5:21), “as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). Thus the kind of obedience, not immediately and chiefly the kind of parents, is more closely defined, as specifically Christian in ground, measure and limit. It is incorrect to take it as=κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγον (Theodoret), or to refer it to God (Calvin), in Deo, or to connect it with “parents,” or to take it as merely a designation of the mode of obedience (Harless).4

For this is right [τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι δίκαιον.—Quickly, briefly Paul presses the proof (γάρ) forward. “This” refers to the whole: the obedience of children to their parents in Christ. In τέκνα and γονεῖς there is a reminder of the μυστήριον (Ephesians 5:32), which lies in the τόκος and γονεία (Stier). Hence δίκαιον, “right,” refers to the relations both as given in nature and ordained by Divine law. Bengel: etiam natura; Meyer: according to nature and law. This Luther wishes to express with his “it is proper.” It should not be referred to the Divine law alone (Theodoret, Meyer, Schenkel), to which prominence is given in the next verse. [The natural obligation seems to be brought out here, the enforcement through the Divine law is added in the next, verse (so Eadie, Alford, Ellicott, Hodge, following Bengel, Estius and Theophylact).—R.]

Ephesians 6:2. Honour thy father and thy mother.—This is the commandment, Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16; Matthew 15:4. In τίμα there is more included than obedience. Obedientia testimonium est ejus honoris, quem debent parentibus. Sub voce honoris complectitur officia, quibus serio tuam erga parentes observantiam et pietatem sestantur filius (Calvin). In Matthew 15:0. Jesus deduces from the honor the nourishment, and provision and care. Sir 3:8. Luther: serve, love and esteem. With emphasis the commandment places on an equality over against the children “thy father and thy mother;” in Leviticus 19:3 the latter even comes first.

Which is, ἤτις ἐστίν, introduces a reason, as in Ephesians 3:13; it is not=ἥ, quæ, but ut pole quæ.5—The first commandment with promise.—Ἐντολη evidently refers to the Mosaic law, the Decalogue, of which what has just been said is one commandment, hence without the article; on the thought that it is a command of God an emphasis rests,6 which is strengthened by the added phrase: πρώτη ἐν ἐπαγγελία: at first; it is not the first. According to the context it is as respects the time in which it applies to human beings, a first one: children must first honor God’s representatives, in order to learn how and to be able to keep those which precede and follow (Stier). And it is indeed placed on the promise, conceived in promise, because thus the obedience to parents becomes joyful, and upon this obedience salvation actually rests both internally and externally (1 Timothy 3:1-2). Bengel: Honor parentibus per obedientiam præsertim præstitus initio ætatis omnium præceptorum obedientiam continet. It is not necessary therefore to say that it is in the series of commandments the first with a promise (Harless and others) [see below], as if there were not a promise annexed to the first or second [the Catholic and Lutheran first, our second] (Exodus 20:0 Ephesians 6:9-10), or as though it were the first with a promise in the second table (Ambrose and others). It belongs to the first table, and such a distinction is not “a comment of modern theologians, a distinction not founded in the sacred Scriptures “(Erasmus), since it is definitely stated in Deuteronomy 5:22, and the tenor of the commandments are distinguished accordingly. (Matthew 22:37-40; Leviticus 19:18; Leviticus 19:34; Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 10:12.) Least of all does πρώτη mean the most important, a chief commandment (Koppe [Hodge] and others). But while it is incorrect to take ἐν ἐπαγγελία=annexa, addita promissione, it is quite as much so to understand it as=in point of promise (Winer, p. 366; and others).

[The view of Stier, advocated by Braune, is not altogether satisfactory, that of Koppe and Hodge is still less so. Nor is any importance to be attached to the absence of the article with πρώτη. The simplest view, one that usually suggests itself to the children, is that of Harless and Meyer, accepted by Eadie, Alford and Meyer: first in order; in point of, involving a promise, the preposition showing that in which the priority consists. The second commandment has attached simply “a broad declaration of the great principles of the Divine government,” not a specific promise. As regards the difficulty that no commandment follows in the Decalogue with a promise, we may either accept the explanation of Harless that “first” refers only to what precedes in this case, or that of Meyer, which finds the rest of the series in other Mosaic commands (so Ellicott).—R.]

Ephesians 6:3. That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.—This is the purport of the promise. Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16; LXX.: ἵνα εὖ σοι γένηται καὶ ἵνα μακροχρόνιος γένη ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ἦς ὁ κύριος ὁ θεός σου δίδωσί σοι. The Apostle only alters: καὶ ἔση μακροχρόνιος, omitting the last relative clause, which as a commandment of God designates, not merely Canaan, but every country appointed by Him as a home, Palestine in the case of the Jews. According to the quotation ἵνα must be retained in the second half with the future, although the conjunctive occurs in the first half. Winer (p. 271) explains the construction with the future as a lapse into a direct discourse, despite similar examples. Meyer finds indicated in the conjunctive the mere actualization, in the future the certain entrance and continuance, hence a logical climax.7 Undoubtedly ἵνα is to be taken as telic, and on account of the phrase, “thy father and thy mother,” to be applied to individuals, not toti eorum genti (Bengel, who prudently says beforehand: non tantum singulis; Harless and others). The well being is put in the front rank, the long life in the second. Even among the most decayed people it will go well with him who honors his parents in obedience, and his life will be long, at least quoad sufficientiam for eternal salvation (Stier). Godliness has indeed a promise for this life also (1 Timothy 4:8), but certainly for that which is to come. To limit the promise to the spiritual possessions of the heavenly Canaan (Jerome, Olshausen) is incorrect, Tenerior ætas pro captu suo allicitur promissione longæ, vitæ (Bengel). The attracting promise is chiefly to be taken in the sense and spirit of children, who hope for a long life; the history of nations and families confirm the truth of the promise. Hodie æque bene vivunt pii in omne terra, atque Israel olim in illa (Bengel).

[We must reject both the generalizing and spiritualizing interpretations of the promise, and accept an individual reference of present validity. On this most recent commentators agree. And the promise is fulfilled in the usual course of providence with obedient children. The only question is: Did the Apostle by omitting the latter part of the commandment, which had a special reference to Canaan, himself apply the promise to obedient children in all lands, or did the original commandment imply this (the given land being the home in every case), so that the Apostle omits the last clause as unessential for his present purpose and really implied, τὴς γῆς? The former is the view of Eadie, Alford, Ellicott, and Hodge, the latter of Braune and others. Either is preferable to Meyer’s notion that the Apostle omitted the clause because his readers were familiar with the passage, and understood it in the general sense, though its original reference was only to Palestine.—R.]

The precept for fathers; Ephesians 6:4. And ye fathers.—Quickly and closely he connects this with καί.8 He addresses the “fathers,” because he regards the mothers as “submitting to their own husbands” (Ephesians 5:22; Ephesians 5:24; Ephesians 5:33), who are their responsible representatives. Facilius parentes et heri abutuntur potestate sua, quam mariti (Bengel); that lies in the freer position of the former. We are not to refer this to grown up children (Olshausen), since “bring them up” follows; nor is there any oriental depreciation of the mother (Rueckert), since Ephesians 6:2 commands: “honor thy mother,” and Genesis 24:67; Genesis 37:10; 1 Kings 2:19; Judges 5:7; 2 Samuel 20:19 teach us otherwise.9

The prohibition: Provoke [or fret] not your children to wrath, μὴ παροργίζετε τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν.—It is parallel to the παραζηλοῦν, Romans 10:19; it is explained by Colossians 3:21 (א.: παροργίζετε, others: ἐρεθίζετε—ἵνα μὴ ). It is the hasty, rough, moody treatment of children, so that, without childish confidence, without joyful obedience, they are repelled and enticed to opposition, defiance and bitterness. Righteous, wholesome parental anger is not excluded, but painful, arbitrary, grumbling treatment, as well as rough, unjust treatment, without sparing the childish nature. [Alford: “The Apostle seems to allude to provoking by vexatious commands and unreasonable blame, and uncertain temper, in ordinary intercourse.”—R.]

The command: But bring them up, ἀλλὰ ἐκτρέφετε αὐτά (Ephesians 5:29).—This points to children who still require care. But it should not be the mere growing up of the proletarians, but spiritual also. Hence:

In the discipline and admonition of the Lord, ἐν παιδεία καὶ νουθεσίᾳ κυρίου. Thus the element is denoted in which the bringing up should be consummated.10 The former consists in work, the latter in word; the former is discipline (Luther), not merely punishment, also strict ordering of the household, accustoming to self-denial, serviceableness, confession of faults without shuffling. Hebrews 12:6-7. The latter (Luther: admonition) comprises earnest warning (1 Corinthians 10:11) and kind exhortation (Titus 3:10; Romans 15:14; Colossians 3:16; Colossians 1:28; 1 Corinthians 4:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:14; 2 Thessalonians 3:15), which evidently predominates over serious rebukes. It is important that the former comes first, and this last. Harum altera occurrit ruditati, altera oblivioni et levitati; utraque et sermonem et reliquiam disciplinam includit (Bengel). [Comp. Trench, Syn. § XXXII, whose views correspond in the main with those suggested here, and are adopted by Eadie, Alford and Ellicott.—R.] Hence the first is not general, the training of children in general, the latter special, the reproof for the purpose of improvement (Harless, Meyer), nor are they indistinguishable synonyms (Koppe). The genitive belongs to both words: the Lord does it through the father as His representative; it is therefore a genitive subjecti. [So Harless, De Wette, Meyer, Eadie, Hodge, Alford, Ellicott and others: the discipline and admonition prescribed by the Lord and to be regulated by His Spirit.—R.] It is not then: to the Lord (Luther), nor=well-pleasing to the Lord (Flatt), or=de Christo (Michaelis), nor are we to accept that the Apostle himself scarcely knew how to explain it (Rueckert).

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The presupposition for the conduct of children to parents and parents to children is the relation of both to Christ. The children should do their duty “in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1), the parents “in the discipline and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), and that too from infancy (“bring them up”). Baptism, infant baptism, is thus presupposed as the basis for the children as well as for the treatment of children. And all the more so, that there is expressed for the children no termination or cessation of their conduct toward their parents and for the parents no beginning of the influence on the children, nor is any hint given of the baptismal act to be effected or experienced, which could scarcely be wanted after Ephesians 4:5 (“one baptism”), since the fellowship of the Lord is indicated in the case of children as well as parents. Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II., 2, p. 193) properly recalls Acts 16:15. For before mention was made of the household of the jailer, and without any impression of what had occurred having been made upon his household, it was said to him: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” We should therefore with Augustine (De Gen. X., 23, Serm. X) and Origen (ad Rom. vi.) regard infant baptism as an ordinance instituted by the Apostles. It was practised in the days of Tertullian, but no mention is made of its having been introduced. Accordingly our passage refers the nurture of children to the basis of baptism and the family: family education and baptismal education are enjoined. [The relation to Christ rests not on the baptismal act, but on the relation to the believing parents, hence children are to be baptized “as members of Christ’s Church” (Ref. Church, form of baptism), are thus publicly acknowledged and sealed as Christian children, whose personal piety is to be looked for in faith just, as it is prayed for in faith. Despite all abuse of this Christian truth, it is the truth, and holding it fast we may hope for a piety which rests on an educational, not a spasmodic, basis.—In regard to the apostolic origin of the ordinance, the negative proof is overwhelming. Besides the allusion here and in Acts 16:0, it is inconceivable that the Jews, who attacked Paul on every actual point of difference, could have omitted opposition here, had he failed to perpetuate in some distinct form the Old Testament doctrine of covenant blessings on the household.—But as negative proof it leaves room for honest adherence to that marked individualistic form of Christianity, which is necessary, it would seem, for many minds of that cast.—R.]

2. The Apostle requires obedience on the part of the children to their parents as God’s representatives. This is a manifestation of that honor which God requires. It is established, regulated and limited through Christ, and is the foundation of earthly happiness. While ὑπακούειν denotes obedience as a reverent hearing, listening to the parents’ will, not merely in order to know it, but rather to be directed by it, so the German word: gehorchen [derived from horchen=our English hearken], related to hörig, gehörig, zugehörig [all meaning: belonging to, but strengthened in the longer forms], refers to the internal relation of dependence which finds its answering expression in gehorsam [obedience]. Both refer to the relation of piety [i.e., filial piety, since piety toward God and parents are recognized as identical in the Latin word pius], and include as the innermost motive love, which devotes itself with recognition of the parental dignity, even when parental worthiness is wanting. Over against the will of the parents the will of the child is illegal; but this statement is valid only so far as the parents exercise their will as the representatives of God, and their will is not opposed to God’s will. In this there is a hint that the Fifth Commandment belongs to the first table (Braune, Die heil. 10 Geb. pp. 85–88). This requirement, to agree to the will of parents, does not cease in the course of years, though it receives limitations from the avocation and position of the children, as in the case of our Lord (John 2:4)

3. The blessing of the Fifth Commandment points to this fact, that in God’s world and God’s government His law, which is in accordance with the whole as well as with each individual part, is and must be of validity, and because it is valid for life, is given in correspondence with the ordinances of His Creation and Providence. The blessing is not an arbitrarily placed reward, but a result of obedience, actual and true obedience. One cannot creep into the blessing through constrained or feigned obedience. Obedience, this deeply rooted act of a will, growing morally, is not an affair of selfish calculation, still less can an immoral or demoralizing observance of a natural law be spoken of. Nor is the blessing promised for the life of the earthly family and people to be so lightly esteemed, that it must be transferred to the inheritance of the heavenly Canaan. Welfare and long life will be constantly regarded and used by the Christian as a gift of the gracious God; if something is lacking, he will never murmur nor doubt, as if God did not keep His promise, since our obedience of His commandment is never so perfect that it can be brought into an account with Him; it is rather the case that He has always vouchsafed and still vouchsafes to us more than we deserve.

4. Christian education must be consummated in the family, and if the family, in which children are born, is broken up by death, or destroyed by social, individual or sinful relations, and made incapable of fulfilling the task of education, each child should still be transferred to a family, or every institution which undertakes the task must be formed as a family.—Christian nurture must begin with the earliest childhood, with the beginning of the child’s life (ἐκτρέφετε). On this account ἐν παιδεία comes first, and νουθεσία follows. Matters pertaining to the ordering of the household, to habitudes, to treatment without speaking, even to punishment, come first. Comp Hebrews 12:6; Proverbs 3:11-12; Proverbs 22:15; Proverbs 23:13.—But it must add to this and pass over into admonition by word, both alike “of Christ,” not in self-will, but under the Lord to whom we are responsible. Hence this education must be Christian.11—Further it connects itself with baptism; hence it is Churchly. Comp. Von Zeschwitz, System der Christlich Kirchlichen Katechetik, II. 1, §2. [More Christian than Churchly however. Hence in those lands where the Church as such must needs control education, there is little gain for the Church or for Christ. Were the family instruction what it ought to be, there is no fear of children becoming irreligious from attending common schools (i.e., schools of the State, not of the Church).—The question of Sunday Schools ought to be far oftener studied in the light of this section.—R.]—The mother is not excluded, but only subordinated to the father (Ephesians 6:2; Ephesians 6:4). The mother’s influence on the formation of character is quiet and deep, reaching both to the tenderest germs and the profoundest depths of the heart. 2 Timothy 1:5.—Finally the individuality of the child must be well considered, and one not be treated as another. Such a difficult task can be performed only in the strength of the Lord, by whom we are ourselves educated.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Comp. Doctr. Notes and Braune, Die heiligen 10 Gebote, pp. 84–106.—True obedience is so difficult, that it becomes possible only to the Christian child in the strength of the developed baptismal grace; not the natural, only the spiritual man is capable of proper obedience and becomes more and more so. On the other hand Christian training is so difficult, that only Christian parents can grant it, and this too without having learned the art, often without being conscious of it.—By the child’s cradle you still humbly look up to God; you cannot boast that you have given the child life; must indeed confess that you have imparted sin to them.—Eve preferred her first-born Cain (==weapon) to Abel (=shadow, nothingness).—Be sparing of words in your discipline; let your children obey without asking why and punish rather before than after five years of age, else they will punish you.

Starke: God joins certain promises to His commandments, that we may be the more willing to live in accordance with them. If obedient children have a promise, disobedient ones have a threatening.—The training of children is an art not easily learned. Parents, you must study this, that you may learn it, and implore this grace from God; but especially must you be watchful over all your own conduct, that you give no bad example to your children; and above all implant the true fear of God in their hearts.—If parents bring up their children to the glory of God and the advantage of the world, that is more and better than to leave them great earthly treasures.

Rieger: The phrase: in the Lord, leads us to perceive that they must be chiefly guided and impelled therein by God’s commandment, the walk of the Lord Jesus on the earth; the hope of future recompense from the Lord; but also that it sometimes requires courage to be obedient in all things, and for the Lord’s sake to rise above even the parents who stand in the way.—It is often asked how shall we encourage and incite children to their duty? and it is generally thought that the love of honor and the excitement of this feeling are the best means. But he who in accordance with God’s word meets their sense of truth with this thought: for this is right, proceeds far more securely. There is often in children a far purer feeling than we suppose, we frequently corrupt it by presenting so many frivolous motives.—With the power of self-will love, would never suffice for constant obedience, did it not derive support from reverence.—All promises of God must however be treated believingly, i.e., humbly, for they allow nothing to be extorted from them. Provoking to wrath takes place not only through unmerciful beating, but also through other unskilful treatment, even though it often has the appearance of right.—God has Himself given us the best pattern of “bringing up.” At first without the sharp condemnation of sin designed in the law He led men by His eye and kept them walking before Him. After the stricter imputation of sin through the law, He guided them through His grace in Christ.

Heubner: The forbearance, the mildness, the fairness towards children, which Paul enjoins, consists in this, that one neither unmercifully punishes them on account of faults and infirmities, nor teases them with their education and conversion, but leads them with love and earnestness, removing hindrances, and for the rest commending them to the care of the Lord, who loves children. The child has not yet a very lively sense of sin, hence you must not overdo this matter of conversion.—Thus much is certain: religious culture should begin early; the child’s heart can be early won and be influenced by love to Jesus. This is the spirit of Christian nurture, which proceeds without constraint and cannot play much with dogmatics.

Passavant: How difficult for a child’s heart is child-like obedience! for all are sinners, and in all sin there is self-desire, self-will, opposition.—Ill-bred children rarely become good subjects to the king, good citizens for the State, good brethren, good friends, or good parents to their children.

Stier: The obedience of children is due according to natural and revealed right.—The first school of obedience for man is his relation as child.—The mother’s love must compensate when the father’s character inclines to severity; the father’s earnestness and strictness must step in where the mother’s natural tenderness is insufficient.

Schleiermacher: The nature of filial obedience: 1. From what it should arise: neither hold out rewards, nor threaten punishments; nor gratify froward asking for reasons; solely out of filial respect. 2. On what grounds it is recommended: citing the old promise.

Anacker: To what education must be directed, that it may bear fruit for time and eternity. 1. That the youth learn proper obedience; 2. That they are led through love to obedience; 3. That mildness and strictness be rooted in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Hofmann: The personal work of the parents: anger their greatest hindrance; their surest means: nurture your children into the Lord.—The nurture of the Lord: The fundamental traits and principles of Divine training, presented in the history of salvation from the beginning of our race on and in the conversion of individuals through the training of the Holy Ghost; some applications thence to our training: doing acts of love, blessing (Meyer), preserving from ungodly influences, promising, punishing.—Admonition of the Lord: reminder that Christ should be glorified in the children and that they should become happy men, skilful warriors of God.

Zimmermann: From what you seek in your children, measure what you owe to them! 1. You desire obedience from them, show yourselves full of love to them. 2. You desire that they honor you, apply to them the right nurture. 3. You desire that they protect and adorn your old age, so help them to inherit the promise: that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest live long on the earth.

[Hodge: Children should obey their parents. This obedience should be in the Lord, determined and regulated by a regard to Christ. The ground of the obligation is: 1. It is in itself right; it is enforced by an express command in the Decalogue, to which a special promise is annexed, Ephesians 6:1-3.

Ephesians 6:4. A parent had better sow tares in a field from which he expects to derive food for himself and family, than by his own ill-conduct nurture evil in the heart of a child.—R.]

[Eadie: Ephesians 6:1. The love which Jesus showed to children, when He took them in His arms and blessed them, should induce them, in a spirit of filial faith and fondness to obey their parents, and to regard with special sacredness every parental injunction. And that obedience, if prompted, regulated, and bounded by a sense of religious obligation, will be cheerful, and not sullen; prompt, and not dilatory; uniform, and not occasional; universal, and not capricious in its choice of parental precepts.—Filial obedience, under God’s blessing, prolongs life, for it implies the possession of principles of restraint, sobriety, and industry, which secure a lengthened existence.

Ephesians 6:4. Such training leads to early piety, and such is ever welcome to Christ and His Church. For the sun shining on a shrub, in its green youth, is a more gladsome spectacle than the evening beam falling dimly on the ivy and ruins of an old and solitary tower.—R.]

[While Ephesians 6:4 does not mean (see Exeg. Notes) instruction and admonition concerning Christ, it is still true that a father, who, by proper discipline tempered with love, ever keeps the heart of his children in intimate and trustful allegiance, by his very demeanor teaches lessons concerning Christ and God, that are rarely learned so easily in other ways. Many a son is kept from utter ruin by remembering a mother’s love and piety, but happy is he who has had such a father as Paul here sketches in bold outline, for amid every doubt that assails head and heart alike, the reality of that father is an evidence, in kind though not in degree, of what God is to us, which no speculations can overbear.—R.]

Footnotes:

[1] Ephesians 6:1.—[Lachmann, Rueckert, and Mill omit ἐν κυρίῳ on the authority of B. D.1 F., some fathers. It is bracketted by Alford; but Harless, Meyer, Ellicott accept it on the strong support of א. A. D. 2 3 K. L., nearly all cursives and versions, express statement of Chrysostom; especially since, as Meyer urges, we would have found ὡς τῷ κυρίῶ in case of an insertion from Ephesians 5:22, and if from Colossians 3:20, it would have been placed after δίκαιον. Braune’s note here speaks of the absence of the phrase in Colossians 3:20, a manifest error.—R.]

Ephesians 6:2; Ephesians 6:2.—[The E. V. omits “thy,” without reason and unfortunately, for the article occurs in the Greek, and the same emphasis rests on thy mother as on thy father.—R.]

[3][To this Meyer objects, but in its stead lays down a principle which approaches the strict Reformed view: “The children of Christians through their vital fellowship with their Christian parents were even without baptism ἅγιοι (see 1 Corinthians 7:14; Acts 16:15) and should render to their parents obedience ἐν κυρίῳ.”—R.]

[4][Hodge seems to follow Harless but Eadie, Ellicott, Alford rightly take ἐν κυρίῳ as indicating the sphere or element of the action. Alford adds, in reference to the common view that the Apostle gives a hint as to commands not according to the will of God: “I should rather believe, that he regards both parents and children as ἐν κυρίῳ, and the commands, as well as the obedience, as having that sphere and element. How children were to regard commands not answering to this description, would be understood from the nature of the case.” Certainly, if the reference be, as is thought by most, to baptized children, then this presupposes the parents ruling “in the Lord.” On the limits of obedience, Ellicott refers to Taylor, Duct. Dub. III. 5, Rule 1 and 4 ff.—R.]

[5][This is the view of Meyer and formerly of Ellicott, but the latter now accepts the explanatory force of the pronoun, since, as Alford intimates, the other view throws “the motive to obedience too much on the fact of the promise accompanying it, whereas the obedience rests on the fact implied in ἐντολή, and the promise comes in to show its special acceptableness to God.”—R.]

[6][Alford’s remark in loco must be taken with caution. He says the reference is to “the Decalogue, which naturally stands at the head of all God’s other commandments; and which, though not formally binding on us as Christians, is quoted, in matters of eternal obligation (not of positive enactment), as an eminent example of God’s holy will.”—R.]

[7][On this Ellicott remarks: “The future undoubtedly often does express the more lasting and certain result (comp. Revelation 22:14, where the single act is expressed by the aorist subj., the lasting act by the future); still as the present formula occurs in substance in Deuteronomy 22:7 (Alexand.), and might have thence become a known form of expression, it seems better not to press the future further than as representing the temporal evolution of the εὖ γενέσθαι.”—R.]

[8][Ellicott suggests that the particle “marks that obligation was not all on one side, but that the superior also had duties which he owed to the inferior.”—R.]

[9][Eadie limits this precept to fathers, urging that mothers are apt to spoil the child by indulgence, while fathers are apt to chastise in a passion. But the other view is preferable.—R.]

[10][Dr. Hodge, whose comments on this verse are very clear and instructive, falls into his usual error, in taking the preposition ἐν as instrumental: “developing all their powers by the instruction and admonition of the Lord.” The thought is rather that the child shall grow up, be trained in an element, sphere, atmosphere, etc.—R.]

[11][Hodge: “As Christianity is the only true religion, and God in Christ the only true God, the only profitable education is the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is, the whole process of instruction and discipline must be that which He prescribes and which He administers, so that His authority should be brought into constant and immediate contact with the mind, heart and conscience of the child. It will not do for the parent to present himself as the ultimate end, the source of knowledge and possessor of authority to determine truth and duty. This would be to give his child a mere human development. Nor will it do for him to urge and communicate everything on the abstract ground of reason; for that would be to merge his child in nature. It is only by making God, God in Christ, the teacher and ruler, on whose authority everything is to be believed, and in obedience to whose will everything is to be done, that the ends of education can possibly be attained.” But it must still be maintained, that the place where this close contact with Christ as Ruler and Teacher and Saviour is to be brought about is not the school, whether parochial school or Sunday School, but as a rule the household, since the command is addressed to “fathers,” who, standing in loco Dei in the family, should not too readily abdicate from their responsible position.—R.]