Lessons #251 and 252
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual exposition not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GWT = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Children-Parent responsibilities (Eph 6:1-4)
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
We argued that the clause that it may go well with you of Ephesians 6:3 is not another promise associated with the fifth commandment that requires children to honor their parents. For one thing, the first communication of the fifth commandment in Exodus 20:12 does not contain the clause implying that it is not a promise associated with it. Instead, we asserted that the clause means it is beneficial to honor one’s parents. The clause, as we argued previously, is one that is used to introduce a resultant benefit that comes to someone for honoring the parents or for being obedient. It seems that the translators of the Septuagint might have understood the clause in that sense of introducing result since they did not quite follow the order of the clause in the original Hebrew text from where they translated it. I am referring to Deuteronomy 5:16:
“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
The Hebrew text as reflected in the Masoretic Text indicates that the clause that it may go well with you comes after the clause so that you may live long. This same order is followed in another ancient manuscript, that is, the Vulgate. However, the Septuagint deviates from the order we observe in the two ancient manuscripts we mentioned where the promise proper you may live long precedes the clause that it may go well with you. The translation of the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 5:16 is as follows:
“‘Honor your father and your mother in the way that the Lord your God commanded that it may go well with you and that you may be a long time on the land that the Lord your God is giving over to you.
Clearly in the Septuagint the clause that it may go well with you comes before the clause that you may be a long time. We are arguing that it is probably because the translators of the Septuagint perceived that the clause that it may go well with you is not a promise but that which introduced the benefit of obeying the fifth commandment that they reversed the order in the original Hebrew text. In the original text where the clause that it may go well with you comes after the clause so that you may live long it is probably intended as a further commentary of what it means to live long in the land the Lord is giving to Israel, implying that the Hebrew word (we-) translated “and” in the original Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 5:16 that joined the two clauses may be understood as a marker of explanation. The point we are arguing is that because the clause that it may go well with you is used several times in the OT prior to stating, a given benefit in a specific passage that it should be understood as a clause that conveys that it is beneficial to do something demanded in the word of God.
Accepting the interpretation that the clause that it may go well with you is to be understood as conveying that it is beneficial for something to take place, the question is then is: What is the benefit that comes to the person who honors the parents? The answer to this question is introduced with the word “and” in the clause of Ephesians 6:3 and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. The conjunction “and” is not used to convey that the clause gives a second promise associated with the fifth commandment that the apostle quoted previously in verse 2. Instead, we contend that the apostle used it either to explain in what sense it is beneficial to honor parents or to state the resultant benefit of honoring one’s parents. We say this because the word “and” is translated from a Greek conjunction (kai) that is most often translated “and” in our English versions but it has other usages. For example, it can be used as marker of result from what precedes it and so may be translated “and so, and then.” It may also be used as a marker of explanation in which case it may be translated “that is, namely.” Considering the fact that the translators of the Septuagint, the source of the apostle’s quotation, reversed the order in which the clause it may go well with you appeared in the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 5:16, it is most likely that the use of the Greek conjunction translated “and” in the NIV is used in the Greek text in an explanatory sense so that it can be translated “namely.” In effect, we can translate the quotation that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth of Ephesians 6:3 as that it may go well with you, namely, that you may enjoy long life on the earth. This means that the apostle having quoted the first clause it may go well with you from the Septuagint perceived what he quoted next as an explanation of the sense in which it will be beneficial for children to honor their parents since we have indicated that the clause it may go well with you is one that conveys the sense of being beneficial to do something associated with it. We are saying that what the apostle writes following the clause it may go well with you is an explanation of the sense in which it will go well with or in what way it will be beneficial to one that obeys the command issued.
There are two facts that support our interpretation that the Greek conjunction (kai) rendered “and” in most of our English versions should be taken in the sense of providing explanation. First, the apostle omitted in his quotation in Ephesians 6:3 a Greek conjunction (hina) that appears in the Septuagint. This conjunction has several usages. It can be used as a maker of purpose so that it is then translated “in order to.” Another usage is as a marker of result in which case it may be translated “so that, that, as a result.” Still another usage is as a marker of explanation so that it can be translated “namely.” The fact that the apostle omitted the Greek conjunction that could be used as a marker of explanation is probably better explained by the fact that the apostle considered it as used for explanation that is with the meaning “namely.” This being the case, he would have seen no need to repeat the sense of explanation that is already conveyed in the preceding Greek conjunction translated “and” but which we said should be taken with the meaning “namely.” This fact then supports our interpretation. Second, the apostle quoted the clause that follows in such a manner that it is an explanation or interpretation of the original Hebrew text as we will demonstrate in what follows.
The next clause the apostle quoted in Ephesians 6:3 reads that you may enjoy long life on the earth or literally from the Greek you shall be a long time on the earth. The original Greek text of this clause from Deuteronomy 5:16 reads so that you may live long in the land. The translation of the Septuagint as we have given seems to be no different from that of Ephesians 6:3 either in the NIV or our literal translation that you may wonder how we could say that the apostle quoted the clause in such a way that implies he meant to explain in which way it is beneficial for a child to honor the parents. I admit that from the English translations, no one can see the point we are making. But then, a teacher of God’s word should be able to refer to the Greek or Hebrew text in order to be in a position to explain more satisfactorily what the Holy Spirit conveyed in a given text. The problem that is present in the Septuagint that is almost impossible to detect in the English translation has to do with the sentence you may enjoy long life of the NIV. As it stands in the English and based on Ephesians 6:3, then the pronoun “you” refers to one person. But the Septuagint has two different versions of the sentence. One version demands that the pronoun “you” be taken as referring to an individual while a second version demands that the pronoun “you” be taken as a reference to many individuals or to a group instead of an individual. The reading of the Septuagint that takes “you” as a reference to an individual is actually an interpretation or explanation in which the original promise has become individualized. The original promise is made not to an individual but to a group, that is, the Israelites. They are the ones the Lord gave the land of Canaan and they were promised to live long in it if they honor their parents which is really a way of saying that they will live long in the land if they kept to the terms of their covenant with the Lord. The apostle, of course, tailored the promise to apply to believers so that he truncated his quotation from the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 5:16 in that he did not add the ending portion of the verse in the Septuagint, that is, the sentence the Lord your God is giving over to you.
To prove the point that the original promise of living long in the land is made not to an individual but to Israel as a group, we need to consider the original promise associated with the fifth commandment in Deuteronomy 5:16:
“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Our concern is specifically with the clause so that you may live long which literally reads from the Hebrew so that your days are prolonged. There are two problems related to the clause that affects its interpretation. The first is whether the personal pronoun you is to be understood as a reference to an individual or to the Israelites as a group. The second is to how to understand the literal word “prolonged” or the expression live long of the NIV. The first problem arises from the fact that both the personal pronoun “you” and the possessive pronoun “your” found in the Hebrew text are all in the singular that may suggest that an individual is in view. A version of the Septuagint adopts the reading that suggests an individual is in view in the clause so that you may live long in that it uses a Greek verb that is in the singular in its translation of the original Hebrew text but another version of the Septuagint adopts the view that Israel as a group is in view in which case it uses a Greek verb that is in the plural. Which of these Greek renderings of the original Hebrew is correct? The answer is that both are correct. This is because the version of the Septuagint that used the singular verb is being literal in its translation of the Hebrew text implying that it gives the Hebrew text an interpretation that implies an individual is in view or that Israel is viewed as an entity. The version that uses the plural verb is also an interpretation of the Hebrew text that removes the literal understanding of either “you” or “your” as being in the singular. It is this second interpretation that agrees with the context of the instruction of the Ten Commandments. By this we mean that although the original Hebrew text used the singular for the personal pronoun “you” and the possessive pronoun “your” that such use of the singular has a plural sense in that Israelites are treated as a group of people. Thus, when Moses used “you” he meant the entire Israel. This is evident from the declaration given in Deuteronomy 5:6:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
The Lord did not bring an individual out of Egypt but the entire Israel. So, the pronoun “you” and the possessive pronoun “your” refer to Israel collectively. Thus, a translation of the original Hebrew text into another language would be better if it is possible to reflect in that language the fact that “you” refers to the Israelites as a group and not an individual Israelite. It is for this reason we believe that the version of the Septuagint that reflects the use of plural verb is to be preferred as conveying the sense of the Hebrew text. This understanding helps in dealing with the second problem of the clause so that you may live long or literally so that your days are prolonged, which is how to understand the word “prolonged” or the expression may live long.
The expression “may live long” is how the translators of the NIV and many of our English versions translated a Hebrew verb (ʾārǎḵ) in Deuteronomy 5:16 that may mean “to be, to be long” so that it is used for measurement. It may be used for measurement of time with the sense of “to last a long time”, as it is used to describe the stay of Isaac in Gerar in Genesis 26:8:
When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.
With respect to distance, the Hebrew word is used for becoming or growing long of branches in Ezekiel 31:5:
So it towered higher than all the trees of the field; its boughs increased and its branches grew long, spreading because of abundant waters.
However, in the Hebrew form (Hiphil) that the word is used in Deuteronomy 5:16, it may mean “to lengthen, prolong” so it is used for lengthening of ropes or cords in Isaiah 54:2:
“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.
In connection with time, it has the meaning of letting someone to live long as it is used in the farewell speech of Moses in encouraging Israel with respect to what could happen to them if they obeyed the terms of their covenant with the Lord in Deuteronomy 32:47:
They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
The stay of Israel in the Promised Land would be prolonged if they obeyed the word of God. Of course, the opposite of living long in the Promised Land is that of not lasting long in it as the Hebrew word is used in Deuteronomy 30:18:
I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
Not to live long here implies that Israel will be uprooted after a while from the Promised Land if they did not obey their God. There is also the sense of living a long life involved in the meaning as the word is used in God’s conditional promise made to Solomon, as we read in 1 Kings 3:14:
And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”
The word can also mean “to be patient” as it is used in Job 6:11:
“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?
Anyhow, our examination of the Hebrew word indicates that the word may mean to stay long in the Promised Land when it refers to the nation Israel but may mean to live a long life when used of an individual. In its use in the fifth commandment, it is primarily in the sense of staying long in the Promise Land with implication of living a long life for each individual. So, the point is that the original promise associated with the fifth commandment is to Israel as a group and not an individual.
In any case, we have noted that the Hebrew word used in the expression may live long has two possible meanings; that of living a long time in the land of Canaan and that of an individual living a long life. When the apostle quoted the fifth commandment, there is the possibility of misunderstanding what he had in mind. Therefore, the Holy Spirit conveyed to us through the apostle’s explanation that he meant that the Hebrew word used in the original Hebrew text of the fifth commandment is to be taken in a personalized sense of living a long life in his quotation of it. This fact that the apostle explained in what sense we are to understand the fifth commandment is also evident in the Greek word he chose in stating the promise. The translators of the NIV rendered the promise as that you may enjoy long life on the earth but the Greek literally reads you shall be a long time on the earth. The literal translation indicates that the translators of the NIV used the word “enjoy” to translate the word “be” that is used in the Greek text that we will examine later. But for the moment, we should note that the apostle used the singular and not the plural of the Greek verb that literally means “to be.” Of the two versions of the Septuagint that we have, one used a plural and the other the singular. Furthermore, the two versions used two different Greek verbs that can mean ‘”to be” but the version that used the same Greek word that apostle used is in the plural. This being the case, we would have expected the apostle to use the plural to quote verbatim from the text; instead, he chose to use the singular verb, implying that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he was even interpreting the version of the Septuagint he used to ensure we understand that in his quotation of the fifth commandment, he was explaining the promise as to apply to an individual instead of a group as the original promise imply. This being case, we are correct in stating that the apostle explained the benefit of honoring one’s parents or that of being obedient to them.
Be that as it may, an important question is to understand the promise that the apostle explained in connection with the fifth commandment of honoring one’s parents. The translators of the NIV interpreted the promise as that of enjoyment of long life because they translated the Greek clause as that you may enjoy long life on the earth but the Greek literally reads you shall be a long time on the earth. The literal translation is the base translation from which any interpretation may be taken. The literal word “be” that we used is translated from a Greek word (eimi) that basically means “to be” with several nuances. The meaning “to be” may mean to exist, as it is used by the Apostle Paul to state the existence of many gods and lords in 1 Corinthians 8:5:
For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”),
Of course, it is used in this sense of existence to describe the absolute existence of the true God in Hebrews 11:6:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
The basic meaning “to be” may have the sense of to denote possession or to belong as it is used to describe believers as belonging to God in 2 Timothy 2:19:
Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”
The clause those who are his is rendered the people who belong to him in the CEB. The meaning “to be” may have the sense of “to become” as that is the sense of the word to describe the oneness of the flesh of husband and wife in Ephesians 5:31:
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
The Greek word can also mean “to live” as the word is used in Matthew 23:30:
And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’
In our passage of Ephesians 6:3, the word has the sense of living on this planet. Thus, the promise is that honoring parents will lead to living long on this planet.
What is actually contained in the promise that you may enjoy long life on the earth or literally you shall be a long time on the earth? Is it merely concerned with long life on this planet? There are three reasons we ask this question. First, we have argued that the clause that you may enjoy long life on the earth is an explanation of the first clause that it may go well with you of Ephesians 6:3. In effect, we argued that the clause that you may enjoy long life on the earth of the NIV explains in what way it will be beneficial to honor one’s parents. The implication is that when we think of living a long life on the earth we should be thinking of it in terms of benefit or advantage one derives in living on the earth. You see, when the promise of living long in the Promised Land was given to Israel, there is the sense of benefit they will enjoy when they are in their land as against being out of it. This, we deduce from the blessing and cursing that belong to Israel for being obedient or for being disobedient to the terms of their covenant with the Lord, in particular, the threat of punishing them, as recorded in Deuteronomy 28:63:
Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
So, when the apostle applied the promise of the fifth commandment to an individual, he probably was thinking of benefits that are associated with living on this planet. Second, we know that sometimes the wicked live long and the righteous die young. Solomon conveyed this truth in Ecclesiastes 7:15:
In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.
A person who dishonors the parents is in a sense a wicked person so for such a person to live long on this planet raises question as to validity of long life promised to those who honor their parents. Third, the length of a person’s life on this planet is predetermined by the Lord before the person enters this planet. We are informed that no one lives beyond his allotted time in God’s plan, according to Job 14:5:
Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.
The psalmist declared that his days were determined before he existed in Psalm 139:16:
your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
If a person’s length of life is already determined, we wonder how honoring parents will lead to a long life. Furthermore, does it mean that a person’s life may be shortened for not honoring the parents? This does not seem to be the case. For, to shorten a person’s life would mean that God’s plan changed, which cannot be. This, we can learn from the fact that although God threatened to kill Hezekiah but He did not, because to do so will mean altering of His plan that has to do with the length of days He had predetermined for him. It would appear that Hezekiah realized this truth in his praise of God for not killing him that he considered dying when God threatened him as being robbed of the remainder of the time the Lord allotted him, as we read in Isaiah 38:10:
I said, “In the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years?”
Many think of premature death from human perspective but in reality there is no such thing. This kind of statement may unnerve some because there is a passage that implies the contrary, that is, Psalm 55:23:
But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you.
The clause deceitful men will not live out half their days is taken then by some as a reference to premature death. This is not the case; it is a statement that indicates that the wicked will die young but that is not an absolute statement about the length of time for anyone since we also have noted that the wicked live long. Instead, the clause is one that states an occurrence that can be observed under certain conditions when the wicked die young so that they would not reach old age as many at that time and today would accept dying at old ages as living a full life. Nonetheless, the clearer statement of the Scripture is that God gave each person a definite number of years to be on this planet. Therefore, no person dies before his allotted time. A person who dies when young died according to the days God has determined for the individual. This will include the young persons who are to be put to death for being rebellious to their parents, as stated in the instruction of Deuteronomy 21:18–21:
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
The young person who dies as specified here would have died at the time the Lord appointed for the individual and in this case the stoning to death would be the means of the person’s death. The Scripture implies that there is also an appointed means of death for each individual, as we can deduce from Jeremiah 15:2:
And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the Lord says: “‘Those destined for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for starvation, to starvation; those for captivity, to captivity.’
The point is that when anyone dies regardless of how and when the individual dies, that time is the person’s allotted time.
The reasons we have given enable us to answer the question of what is actually contained in the promise that you may enjoy long life on the earth or literally you shall be a long time on the earth. It means that a person who honors the parents will live out his or her allotted time in a manner that indicates the individual enjoys God’s blessings on this planet that will include peace. In other words, a person who does not honor the parents will still live out his or her allotted time but without enjoying the blessings of the Lord. This assertion leads us to consider the curse that would come to those who dishonor their parents. But before we do, we should note, as we indicated previously, that when a person does not honor the parents that individual has joined the rank of the wicked and so the person should not expect to have peace in the soul as the Scripture states that those who are wicked cannot enjoy God’s peace in Isaiah 57:21:
“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”
In any case, since there is blessing associated with honoring parents there is cursing associated with dishonoring of the parents. Every child should be aware of this curse so as to avoid showing disrespect to parents. The curse of dishonoring parents is a hard life that ends up in death. This hard life that eventually leads to death is described in two ways in Proverbs. It is described in terms of putting out the lamp of a person in Proverbs 20:20:
If a man curses his father or mother, his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.
This passage is concerned with what happens to a person who does not honor the parents. We know that it is the honoring of parents that is at stake because of the word “curse.” It is translated from a Hebrew word (qālǎl) that may mean “to disdain” or “treat someone with contempt” but in the Hebrew form (Piel) the word is used in our passage, it means to curse. Here to curse parents means to say things that dishonor them, to say bad things about them, to express a hope that something terrible will happen to them, or generally to speak to them with disrespect. Thus, if a person speaks with disrespect towards the parents then the individual has dishonored them. It is this person that it is said his lamp will be extinguished in the sentence his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness. This is clearly a figurative expression since it is not physical lamp that is the concern. Because we have a figurative expression we need to consider briefly the figurative usages of lamp.
Lamp is used as a symbol for life in various passages in the Scripture. Job used it in that sense in Job 18:6:
The light in his tent becomes dark; the lamp beside him goes out.
For lamp to go out, implies that one’s life is taken from him. By the way, Job used the “lamp” as the symbol of life, prosperity, and blessing that he had once experienced and longed to have restored to him in Job 29:2-3:
2 "How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, 3 when his lamp shone upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness!
The clause when his lamp shone upon my head is an idiom for God’s blessing on Job. Another figurative use of lamp is for guidance. It is in this sense that the word is used in Proverbs 6:23:
For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life,
There is a sense that “commands” and “teaching” are essentially the same thing so that here light and lamp are equivalent with the meaning of guidance. Still another use of lamp in a figurative sense is for the conscience of a person. It is in this sense that “lamp” is used in Proverbs 20:27:
The lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being
The word “spirit” seems to refer to the “moral and intellectual understanding” that is often expressed with the word “conscience.” The translators of TEV used the expression “mind and conscience” in their translation while the CEV used the phrase our inner thoughts so that they rendered verse 27 as: Our inner thoughts are a lamp from the Lord, and they search our hearts.
We have briefly considered the figurative usage of lamp so the question is: In what sense is it used in our passage of Proverbs 20:20? It is definitely in the sense of life but it also includes the blessings of life. In effect, we should think of the use of lamp in Proverb 20:20 in a comprehensive manner that is not only concerned with life that can be forfeited in terms of death but also everything that makes life enjoyable on this planet. This understanding means that a person may be facing the prospect of prosperity in the midst of hardship of life but suddenly that is removed from the individual because of judgment that comes as a result of dishonoring parents. We say this because the lamp is said to be extinguished in pitch darkness or more literally in the midst of darkness. Darkness may be used as a figure of hardship or unpleasant experiences of life. It can also be used as a reference to judgment from God. Thus, a person who is suffering and seems to have a glimpse of hope of blessing has that squashed because of God’s judgment that takes into consideration that of dishonoring of one’s parents. I have had the privilege of knowing several individuals to whom this passage of Proverbs 20:20 has played out. As children growing up, especially in their teenage years, they showed disrespect to their parents so that as adult their lives become one of one hardship after another. They were in different kinds of profession but when they seem to be about to advance something always happens that drags them down so that they will not experience the promotion due them. This, to me, is a good illustration of what it means for lamp to be extinguished in the midst of darkness. Of course, eventually death will come to the person who goes from one suffering to another as a result of showing disrespect to parents.
Another description of the curse in form of hardship of life that ends in death that comes to anyone that dishonors the parents is that of a person’s eyes being pecked out by ravens in Proverbs 30:17:
“The eye that mocks a father, that scorns obedience to a mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.
The use of the word “eye” here is as a reference to a person. For the word “eye” can be used to describe the whole person, as evident in Luke 10:23:
Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
Clearly, the blessing that Jesus spoke comes to a person who witnessed what He described in the context and not merely to the eye. Hence, the eye that mocks a father is a way to describe a person who mocks the father. In effect, it is another way of describing someone who does not honor the parents. The person who does this suffers hardship in life. There is no doubt that the pecking of the eyes by ravens and vultures suggests death but there is also the sense that a person could be alive and have his eyes put out which will be painful as the case experienced by Zedekiah in the hands of the king of Babylon, as described in Jeremiah 52:11:
Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon, where he put him in prison till the day of his death.
A person who has his eyes pecked out by vultures while still alive is one that will experience life of darkness in the sense that the person will have no direction in life. There are many individuals who as adult find themselves stumbling over life. If you examine them carefully you will discover that for the most part, they grew up not honoring their parents. You may be a parent with a troubled adult child, examine to see if what we have said does not apply to your child. You may have forgotten that the child was disrespectful to you as a teenager, for example, but not God. If you understand this then you have an explanation for the troubles in the life of an adult child. Thus, it is in no way beneficial to dishonor one’s parents. Every adult believer should do well to drive home to a child this curse that comes to a child who dishonors the parents if you care about helping that child. In any event, the most important responsibility of children to their parents while they live at home is to obey them or to honor them. When children grow up then they should endeavor to honor their parents that will include caring for them.