Exodus 20:12 - Meaning and Application

We have here the laws of the second table, as they are commonly called, the last six of the ten commandments. They cover our duty to ourselves and to one another, and they explain the second great commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As right living toward God is a necessary part of all true righteousness, so right living toward people is a necessary part of true religion. Godliness and honesty must go together.

I. The fifth commandment concerns the duties we owe to our family. It names children’s duty to their parents: “Honor your father and your mother.” This includes a proper respect for their persons, a sincere regard for them, and outward behavior that shows that respect in all things. We are to fear them, meaning to show reverence for them (Leviticus 19:3), and to honor them (Hebrews 12:9). The opposite is mocking them and despising them (Proverbs 30:17).

It also includes obedience to their lawful commands, as explained in (Ephesians 6:1-3): children should obey their parents, come when they call, go where they send, do what they ask, and avoid what they forbid. This obedience should come cheerfully, as children, and from love. Even if at first you say, “I will not,” you should later change your mind and obey (Matthew 21:29). The command also requires submission to their rebukes, instruction, and correction, not only when they are kind and gentle, but even when they are difficult, with a conscience toward God.

This duty further includes arranging our lives, especially in important matters, with our parents’ advice, guidance, and consent. We should not carelessly dispose of ourselves or our property without their approval. It also means doing all we can to be a comfort to them, to make their old age easier, and to support them if they need help. Our Savior says this is part of the commandment in a special way (Matthew 15:4-6). The promise attached to the command is that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

God had already reminded them in the preface that he brought them out of Egypt as a reason to obey. Here, at the start of the second table, he adds another reason, his bringing them into Canaan. That good land was to stay in their minds while they were still in the wilderness. They also had to remember that when they entered the land, they were under judgment for their conduct there. If they did not live well, their days in that land would be shortened, both for individuals who would be cut off and for the nation itself, which could be removed from it.

This promise speaks especially to obedient children. Those who do their duty to their parents are most likely to enjoy what their parents gather and leave for them. Those who support their parents will find that God, the common Father, will support them. Paul explains the promise this way: “That it may go well with you and that you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:3). Those who keep this command, and the rest of God’s commandments, out of reverence for God may be sure that things will go well with them in the end. They will live as long on earth as Infinite Wisdom sees fit, and whatever seems to be cut short here will be richly made up in eternal life, the heavenly Canaan that God will give them.

II. The sixth commandment concerns our own life and our neighbor’s life (Exodus 20:13): “You shall not kill.” It forbids doing anything harmful or injurious to the health, peace, or life of our own body or any other person, unjustly. This is one of the laws built into human nature, and it was strongly reinforced by the commands given to Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:5, 6). It does not forbid lawful war, necessary self-defense, or a magistrate putting offenders to death, because those things are meant to protect life. But it forbids all hatred and malice toward anyone, for anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. It also forbids personal revenge, rash anger in response to sudden provocation, and harmful words or actions done in passion. Christ explains the command this way (Matthew 5:22). Above all, it forbids persecution and every attempt to shed the blood of innocent and righteous people.

III. The seventh commandment concerns our own chastity and our neighbor’s chastity: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Jesus places it before the sixth commandment in (Mark 10:19): “Do not commit adultery, do not kill.” Our purity should be as precious to us as our lives, and we should fear what defiles the body as much as what destroys it. This command forbids every act of sexual uncleanness, along with the bodily lusts that lead to those acts and fight against the soul. It also forbids every practice that stirs up those lusts, including looking in order to lust, which Christ says is forbidden in this commandment (Matthew 5:28).

IV. The eighth commandment concerns our own and our neighbor’s wealth, property, and goods: “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15). God had recently allowed Israel to take the Egyptians’ goods as rightful plunder, but he did not mean for that to become a pattern for stealing from one another. This command forbids us to rob ourselves by sinful spending or by sinful stinginess that keeps us from using our goods rightly and enjoying them well. It also forbids robbing others by moving ancient boundary markers, invading a neighbor’s rights, taking goods from his person, house, or field, by force or secretly, cheating in business, failing to return what is borrowed or found, withholding fair debts, rents, or wages, and, worst of all, stealing from the public through false coin, misuse of revenue, or taking what is set apart for religion.

V. The ninth commandment concerns our own and our neighbor’s good name: “You shall not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16). It forbids, first, speaking falsely in any matter, including lying, using misleading words, and any plan meant to deceive our neighbor. Second, it forbids speaking unjustly against our neighbor in a way that harms his reputation. And third, it forbids bearing false witness against him, charging him with things he did not do, whether in court, under oath, or in ordinary conversation. This includes slander, backbiting, tale-bearing, making a small fault seem worse than it is, and any effort to build our own reputation by tearing down our neighbor’s.

VI. The tenth commandment reaches down to the root: “You shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17). The earlier commands forbid the acts that would harm our neighbor. This one forbids the wrong desires that lead to those acts. It is against the inward wish to have what belongs to someone else for our own pleasure. “Oh, that that man’s house were mine, that man’s wife were mine, that man’s estate were mine.” That is the voice of discontent with our own lot and envy toward our neighbor. Those are the sins mainly forbidden here.

Paul, when God’s grace opened his eyes, saw that this command, “You shall not covet,” forbids all those disordered cravings and desires that come first from our fallen nature. These are the first stirrings of the sin that lives in us, and the beginning of every sin we later commit. This is the lust Paul says he would not have known to be evil if this commandment had not come home to his conscience with power and shown it to him (Romans 7:7).

May God help us all to see our own faces in the mirror of this law, and to bring our hearts under its rule.