---

I. THE UNFILIAL SPIRIT IN TWO ASPECTS.

1. He that smiteth his father or his mother.

(1) A child may smite his parent literally, as in the case of those brutes we read of in the newspapers every week.

(2) A child may smite his parents' authority by rebellion in thought, word, or deed; e.g., Absalom.

(3) A child may smite his parents' wealth by extravagance or carelessness.

(4) A child may smite his parents' character by an incautious revelation of domestic secrets.

(5) A child may smite his parents' health, and, by misconduct, bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; e.g., Joseph's brethren.

(6) A child may smite his parents' heart, and break it by disobedience and wilfulness; e.g., sons of Eli.

2. "He that curseth (lit. revileth) his father or his mother."(1) A child may revile his parents by an assertion of personal independence.

(2) A child may revile his parents by speaking of them in a careless and irreverent way.

(3) A child may revile his parents by speaking to them in a familiar or impertinent way.

(4) A child may revile his parents by treating their counsels with contempt; and(5) Alas! a child may revile his parents by cursing them to their face.

II. THE UNIFORM PUNISHMENT OF THE UNFILIAL SPIRIT. "Shall surely be put to death." The letter of this condemnation is now repealed, but its spirit lives on through the ages.

1. An unfilial child dies to the respect of civilised society.

2. An unfilial child is morally dead. If the sign of the moral life is "love of the brethren," how dead must he be in whom filial respect and love is extinct!

3. An unfilial child, inasmuch as he breaks a moral law, and a law that partakes of the qualities of both tables and combines them, dies in a more terrible sense. "The soul that sinneth it shall die."

(J. W. Burn.)

---

---

KJV: And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

WEB: "Anyone who attacks his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.