Here is another tough question from a Christian teen that addresses a concern about how God treated children in the Old Testament. This is a sensitive topic for young people, so it’s important for Christian parents, teachers and other adults to answer in both truth and love.
“Parents being legally allowed to have their children stoned for cursing them (Leviticus 20:9 Deuteronomy 21:18-21). Perhaps this protected the children by precluding parents from killing them directly and necessitating legal procedures, but still, how can the death penalty for saying something be right?”
Great question!
Let’s look at the history of God’s Law concerning parents and children to get some perspective to your question.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”
Exodus 20:12
This is the 5th of the Ten Commandments. The Commandments began with how God’s people were to respond to God (1-4). Commandments 6-10 addressed how to respond to neighbors. Command 5 about children and parents immediately followed commandments about God and just before commandments concerning God’s people. That gives us some sense of its importance to God. Even as the people of Israel were the children of God, their Heavenly Father, so children in Israel were members of God’s ordained family unit. Obedience to parents also included the promise of long life (‘that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you’).
The Apostle Paul repeated Commandment Five in his letter to the Ephesians. Notice how he called it “the first commandment with promise.”
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with promise: ‘that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
Ephesians 6:1-3
Paul repeated the ‘live long on the earth’ from Leviticus and added ‘that it may be well with you.’ God’s promise to obedient children is a long life on earth that is lived well.
Leviticus 20 concerns penalties for breaking God’s Law. At the end of Leviticus 19, God said –
“Therefore you shall observe all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them: I am the Lord.”
God’s Laws can be understood as positive Laws (do) and negative Laws (don’t do). We find hundreds of both types of Laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Laws concerning family are also positive and negative.
Exodus 21:17 – “And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death” – is in the middle of a list of violent offenses, so God views a child cursing father or mother as violence. That’s interesting. Also in that same list is ‘striking’ father or mother. Striking and cursing father or mother are listed together. Why?
There are two commandments that are sins of the tongue. One is blasphemy against God and the other is a child cursing parents. Punishment for both was death. Why?
First, let’s look at the sin of cursing/blaspheming God –
“Then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death.”
Leviticus 24:15-16
The Hebrew word for curse is qalal and is the same for cursing God or parents. It means ‘show contempt for, despise someone.’ It is saying to someone, be ‘accursed.’
The Hebrew word for ‘blaspheme’ is naqab and means ‘to pierce, to bore through, to curse.’ The word is often used in the Old Testament for blaspheming the name of God or the king. Jews later believed that blasphemy against the king was also an offense worthy of death.
God apparently viewed cursing one’s parents on a similar level of importance as cursing Him. It was a demonstration of someone’s complete contempt for God or parents. This was not just a child ‘acting out’ as a child or childish disobedience. The sin was an act of rebellion that led to the person’s contempt for God or parents. Rebellion toward parents was a direct rebellion of God.
God set up the human family as representative of His rule on earth. God gave fathers and mothers specific instruction about how to raise their children in the fear and knowledge of the Lord.
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:6-9
We see this in the Law, the Prophets and the Writings – parents responsible for training their children in the way they should go. God holds parents responsible for raising children and holds children responsible for obeying parents.
It’s a simple and profound idea that has the potential of doing much good for a nation as well as much bad. Good if parents raise their children in the Lord and children obey their parents in the Lord. Bad if parents do not raise their children in the Lord and children do not obey their parents in the Lord.
Notice in Leviticus 20:9 that “His blood shall be upon him.” The idea is that the disobedient child is guilty of his own death and deserves to die for so unnatural a crime.
At what age would a disobedient ‘child’ be guilty of their own death and deserve to die for so unnatural a crime?
We learn more in Moses’ rehearsal of God’s Laws in Deuteronomy –
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.”
Deuteronomy 21:18-21
The son is a young man, not a young child. The young man refused to obey his father or mother. The young man was ‘stubborn and rebellious.’ He would not obey his parents even after they had ‘chastened’ (Hebrew – yasar – disciplined, admonished) him. He was a ‘glutton and a drunkard.’ This was an ‘evil’ that had to be dealt with among the people of Israel.
God established this familial system for the health of a nation. Every tribe of Israel was affected by the strength or weakness of every family in their tribe. The nation of Israel was affected by the strength or weakness of every tribe in the nation. God’s Laws for the family demonstrate His love for His people individually and corporately.
This Law was far more than a child saying something to their parents or for being disobedient. This was for a young man who was living a rebellious life of a glutton and drunkard. This was a young person who demonstrated great contempt (curse) for their parents. The parents were not able to do anything other than take their problem to the elders of Israel. The parents would have known the Law and known what might happen if their son continued to curse them even when confronted by the elders. It would have been a final attempt on the parents’ part to bring their son back from his evil rebellion.
Previous Tough Questions
You can read answers to other tough questions from Christian teens here.
The Next Question
In the next part of our special series, Tough Questions From Christian Teens, we will address the question —
What About Predestination?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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