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(c) Children and parents (6:1-4).

6:1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is just. 2 Honour thy father and mother—seeing it is the first commandment with promise 3 that it may be well with thee and so thou shalt live long upon the land. 4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but nurture them in discipline and admonition of the Lord.

1-4. The exposition of the relation of the wife to the husband is followed naturally by an exposition of the relation of children to parents. Obedience (1-3) is met by loving education (4).

1. ta; t. uJpak. t. g. ] Obedience is substituted for subjection (Eph. 5:22 f.) here and in vs. 5, parallel with Col. 3:20, 22. For uJpakouvein, uJpakohv , compare Rom. 6:16
f.; Heb. 5:8 f.
ejn kurivw/ ] The child can recognise his spiritual relation to Christ in the earliest years, before doctrine is grasped intellectually. There is from the first a Divine element in all the parts of human life, and St Paul assumes the ideal as the standard. [Origen, Cat. Cr. Eph. 208 observes ajmfivbolovn ejsti to; rJhtovn: h[toi ga;r toi'" ejn kurivw/ goneu'sin crh; uJpakouvein ta; tevkna h] ejn kurivw/ dei' uJpakouvein ta; tevkna toi'" goneu'sin .]
divkaion ] The obligation lies in the nature of the relation. Compare Acts 4:19; Phil. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:6; 2 Pet. 1:13.

2. tivma ] Obedience must be founded on honour and find expression, not only in act but in feeling. The general command ( uJpakouvete ) is supplemented by the personal command ( tivma ) from the Decalogue (Ex. 20:12). [Cf. Deut. 5:16 tivma t. patevra sou k. t. mhtevra sou, o}n trovpon ejneteivlatov soi Kuvrio" oJ qeov" sou, i{na
k.t.l.
] The commandment ( ejntolh; ) is quoted [but without the promissory clause] in the Gospels: Matt. 15:4; 19:19 and parallels (Mark 7:10; Lk. 18:20).

For tima'/n see 1 Tim. 5:3; 1 Pet. 2:17 ( pavnta" timhvsate, t. basileva tima'te ). h{ti" ] Eph. 3:13; seeing it is and therefore claims regard. The interpretation of ejntolh; prwvth ejn ejpaggeliva/ is extremely uncertain. The words may mean ‘seeing it is a commandment of primary importance accompanied also by a promise’ (comp. Matt. 22:38 au{th ejsti;n hJ meg. kai; prwvth ejnt ., cf. Mark 12:28); or, as Chrysostom appears to take it, ‘seeing it is a commandment preeminent in the promise which is attached to it’ ( ouj th'/ tavxei ei\pen aujth;n prwvthn ajlla; th'/ ejpaggeliva/ ). Others take it as ‘the first commandment in the Law to which a promise is attached,’ or, since the words are addressed to children, ‘the first, earliest, commandment to be learnt....’ No
explanation seems to be wholly satisfactory. [The alternative punctuation
prwvth, ejn ejpaggeliva/ i{na (Westcott and Hort marg. ) leads to a slightly modified form of the first of the interpretations here recognised: ‘a primary commandment, carrying with it the promise—the offer and the benediction— that it may be well with thee and that thou shalt live long upon the land. ’]

3. i{na...gevnhtai kai; e[sh/ ...] A similar combination of moods with i{na in the reversed order is found in Apoc. 22:14, and i{na occurs elsewhere with the future: 1 Cor. 9:18; Gal. 2:4. The difference between the moods is preserved: that it may be well...and so thou shalt be ....
ejpi; th'" gh'" ] upon the land. The remainder of the quotation is assumed to be known.

4. kai; oiJ patevre" ...] The duty of parents is connected closely with the duty of children (so Eph. 69). There is no kaiv in c. 5:25. ‘Fathers’ stand in place of ‘parents’ (vs. 1), because the government and discipline of the house rest with them.


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