Am I My Father's Keeper?

In the fourth chapter of Genesis, we find the well-known story of Cain and Abel. After Cain is filled with jealousy and murders his kin, God asks him directly, “Where is Abel, your brother?” Cain answers, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 

The sentiment of the first kin-slayer in this question is that which especially characterizes violation of the Fifth Word. In the case of Cain, he was not Abel’s father, yet God expected some form of protection and care from him as an older brother. Cain shirked away any form of care for his brother in his evil action and response. We might say that Cain failed to recognize the office which he possessed and acted out of accord with it. 

Today, as parents age and more responsibility is demanded of children who live independently, we see a similar response, “Am I my father’s keeper?” It’s hard for us to imagine giving up our jobs or allowing an intrusion into our homes when we see so few examples of it in the world today. But this question—this casting off of responsibility—is not the proper response to God’s question, “Where is your father?” 

Instead, we must learn to accept the office which we each possess and the perpetual relationship which binds us to our parents. In contrast with the hateful reaction of Cain is the loving response of the Lord Jesus. When facing His impending crucifixion, Jesus sees His mother and his friend, John. “Woman, behold, your son!” In one of His final acts before being killed, Jesus recognizes His office as son, sees His mother, and ensures she will have a keeper when He is gone. 

What will it take for us to accept our office and to take up the duties required of us? I propose we take a fresh look at the Fifth Word to help us characterize the offices of parent and child. Following this work, we can begin to understand the duties that are required of us.

Examining the Fifth Word

Honor

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

We need to define two words to consider the concept of “honor” well.

The first is kavod. In the original Hebrew found in Exodus 20, the commandment instructs children to give kavod (honor) to their parents. This word is a cognate of the word kaved, meaning “heavy” or “weighty.”

In his book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, Dr. Yoram Hazony continues the development of this word. In English, we may say that we ‘give weight’ to someone’s words when we take them to be important. But the Hebrew kavod is not a weightiness that is given only to words, advice, or opinions. It is given to the person himself. 

The second word is makleh, or “making light.” In Deuteronomy 27:16, the Levites declare to the people, “Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother.” The word translated “dishonor” here is makleh. Samuel Willard, in his commentary on the Westminster Standards’ teaching of the fifth word uses the word “contemn” to reaffirm this concept of “making light” in contrast with the word “honor.”

The biblical idea of showing honor, then, ought to be seen on a spectrum of heaviness. The object being measured is a person, and the unit of measurement is honor. In the context of the fifth word, a child who gives heaviness to the very person of his father and his mother does well. On the other hand, a child who makes light of his father and his mother violates this commandment. Within this economy of honor, the focal point is the person himself. Notice the phrasing of this command as found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.

“Honor your father and your mother…” (Exodus 20:12a, ESV)

“Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father…” (Leviticus 19:3a, ESV)

“Honor your father and your mother” (Deuteronomy 5:16a)

In each appearance of this command, the object of significance and regard is the person himself, not the  father’s isolated words or incidents. There is something worth observing here, related to the special places of fathers and mothers, requiring a look at the next part of the Fifth Word.

Father and Mother

In serving as the head of the second table, the Fifth Word also serves as somewhat of a tail to the first table. Following the first four words, which demand reverence and right worship of God, the student of the Decalogue begins to see who his neighbors are. The very first neighbors he sees are his parents, and rightly so. 

Martin Luther observes that God has given the “estate of fatherhood and motherhood” a “special distinction above all estates beneath it.” In commanding honor to be shown to father and mother, more is demanded than love. For the duties of honor encompass “not only love, but also modesty, humility, and deference [or subjection].” And why? 

Luther fixes the target of honor on something crucial: “a majesty there hidden.” Drawing this idea out, Dr. Myles Werntz notes that there is something in the office (or role) of parent as opposed to executing the tasks of parenting. “What makes parents honorable is not the execution of parenting, but the role of parent. To be a parent is to qualify to be revered.” The point is there is something akin to royalty, not essentially in the words and actions of each parent, but in the offices of fatherhood and motherhood.

But why? What is the “majesty there hidden” in parents? Yoram Hazony frames this out even further in his aforementioned book. 

Human beings understand reality in terms of relations of cause and effect. An object is understood to be important or significant to the extent that it acts as a cause affecting other things, and unimportant or insignificant to the extent that it fails to have an effect on other things. The same is true of the way we understand people. We regard them as important to the extent that they have an effect on others, and unimportant if they fail to have an effect on others.

The idea here is that of honor. The person that will receive the most honor is one regarded as the most important, based upon the “extent that [this person] acts as a cause affecting other things.” An easy example is that of a high school coach. When a head football coach wins state championships and puts the school’s name out for all to see, he is regarded as important. It was, after all, his coaching and training and planning and play calling that brought the team to victory. He is deemed significant because the extent to which he acts as a cause affecting other things is very great. 

In the show Friday Night Lights, Coach Eric Taylor is the object of significance in the small town of Dillon, Texas. Football means everything to the town, so there is nothing greater than the possibility of a state championship title. As such, Coach Taylor is an honored guest everywhere he goes. He is asked to make appearances at pancake breakfasts, car dealerships, and other city-wide functions. Each and every one of his players fears him in a way. They take every word out of his mouth more seriously than that of any other authority figure. When he walks into a room, it goes quiet, and all attention is directed to him. Yet, Coach Taylor sleeps and goes to the bathroom. Somehow, he is still considered significant in these moments despite a lack of great effect. It is because Coach Taylor has achieved the state title previously and because he may yet do it again, not because every word he says affects so many things. This is the basis for honor.

Why, then, does God begin with an expectation that parents are worthy of honor? Indeed, parents are a significant cause in their children’s lives, for the life of the child is an effect resulting from a cause of the parents. In ordaining the enduring of life in this world, the Creator God himself granted human beings the capacity to act as his sub-creators. Man and woman have the potential to generate new life—the closest the human race will ever get to a truly transcendent act of creation and the most permanent effect that could possibly be caused. A father and a mother beget a daughter and suddenly they are swept up into the worthy calling of parents simply because of the birth of new life. A child may not realize it for many years to come, but his very life is an effect caused by his parents. This gift of generation is what bestows the “majesty there hidden” upon parents.

Long Life

Finally, attached to the Fifth Word is a promise of long life—the first promise attached to a commandment, the Apostle Paul says. “That you may live long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” This promise is intimately connected with the offices of both parent and child. It acts as a “preparation and constraining motive of obedience” to the following five commandments having to do with neighbor-to-neighbor relations.

The Fifth Word not only informs parent-child relations, it sets the precedent for all neighbor-to-neighbor relations. In the Protestant Reformed tradition, the categories of “superior” and “inferior” are derived from the Fifth Word’s usage of parent and child. Calvin, Ursinus, and Willard all support this reading, for example. All of the obligations for love of one’s neighbor begin with the Fifth Word, even if there is a focus on the relation of parents and children. As such, God includes a promise to this command to emphasize the value of it and to esteem those who obey it.

Offices, Callings, Duties

To further clarify what the Fifth Word means for us, it is helpful to think about how it gives each of us an office, a calling, and duties in keeping with that office and calling.

Offices: Parent-Child, Begetter/Begotten

The perpetuity of the offices of parent and child is rooted in the creational order of the world. Two individuals, who would become a father and a mother, came together to conceive an immortal body and soul, by the gift of God. By the act of generation, both parents are Begetters of life. By the reception of this gift of life, children are Begotten. There is nothing that can mute the permanence of these offices. 

Callings: Nourisher/Dependent, Governor/Subject, Teacher/Student

Second, each office bears a number of callings which may be deduced from the office’s role in Begetter-ness/Begotten-ness, to coin a new term. For parents, the callings are Nourisher (Matt. 7:9), Governor (Prov. 13:1, 19:18), and Teacher (Eph. 6:4, Deut. 4:9). For children, the callings correspond directly to those of the parents: Dependent, Subject, and Student.

Duties: Callings & Station of Life

Third, the duties of both parents and child are rooted in their respective callings. While offices and callings correspond directly from child to parent and vice versa, the duties required of each individual are not dependent upon one another. For example, if a father fails to fulfill the duties of being a Teacher to his children, it does not excuse the children’s duties to remain Students of their father. The basis for office is creational and mutual, but the basis for duty exists irrespective of the actions of others. This is especially true for children. As examined above, children owe parents honor, not unconditionally, but on the condition of their office. There is within parents a “majesty there hidden” because of the great extent to which fathers and mothers act as a cause affecting the very life of their child. 

This is the point at which it becomes difficult to accept the duties of each office and calling. It is also at this point that the Apostle Paul reminds children to keep this command, along with urging fathers and mothers not to provoke their children to anger. In other words, parents and children are to abide by the Fifth Word, doing well to remember that all is done as working for the Lord. 

What, then, are the duties of each calling? The duties of each calling are proper to their office, insofar as the corresponding office’s station of life requires. That is, it is proper for a father to fulfill the duties of nourishing his son insofar as his son has need of nourishment (and vice versa, but more on that later). An infant is fully dependent upon his mother to feed him milk in his first months of life. A teenager is dependent upon his father and mother economically but does not (in most cases) require being physically fed. Eventually, a son lives outside of his parents’ home and will care for himself independently, requiring virtually no nourishment. The offices of parent and child correspond to one another and the duties of each office correspond to stations of life.

This is where the contemporary paradigm must shift to the ancient paradigm of Holy Scripture. Yoram Hazony, against the consensus of this day and age, claims that “the human individual is not born free and equal. On the contrary, he is born weak, dependent, and ignorant—in the lowest position within a family hierarchy in which everyone he meets is stronger, wiser, and more capable than he is.” There is a natural progression to be climbed in each family hierarchy. When a child recognizes himself as inferior in this hierarchy, he holds each of his superiors with great weight—with honor. Only in doing this does he progress and mature in knowledge, wisdom, and ability until one day he takes the place of his superiors. The inclination of parents today to see their adult children as equals is only natural, for children naturally grow in stature and meet their parents’ ability as adults. Yet children do their parents a disservice when they fail to show them honor in adulthood, for their parents were their Nourishers, Governors, and Teachers—the ones who brought them up to the place of maturity. When children become capable of being Nourishers, Governors, and Teachers themselves, their office as Begotten binds them to meet the station of life which their parents inhabit, in a way returning the gift of life they received from their parents.

Conclusion

In conclusion, children inhabit a unique office which they hold as long as they live. The office of child, being rooted in Begotten-ness, requires a burden of its bearers. This burden is heavy, but it is not new or foreign to each person, for it is the same burden that each daughter’s father and mother bore for her. Children have an obligation to give weight to their parents, despite their mistakes and shortcomings. Children have a choice each day between giving weight to or making light of their parents; of acting in their office in virtue or in vice; in living long in the land or in being cursed; in asking, “Am I my father’s keeper?” or in proclaiming, “Behold, your son!” At the very least, children need to bear in mind their office, their callings, and the duties required of them along with the station of their father and their mother.