The Westminster Shorter Catechism

Q63. Which is the Fifth Commandment?

A. The Fifth Commandment is, honour thy father and thy mother; that
thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.[1]

Proofs

[1] Exodus 20:12.

Comments

Does the Fifth Commandment belong to the first table of the Law or to the second? There are some who believe that Moses was holding two tablets with a duplicate of the Ten Commandments in each tablet. This is based on the theory that the Mosaic Covenant parallels the suzerainty covenants in the Ancient Near Eastern culture. Such covenants were made between sovereign or conquering kings with the people who have been brought under subjection to them. The treaties or covenants were dictated on the terms of the sovereign and one copy was kept by each party. It is said that this was the case with the Ten Commandments. But in this case both tablets were laid in the ark because the ark represents the throne of God as well as the most sacred place of the people of Israel.

This theory may or may not be correct, and it should not affect our understanding of the Ten Commandments at all. For whether the Ten Commandments were divided into two tablets or was written in duplicate, we know that the Ten Commandments is indeed logically divided into two tables in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ summarises the Law of God thus: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mt 22:37–40). When we look into the Ten Commandments, we discover that there are indeed two sections: one section pertaining to our duty towards God and the other pertaining to our duty towards man.

It may seem an idle question whether the Fifth Commandment is in the first table or the second, but this question has been often debated in the early Church. The Jews, such as Josephus and Philo, had the Fifth Commandment in the first table, and the Church Father Irenaeus followed their division. Such a division has the advantage of showing that the Fifth Commandment is about honouring the authorities that God has set in His place. But this division is unlikely since our Lord nowhere quotes directly from the first table of the Decalogue, and when He lists the second table, He includes the Fifth Commandment among the commandments that deals with our duty towards our neighbours (Mt 19:18–19).

In any case, the fact that any can even consider that the Fifth Commandment to have a place in the first table shows us how appropriate it is for it to head the second table before the Sixth Commandment. Left to man’s unaided wisdom, he would certainly put the Sixth Commandment as more important than the Fifth. But God knows best. The Fifth Commandment must be the first commandment relating to man, that a child must learn. If he does not learn to submit to lawful authority, he will never understand the meaning of submission and obedience, and so it would be futile to teach him anything that is contrary to selfishness.