Vindication of God's Faithfulness
Bp. E. Hopkins. Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long on the land which the LORD your God gives you. We may boldly challenge long life, when all the circumstances of it will tend to our everlasting welfare. But God, who knows how frail and yielding the best of us are, and in the series of His Divine Providence seeth what prevailing temptations we shall be exposed unto, doth oftentimes, in mercy, abridge this promise; and takes us from the world, lest the world should take us from Him; and deals with us, as princes deal with duellists, they make them prisoners, that they might preserve them: so God, that He might preserve His people from their great enemy, commits them to safe custody of the grave. And, if this be to be unfaithful, certainly His faithfulness would be nothing else but an art to circumvent and undo us; should He, only to keep that inviolate, perform those promises, which would be to our hurt and detriment. Nor, indeed, can any man, whom God hath blessed with a right judgment and due esteem of things, be willing to compound for the continuance of this present life, with the hazard or diminution of his future happiness. (Bp. E. Hopkins.) Parallel Verses KJV: Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. WEB: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.