Honor your Father and your Mother

Exodus 20 gives us the ten commandments God gave to the people of Israel. The fifth (Exodus 20:12) concerns parents:

Exodus (20:12)
"Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."

God commanded the people of Israel to HONOR their father and mother. What does "honor thy father and thy mother" mean? Here's how one commentator defines it:

"This was a clear commandment from God, written by His own hand, and delivered to them through Moses; it was moral in nature, and eternal in obligation: and to be understood, not merely in the sense of the duty of respect owed by children to highly regarded parents, and of the respectful language and gestures that must be used towards them, and the docile obedience to be reserved for them; but also of the honor to be done to them with their substance, food, clothing, and supply in necessaries, when they need them; which is but a reasonable service, for all the care, expense, and trouble consented to, in bringing them up in the world" (Exposé de l'ensemble de la Bible by John Gill, Dr. John Gill. John Gill 1690-1771)

Honoring parents refers to high esteem, reverence and assistance. It means that you are there for them, you take care of them. Unlike the other commandments, where there is no specific promise directly attached to it, God, in giving this commandment, also added a specific promise. As it is written, "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be prolonged in the land that God is giving you". But He didn't stop there. Deuteronomy 5:16 declares the same commandment, but with another promise attached to it:

Deuteronomy 5:16
"Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that thy days may be prolonged [Promise 1], and that it may be well with thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. [Promise 2]."

Paul repeats this command in (Ephesians 6:2-3):

"Honor your father and your mother," (this is the first commandment with a promise), so that you may be happy and live long on earth."

Paul says it's the "first commandment with a promise". The first commandment God gave that contained a promise was the commandment to honor our parents! And what a promise it was! You will live long on earth and be happy there! Do you want to live a long life on earth? Do you want to be happy? Being happy for you means: honor your parents and that's what will happen.

As with the other commandments, so it is here, with God revealing what would happen if someone did not keep this commandment. Jesus summarizes both the commandment and what would happen if it were not kept, in Mark 7:

(Mark 7:10)
"For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother; and: Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death."

The verb "to curse" referred to here in Greek is the verb "kakologeo", meaning "to speak evil". Anyone who spoke ill of his father or mother was punished by death.

To see an example of disrespect for parents, let's continue in the above passage from Mark:

Mark 7:11-13
"But you, you say: If a man says to his father or mother: What I could have assisted you with is corban, that is, an offering to God, you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother, thus nullifying the Word of God by your tradition, which you have established. And you do many other similar things."

The word "Corban" is a Hebrew word meaning an "offering given to God". It is this word that is used in Leviticus 1:2 for example, where it says:

Leviticus 1:2
"Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When any of you makes an offering [korban] to the Lord, he shall provide cattle, large or small."

The word "offering" here is the word Korban, which the Lord also used when speaking of those Jews who did not honor their parents. In essence what these Jews were saying to their parents was "everything you could have enjoyed from me, my possessions, my income, is Korban, namely to dedicate to God and I can give you nothing". This was a vow they used to avoid assisting their parents. They were taking a vow to dedicate everything to God, and therefore they could claim that they had nothing to assist and therefore dispensed with giving support to their parents. As Barnes explains:

"Once he had consecrated his property, once he had declared it to be "Corban," or an offering to God -it was impossible to appropriate it even to assist a parent. If a relative was needy and poor, and asked his son for assistance, and the son could reply, albeit under the influence of anger, "this is consecrated to God; this property you need, and by which you were supposed to profit from me, is 'Corban' - I have given it to God;" the Jews said that the property could not be recovered, and the son was not obliged to help a relative with it. He had done a more important thing by giving it to God. The son was exempt from this duty. He could not be required to do anything for his father after that. Thus, he could, in a moment, free himself from the obligation to obey his father or mother" (Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible, Albert Barnes (1798-1870))

Our Lord Jesus Christ condemned the use of the pretext of "Corban" - offering to God - to avoid helping parents.

In a nutshell:
It's a commandment from God to honor our parents with all that honor entails. The commandment to honor our parents is the first commandment with a promise, and what a promise, in fact: To live long on earth and be happy! Most people would like nothing better than that! Well, that's the promise. But it's not unconditional! It has a condition, and it will only be granted to those who honor their parents. The commandment to honor our parents was so important that anyone who tried to speak ill of his parents suffered death. Yes, today we live under the age of grace, but the Lord's command and His promise are there. And this challenge also applies to us in the same way:

(Ephesians 6:2-3)
"Honor your father and your mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), so that you may be happy and live long on earth."