How To Get Snuffed Out

*Whoever *brings *his father or mother *to ruin *diminishes *the lamp of his eye *to utter darkness. (MAST)

Proverbs 20:20 (NKJV)

20 Whoever curses his father or his mother, His lamp will be put out in deep darkness.

*[Whoever] literally, he who. This is the masculine participle of the verb (Matt.15:4; Mk.7:10). But it is fair to say that this applies to any son or daughter who has a father or mother. It applies to whomever it may concern regarding the proper respect and honor that a father or mother is due (Mk.7:10; Ex.20:12). While this is addressing specifically the masculine offspring, it equally applies to the feminine as well. But since it is more often that the son dishonors this headship rather than the daughter, and because the Hebrew culture held greater expectations for the males, to carry the lead in this honoring of father and mother, particularly the firstborn, the Spirit of Scripture puts more weight and responsibility upon the sons (Ex.21:17). 

However, I believe the NKJV translators offer the best direction into our understanding. Yet the ESV offers a conditional clause, which doesn’t even exist, as the verb stems create one absolute statement of fact. It is not a hypothetical statement. There are no exceptions or possibilities of meeting some condition to this statement of fact. Therefore, the “whoever” addresses us all in the assumption that we are laboring to do our own self-examination. All of us have brought father or mother shame. All of us have cheapened the value God has made parents responsible for (Lev.19:32; Pr.4:7-10; Pr.5:3, 7-10). There are no exceptions. All of us are guilty. We have sought to prostitute our government for this purpose to avoid the heaviness and weight of this honor and to bury the glory that father and mother were to carry for their children.

It is because of this honor that God gave father and mother in the commandment (Ps.21:5), that children are to obey and image this splendor (Pr.6:20-21; 20:29). It is God’s splendor (Ps.96:6-9; 145:5) to crown the greatest of the creation with this honor (Ps.8:5; Pr.29:23). They are to reflect this honor as though it were gold (Lev.19:32; Dan.7:9). But what child comes into this world recognizing the value of this honor in the face of a father or mother’s wisdom? No, not one (Dt.27:16)! So this is as good as condemning us all under the condemnation of this death (Rom.3:10-21). Every one of us is deserving of the fulfillment of this death (Rom.6:23). 

Again, there are no exceptions to this rule! Even in the smallest degree, the Law and the Christ declare we are worthy of this death unto death. It is the same condemnation of Adam’s cursing of the order and image of God, ‘you shall surely die.’ It is the removal of all of God’s light from within the soul. It begins with spiritual death and consummates in physical death. Therefore, if ever there was a condition, none of us could fulfill it. So we are all-inclusive to Adam’s blasphemy of the original commandment of the Almighty Father’s creation (Gen.2:16-17). So we come now to our next Hebrew word.

$[brings] literally, to despise. But the Piel voice pictures the subject of the verb bringing about the effect of the stem's object. So in this contempt of father or mother (or both), it carries the reputation of their honor into a state of ruin or corruption. The Qal stem defines the verb action as to lighten or lessen the stem's object. And so I don’t believe Solomon is seeking to change the meaning of the verb by using the Piel form. 

The Piel form is merely giving us the intensive or intentional action of the verb. This despising of father or mother is deliberate and purposeful. It’s not an off the cuff statement. It’s not a slip of the tongue or unintentional curse in expressing some temporary frustration or insanity. Rather, this is to carry the demeanor and disposition of contempt for the God-given honor of the parent or parents (Dt.27:16). It's to despise the parent for who the parent is as a person, particularly a person that stands on godly principals (Ezk.22:7). The parent is despised for who the parent represents (Ezk.22:8). The verb further expresses the heaviness or weight of honor given to the parent by God in their pursuit to follow the light in God (1Jn.1:5; Jn.3:19-21). 

The Hiphil stem and voice further describe the verb's meaning as to bring into dishonor and be careless of the parent’s responsibility. It is a perpetual carefree attitude towards the commands of the father or mother (Pr.13:24; 15:10; Hos.7:15). It’s a lack of faith and sight on the part of the offspring into the justice of God. So there is no motivation to move on behalf of the father or mother’s honor. Instead of lessening ‘the burden’ of the weight of this honor of headship, they devalue their honor by adding to the weight of the burden with the disposition of the spiritually lazy man (Pr.24:15-20; 29:17). 

A spiritually lazy man thinks little of the honor of his parents. So in his aim to please only himself, he carries no thoughts to what might increase the value of a father or mother’s honor in this headship. Surely, he could ask for more grace and faith to increase the worth of their home's fruitfulness and responsible service to the community. Surely, he could find work to help carry the burdens of their promises and to think of ways to make the yields of their fields more efficient. Instead, it is his disposition to cast off his own responsibility onto the father or mother to carry the home's burden alone and loaf on the pleasures of it at their expense. So it is a lifestyle of sucking the life out of the father and mother in order to fill his own desires with the pleasures of darkness. 

$[his father or mother] presumably, the honor of father and mother, but literally, his father and/or mother. The conjunction, here, can be translated either as “and” or as “or” in the function of this stem. I do believe “or” is the better option for our context so that it can be understood both ways, in that the father and mother can be observed as one house or as individuals separated, whether in death or divorce. We also have our Lord’s own rendering of it in the Greek, which does use the distinction of the conjunction in the logical disjunctive as “or” (Mk.7:10). In either case, the point and conclusion of the action remain the same. So however this is to be understood, it doesn’t change the conclusion of the whole matter. As I noted earlier, I believe we can presume that as objects of the verb’s relationship to the subject of the following verb stem, ‘the lamp of the eye,’ we can understand it was the father or mother’s honor to impart ‘the light of the Word’ to this offspring (Eph.6:4; Dt.27:26; 28:58-59; 29:27-29). 

Parents have the grave responsibility to shine the light of the Word into the void and emptiness of the soul (Gen.1:1-5; Eph.5:8; 1Thess.5:5). Parents are to understand that it is a gift of God to fill their children with the light of God’s presence (Ps.127:3; Pr.17:6; Num.18:6). Parents are to first understand how their child's soul enters the fallen world (Ps.51:5). Their offspring is conceived in sin and in all of the depravity of that sin (Jer.17:9; Pr.17:20; Gen.5:2-3; Rom.1:30; 2Tim.3:2). This burden is heavy because of the first commandment's holiness to honor God first (Gen.3:11; Ex.20:1-3; Matt.22:37). In Adam’s rebellion against this commandment, he was left alone to multiply and fill the earth without the light of God’s presence and the blessing of this honor (Gen.3:17-19, 22-24). But with the proper sacrifice, he could call upon God to shine light into the consequences of his sin (Gen.3:14-15, 21). Christ fulfills this sacrifice as God has spoken in His only Son (Heb.1:1-2). This burden, to shine the light of Christ into the heart of their offspring (2Cor.4:6; Eph.5:13; 2Pet.1:19), is for the father and mother to carry (Eph.5.22-24; 6:1; Col.3:18-20), but they don’t have to carry it alone (Gal.6:1-5), when God has given the church to help equip them to polish this honor into the fulness of its splendor (1Pet.3:1-7). 

$[to ruin] literally, to curse. But when the offspring spurns this honor and rejects the light (Jn.3:19-21), he defaces the image of the family and cheapens “the grace of life” in the abuse of the parents’ favor and love upon him (or her) (Jn.3:14-16; Zech.12:10; Ps.22:16; Acts 2:22-24). As Adam became a curse to God, the offspring [is] a curse on the efforts to reform the son or daughter's heart. While this obedience to the responsibility may not appear to be working to sanctify the child (1Cor.7:14), it is working to sanctify the parent (Rom.8:28). The parent may lose all to this world and come to ruin in this life in the effort to obey God’s command (2Cor.4:8-18). However, they will still retain their own soul through the grace of God’s promise and gain all glory in the life and inheritance of the Spirit while the rebellious gain the world they so desperately love (Lk.9:25). Therefore this can only be an external curse in the sight of men (2Cor.4:3), and internal suffering in the pain of watching their beloved destroy himself (Jer.25:7; Pr.8:36; Rom.2:4; 2Tim.4:2; 2Pet.3:9,15; Ezk.33:11). 

And despite all this, and as all of this is a shadow of the cross of Christ, we still have the picture of the gospel when God is with us (Ps.23:4). Christ became a curse for us, to redeem us from the curse of this law, and to remove “the heaviness of the burden” without cheapening “the splendor of its honor and grace” (Gal.3:10,13). Christ fulfills the obedience on behalf of the son while also giving light on behalf of the parents where there is no light (1Jn.1:5-10). Christ is the true mediator between God and men. The verb also means to be fast or to be swift. In this use, the son is quick to move ahead of the father’s honor to rule over him to his father’s ruin (Ecc.7:29; 8:9; Ps.22:1; Matt.27:46) as was the case of Solomon’s half brothers, Absalom and Adonijah, who sought to go around their father to bring the house of David to destruction. So Solomon understands this firsthand. Some children have now been exalted to rule on behalf of their fathers to judge against their fathers' very wisdom echoing Ecc. 8:9. 

And so, in this race to speed up the increase of knowledge (Isa.3:4-5; Dan.12:4; Rom.1:28-31), all he will do is make light of his father or mother’s ‘spiritual’ wisdom. He will belittle their doctrine and treat it as insignificant to his carnal plans (1Cor.1:18-21). He will slight his parents to honor himself and exploit their weaknesses to advance his own name (Ecc.7:1; Pr.22:1). Instead of increasing the father or mother’s honor by abiding and joining his own to the family’s yield (Ps.107:36-37; Rev.21:26), he trifles with the integrity of the family’s name (Matt.27:29; 2Pet.3:16; Dt.16:19; Ps.56:5; Pr.19:3; Isa.27:1). Rather than pursuing to be a complementary asset (1Tim.4:12), he competes as an enemy of this honor (1Tim.1:8-9; 1Tim.5:1-2 ; 1Cor.11:3; Eph.5:23; Col.2:18-19). And so, in the nature of his despising the honor of father or mother, he actively curses it, not to glorify God’s honor, but his own shame (Phil.3:18-20). It’s a dishonoring of what God already made honorable to all men (Heb.13:4), not a dishonoring of what a father or mother may have done to dishonor God (Eph.5:11-14). It is one thing to exploit a parent for a sin against God’s honor and another to exploit a parent to hide a sin of your own. 

$[diminishes] literally, to snuff out or to extinguish. But in this case, it is not the immediate act of extermination, (that is, death)(Mk.7:10; Rom.6:23), but the process of disappearing, a suppression (Rom.1:18) of this “external” light, which reveals the darkness and empty void within (Jn.12:35,46; 1Jn.1:6; 2:8). It is a looking away from the light that the parent is shining into the external nature of the eyes of the offspring (Jn.5:35). It is a hatred of spiritual truths that are a light to the feet and a lamp for their path (Ps.119:105). The carnal and natural response is to suppress or shut off this light, this transcendent honor and splendor, which is crowned upon the father or mother in the face of Jesus Christ (Jn.3:19-21). 

Now, this light is not to be confused with the light that [is] Christ (Jn.1:8). This is the light (of life) that Christ gave to dwell in the father or mother sanctified by Christ (Jn.1:4, 6-9). “That” light (of life), which is in them (Matt.5:14; Eph.5:8), can be diminished (Lk.8:16; Matt.25:3) and is even promised by God to be removed from the earth (Rev.18:23), but the light that [is] Christ cannot be diminished (Jn.1:5). This light, our light, is permitted to “die out” (2Cor.4:11). Like a vapor, it vanishes away (James 4:14). This light is temporal and conditional in how it abides in the true light (Jn.1:9; 12:46; 1Jn.2:8) of God’s image in the face of Christ. 

$[the lamp of his eye] literally, the wick of his pupil. Solomon is zeroing in on how the eye works to demonstrate an image of how the soul of a man is dependent upon the light of truth to live (Jn.1:9; 5:21; 6:33). The wick of a lamp is like the pupil of the eye. It determines how much light goes in or out of the soul. The greater the length of the wick, the brighter the light will be in the dark space of the room. And vice versa. The lesser the length of the wick, the less light will be in the dark space of the room. But the comparison here of the lamp is with the eye of a man (Matt.6:22-23). Christ also made the same comparison of the soul with a lamp (Lk.11:33-36). And so, by the light of Christ, we can see into the soul as a lamp can see into a dark room (Mk.4:21-22). 

Eye doctors can look into the back end (the retina) of the eye when the pupil dilates because the light exposes more of its internals. However, the pupil's ‘natural’ reflex is to shrink to block out excessive light so that the retina doesn’t burn (Jn.3:19-21). Our father or mother is responsible for being a lampstand for our eyes as were the lampstands were to always be shining inside and outside the temple as a witness of God’s presence among the children of Israel (Lev.24:1-4). Eli and his sons were responsible for keeping these lamps lit internally and externally twenty-four hours a day for seven days a week and failed miserably, which led to their deaths (Ex.27:20-21; 2Chr.2:4; 1Sam.2:22-33; 3:2-4; 4:10-22). They failed to bear witness to the light of Yahweh (Ps.104:4; Job.18:5; Isa.10:17). And so their lamps were put out for failure to keep the flame burning before the LORD (Rev.1:14; 2:18; 19:12). 

In the same way, we may fail to keep our eyes upon the light of Christ (Heb.12:2), and therefore our flame burns out because there is no oil in our soul to keep us in the love of God (Jude 20-21), which remains attracted to the beauty of the glory of the gospel and abides in the desires and tastes of the Lord. And so when the human eye is thoroughly examined by the brightness of Christ’s light gazing into the soul (Rev.20:11-15), (the retina, if you will), is burnt out and is nothing more than a useless wick that can never be ignited again (2Thess.2:8). Unless the Spirit of holiness abides in the soul, to keep the wick like oil, in which there is an eternal fuel that always satisfies the flame of the Lord (2Tim.1:6 (ESV)), the sons of wickedness are promised the second death (Rev.14:11). 

$[to utter darkness] literally, to the extent of darkness. It is the deepest darkness (Gen.1:2; Job.12:22; 38:17; Ps.88:6; Pr.4:19; Jer.13:16; Dan.2:22; Amos 5:8). It is the outer darkness where there is no true light (Matt.8:10-12). The image is of the eye at death as the pupil expands over the iris to utter blackness, where the image of the eye is empty and void of light (Matt.22:1-14). But what is this demonstrating more than even death? Now, this is the shadow of judgment where the secret parts of the soul are exposed to the great white judgment of the throne of God in the express brightness of His light (Rom.2:16). What was hidden in the dark, by this veil of the light of the world (Jn.5:22-24; 12:44-50), is now stripped away without an intercessor, without the life and love of father or mother, without the light of Christ to cover the naked eye from the judgment (Isa.13:8). The soul is now fully exposed, but without an advocate (Eph.5:11-14). There is no light to stand between the brightness of the full glory of God because they are without the face of Christ (2Cor.4:6). The dark secrets of the soul will be consumed by the fire of this everlasting light (Heb.12:29). Nothing of the man will remain that is good and acceptable in God’s sight who has cursed the lamp, the pupil, the wick of his eye (Heb.6:8). The father or mother's light is no longer there to comfort the naked offspring of the stillborn soul (Jn.5:35). He is left all alone to stand for himself before the Almighty God and Creator of the universe. The spiritual lazy man has received his reward (Matt.25:26). He has reaped the full wages for his sin (Rom.6:23).