Leviticus 19 · Passage · Honour
Rise in the Presence of the Elderly
The law of holiness told Israel to stand up before the grey-haired and to honour the aged, and it tied both duties to the fear of God.
John Gill reported the Jewish reckoning that a man reached old age at sixty and grey hairs at seventy.
You are to rise in the presence of the elderly, honor the aged, and fear your God. I am the LORD.
- The passage
- Leviticus 19:32, Leviticus 19:1 to 37
- Book
- Leviticus
- Hold in memory
- Proverbs 16:31
Summary
The command to honour the old closes with the words that ground it, the fear of God and the name of the LORD. Scripture honours age and the counsel it brings, and it also shows that years alone do not make a person wise. The church received the same duty as the respect a family owes its elders.
- The law sets respect for the old beside its protection of the deaf and the blind.
- King Rehoboam lost the northern tribes after he chose the advice of the young men over his father's counsellors.
- Paul asks the church to correct an older man gently and to care for its widows through their own families.
The Command in the Law of Holiness
The verse stands among the chapter's laws for daily life.
Rise in the Presence of the Elderly studies Leviticus 19:32 in its chapter and the texts that teach Israel and the church how to treat the old. It belongs to the value of honour, because the verse commands honour for a whole class of people, the aged, whether or not they are kin.
The question it answers is what Scripture asks of the young toward the old and why it ties that duty to the fear of God. It reads the verse in the holiness law and sets beside it the proverbs and prophets on grey hair. It then weighs the counsel of age in Job and in Rehoboam's court and gives Paul's charge on older men, older women and widows.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.The chapter opens with the call to be holy, and every law in it, the honour of the old among them, serves that call.
In the Hebrew the verse begins with the grey head. Israel was to rise, qum, from before seybah, grey hair, a noun the Translators Brief lexicon of the STEP Bible glosses “old age” and counts 19 times. The verb for honour is hadar, counted 7 times, and its object is “the face of an old person”, the zaqen.
Grey Hair in Scripture
The law, wisdom and the prophets each speak of the old.
Scripture finds wisdom and splendour with the old, and it treats contempt for them as a sign of a people under judgment.
| Verse | The Berean words | What it says of the old |
|---|---|---|
| Deuteronomy 28:50 | “a ruthless nation with no respect for the old” | Contempt for the old marks the enemy God would send in judgment. |
| Job 12:12 | “Wisdom is found with the elderly” | Job speaks of the understanding that comes with long life. |
| Proverbs 16:31 | “Gray hair is a crown of glory” | Long life is a reward found along the path of righteousness. |
| Proverbs 20:29 | “gray hair is the splendor of the old” | The young have strength as their glory, and the old have their grey hair, called hadar, the noun that shares the letters of the verb in Leviticus 19:32. |
| Isaiah 3:5 | “the young will rise up against the old” | The young rising against the old marks a land in disorder. |
| Lamentations 5:12 | “elders receive no respect” | Jerusalem mourns that its elders were shamed after the city fell. |
Older Men and Women in the Church
Paul's charge to Timothy turns the church into a household.
Do not rebuke an older man, but appeal to him as to a father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.The verses show the respect of Leviticus 19:32 continuing inside the church.
Honor the widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to show godliness to their own family and repay their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.These verses turn the honour of the old into a duty of support.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote of the widow in 1 Timothy 5:4, “She has a claim on her own children, prior to her claim on the Church”.
Age and Counsel
A young man's speech in Job and a young king's choice in Kings weigh the counsel of age.
I thought that age should speak, and many years should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding. It is not only the old who are wise, or the elderly who understand justice.Elihu honours the expectation that age should teach and then grounds understanding in the breath of the Almighty.
But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders; instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and served him.The verse stands here as the cost of setting aside the counsel of age.
The elders had told him to “be a servant to these people”, and they promised that the people would then be “your servants forever” (1 Kings 12:7). Rehoboam answered the people harshly instead. In 1 Kings 12:16 the tribes of Israel went home with the cry “To your tents, O Israel!”
Fear Your God
Barnes and Henry read the closing words of Leviticus 19:32 as the reason for the command.
Leviticus 19:14 ends with the same words as Leviticus 19:32.
You must not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the LORD.The old stand with the deaf and the blind as people God Himself protects.
Albert Barnes saw in Leviticus 19:32 “The outward respect due to old age” joined to the fear of God. Matthew Henry (1710) gave the reason from God's own name: “Age is honourable, and he that is the Ancient of days requires that honour be paid to it.”
Voices on Honour to the Aged
A preacher of the fourth century reads 1 Timothy 5:1.
died 407 · John Chrysostom
Chrysostom stands here for the gentleness Paul asks of a young leader toward an old man.
Read the page on John Chrysostom
“‘Rebuke not an elder.’ Is he now speaking of the order? I think not, but of any elderly man. What then if he should need correction? Do not rebuke him, but address him as you would a father offending.”
John Chrysostom · Homily on 1 Timothy 13 · on 1 Timothy 5:1Patristic
Why Were the Boys at Bethel Punished?
Commentators have read the judgment at Bethel in two ways.
From there, Elisha went up to Bethel, and as he was walking up the road, a group of boys came out of the city and jeered at him, chanting, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” Then he turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Suddenly two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.The text gives the taunt, the curse in the LORD's name and the bears, and it gives no further reason.
The taunt was a knowing insult to the LORD's prophetJohn Wesley; Adam Clarke
John Wesley (1765) wrote that the Hebrew word for the boys can mean young men. “It is more than probable,” he added, “they were old enough to discern between good and evil.” Adam Clarke (1832) heard in “Go up” a mockery of Elijah's going up to heaven. He judged that “The spirit of their offense lies in their ridiculing a miracle of the Lord”.
The objection: the taunt as the text gives it names only the prophet's bald head.
The judgment fell on the parents through their childrenAlbert Barnes; Matthew Henry
Albert Barnes wrote that “The persons really punished were, not so much the children, as the wicked parents”. Matthew Henry held that God “intended hereby to punish the parents and to make them afraid of God's judgments.”
The objection: the curse and the bears fall on the boys who jeered, and the text names no parent.
Carried to Old Age
Isaiah records the LORD's promise to the old of Israel.
The honour the law asks of the young is owed to people whom God Himself has promised to carry.
Even to your old age, I will be the same, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will sustain you and deliver you.The verse stands here because it shows God giving the old the care He asks the young to give.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament, the tagged Hebrew text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible, Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Hebrew (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Leviticus 19:32 and 2 Kings 2:24.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Leviticus 19:32 and 2 Kings 2:24.
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), on Leviticus 19:32.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 1 Timothy 5:4.
- John Chrysostom, Homily on 1 Timothy 13, on 1 Timothy 5:1.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), on 2 Kings 2:23.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on 2 Kings 2:23.
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