“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or of his mother, and when they reprimand and discipline him, he will not listen to them, then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. “They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear of it and be afraid. – Deuteronomy 21:18-21
This was because the Holy Spirit was not actively convicting hearts and they did not yet have direct access to God.
The laws of God overlap and intertwine themselves around one another as a seamless garment. The two laws (Fifth and Sixth Commandments) relate in the form in which they appear, they consider the family in terms of its protection and succession. These, then, are laws designed to protect the family from destruction, from moral and spiritual death. As such, they expand when they forbid that which would kill or destroy the family line. The first law is a purely moral law. It is not a civil law backed by governmental authority. It has no criminal sanctions. There is no punishment mentioned for breaking the law. The second law differs from first in that it is not only a moral but a civil law.
The relationship God intends within the family is an exact type of the Christian’s spiritual relationship with God the Father and the church as mother. In the eyes of God and in the eyes of a small child, a parent stands in the place of God Himself. In the physical sense, the parents are the child’s creator, provider, lawgiver, teacher, and protector. A child’s response to this relationship will in large measure determine his later response to broader relationships in society and beyond that to God Himself.
The Fifth Commandment, which deals with those who gave us physical life, also applies ultimately to how we are born into spiritual life, in which God is the Father, the Holy Spirit of God is the means of “spiritual conception,” and the Church is the mother:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh [the physical is merely physical],and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. – John 3:6
My little children, for whom I am again in [the pains of] labor until Christ is [completely and permanently] formed within you — But the Jerusalem above [that is, the way of faith, represented by Sarah] is free; she is our mother. – Galatians 4:19,26
In effect, we see that Jesus, the faithful Son, bears the curse and punishment of God that the unfaithful son Israel deserved, in its place.
The Spirit of God 