And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
When understood properly, this passage is comforting to me. The Greek root word translated "scourgeth" is μαστιγόω (Latin: mastigoó) and has a figurative meaning to it. This sort of language that mentioned the rod was known as rod language. In the Early Church, when you had a long day at work, you instead said "God whipped me hard today". God does not literally descend in order to whip His children, obviously. However, God does punish His children, like only He can, sending trials and tribulations the way of the ones He loves the most. This passage was intended to comfort the Hebrew Christians in their persecution of Rome.
God does not want earthly parents to copy His Parenting example. This is because God only punishes His children when it does not harm them, whereas earthly parents only punish their children when it does, in fact, harm the child. God does not weigh in on an actual spanking in Heb. 12:5-6, but the Bible does, in fact, refer to spanking and other forms of child punishment, and expands upon it. See Colossians 3:21 KJV:
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers here to any offenses or damages, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, stemming from entitlement. It is not enough to stop spanking or punishing children - you need to avoid offense in children. Avoiding offense in children is the same as avoid offense in other adults - give a meaningful apology whenever you hurt your child's feelings. Usually, all that is necessary is a reassurance of good intent, including when parent set a limit that upsets children. However, if you ever set a limit out of anger or haste as a parent, you should definitely give a formal apology to your child when you lose your cool with them, as losing your cool alone with your child is entitlement, and was seen as entitlement in the God mentioned offense avoidance explicitly in a parenting verse because it is especially important in God's eyes to treat children with respect and not abuse them. This commandment cross-references the Eighth and the Tenth Commandments, with the Apostle Paul here convicting a group of Greek Christian parents who brought into the church their pagan custom of patrias potestas, which is a Latin term roughly translated to "power to the parent", namely the power to impose punitive sanctions onto children, such as spanking or other forms of punishment. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punitive parenting in his secular writings. Attachment parenting was banned under Roman law, but the Early Christians did it anyway, obeying God over men. Spanking or other forms of punitive parenting, alongside anything perceived as abusive by a child, was considered child abuse in the Early Church, in fact.
The staple punishment against children in Ancient Greece was a spanking to the bare bottom with an open hand. Such parents infiltrated the Early Christian churches with their punitive parenting customs. However, the Apostle Paul would have none of it in the churches that he oversaw, and sent the parishes at Colossae and Ephesus commandments in his Epistles to stop the punishment against children.
Parent anger directed towards children was always considered wrong in the context of the Bible. Most parenting in the Early Church was motivated by worry or concern. The only anger allowed in parenting was to protect a child from a sexual interloper or other abuser of children. However, if you ever got angry at your child then, it was seen as akin to a viper lashing out at its prey - maybe the child was given a warning, but that's about it.
The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be cast forever into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them descend into the abyss which is the ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!
