The following offences were to be punished with death:
Striking a parent, compare Deuteronomy 27:16.
Cursing a parent, compare the marginal references.
Kidnapping, whether with a view to retain the person stolen, or to sell him, compare the marginal references.

That smiteth his father, or his mother - As such a case argued peculiar depravity, therefore no mercy was to be shown to the culprit.

And he that smiteth his father or his mother,.... With his fist, or with a stick, or cane, or such thing, though they died not with the blow, yet it occasioned any wound, or caused a bruise, or the part smitten black and blue, or left any print of the blow; for, as Jarchi says, the party was not guilty, less by smiting there was a bruise, or weal, made, or any mark or scar: but if so it was, then he
shall be surely put to death; the Targum of Jonathan adds, with the suffocation of a napkin; and so Jarchi says with strangling; the manner of which was this, the person was sunk into a dunghill up to his knees, and two persons girt his neck with a napkin or towel until he expired. This crime was made capital, to show the heinousness of it, how detestable it was to God, and in order to deter from it.