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.