No, it is not as despicable. What she did, taking the adultery route (and ignoring other factors, such as she got married to this 'gentleman' when she was 13), is that she cheated on him (assuming she was having sex with the other gentleman, since what I've read says she was leaving her husband). Alright, what does that mean? It means she sinned against herself, against her husband, and against God.
What did the husband do?
He went and he killed 5 children ....shooting each of them one by one, because he was left by his wife and he felt bad. He then went to try and get her, but when he could not he decided to kill himself. So, let's see what he did. He sinned against himself (he killed himself, among other things), he sinned against EACH of the children by taking from them their very lives, he sinned against his wife by killing their children, he sinned against his entire family by killing their nieces and nephews and grandkids (as well as his wife's entire family), and sinned against God.
Maybe in your book what she did and what he did are equal, but in my book what the man did is greatly beyond what the woman did. And by 'greatly' I mean beyond any measurable metric.
People have been cheated on for generations, and it will continue to be so until the world comes to an end. It is hurtful, I'm sure, and the person cheated on is left with very many questions. However, that does not make it right to go and slaughter innocents who had nothing to do with whatever was going on with the spouse! Furthermore, going on a killing spree is not equal to adultery.
Sure, both are sins and both are destructive, but saying that cheating on one's spouse (as bad as that is) is as despicable as a parent murdering all of their children one by one while they sleep .....well, there is something very wrong with you!
Keeping the sabbath day Holy is also in the ten commandments ....it is on the same list as 'thou shalt not kill.' In olden times it was strictly interpreted, to the point that the religious authorities used it against Christ and his disciples when they started picking some grains of wheat to nibble on as they walked. Christ showed their hypocrisy when he talked about rescuing one's beast of burden if it falls in a hole during the Sabbath.
Adultery is a horrible sin ....but it can be forgiven, if not by the cheated-on spouse then by God if the cheating spouse repents. However, even if you repent after the murder of YOUR CHILDREN, how exactly will they come back to life?
The two are anything but equal.
If you want to add different weight to sins listed in the 10 Commandments, go right ahead. But you are participating in the human rationalization of sin, which is a slippery slope. Judgement is not for you, it is for God. God felt it necessary for these commandments to be given to his people. He did not weight them when he gave them. And all 10 of them were provided in the same list.
You are missing the whole point. Adultery leads to death. God knows this. Sin begets more sin. The fact of the matter is, both are forgivable in God’s eyes. They are both deadly sins in God’s eyes. Do you know how many times adultery has lead to death in this world? Its too numerous to count.
When you start to weigh them with your human (imperfect) opinions, you are clouding God’s intent with your own imperfected eye. Believe what you want, both of these people are guilty of sin in God’s eyes. Its either sin or its not sin.