Exodus 20:5,6; Exodus 34:6,7
I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): This law was not to serve a particular dispensation, or to endure a particular time, but it was a declaration of His Will, invariable in all places and all times; being founded upon the immutable nature of His being.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): He that sins against God not only wrongs his own soul, but perhaps wrongs his seed more than he thinks of.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): This is a terrible word of threatening, which justly afrights our hearts, and stirs up fears in us. It is quite contrary to our reason, for we conceive it to be a very unjust proceeding, that the children and posterity should be punished for their fathers’ and forefathers’ offences.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): The Jews profanely characterized the Divine procedure by this proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” Ezekiel 18:2.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): In the judgments of God there is always a deep abyss, into which if you fear to be plunged, adore that which it is not lawful to question.
MARTIN LUTHER: Forasmuch as God has so decreed, and is pleased so to proceed, therefore our duty is to know and acknowledge that He is a just God, and that He wrongs none. Seeing that these fearful threatenings are contrary to our understanding, therefore flesh and blood regard them not―but we that are true Christians believe the same to be certain, when the Holy Ghost touches our hearts, that this proceeding is just and right, and thereby we stand in the fear of God.
JOHN CALVIN: If it be objected that there is no reason why the sins of their fathers should be brought as an accusation against them, because it is written, “The soul that hath sinned shall die, and the children shall not be punished instead of the fathers,” Ezekiel 18:20, the answer will be easy. The Lord makes the children to bear the punishment of the sins of the fathers, when they resemble their fathers; and yet they are not punished for other men’s sins, for they themselves have sinned.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Anybody who studies human nature cannot help discovering that a child of a drunk has a greater tendency to drink than a child of a sober man.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): “He that troubleth his own house, shall inherit the wind,” Proverbs 11:29. To trouble one’s own house is to walk so as to leave an evil example for succeeding generations. It is not merely physical ills handed down in judgment, as in the case of the alcoholic’s child being born with an inherent tendency to disease; but the father’s ways are copied by the children. This is what is so prominent in the case of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, “who made Israel to sin,” 1 Kings 14:16.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): National judgments, thus continued from generation to generation, appear to be what are designed by the words in the text―the punishment which the Jewish nation had been meriting for a series of years came now upon them, because they copied and increased the sins of their fathers, and the cup of their iniquity was full. Thus the children might be said to bear the sins of the fathers, that is, in temporal punishment, for in no other way does God visit these upon the children.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): That denunciation of the LORD is, of visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him.
JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): The infants that perished in the flood (Genesis 7), and at the conflagration of Sodom (Genesis 19), died penally under the judgment that came for the sin of their parents―even in things moral, God threatens to “visit the iniquities of the fathers on the children.” So the Israelites wandered penally in the wilderness forty years, and bare the iniquity of their parents.
WILHELMUS à BRAKEL (1635-1711): Everyone’s commission of sin is personal, but judgment may come upon the children—not eternal judgment, but temporal judgment.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means “clearing the impenitent,”—or perhaps, rather, ‘clearing I will not clear;’ that is, although He forgive, yet He will chastise, and not altogether leave unpunished.
GEORGE SWINNOCK (1627-1673): Even children that have been good, have suffered for their father’s sins.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): How can this be just?
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Was the wicked treatment of Joseph by his brethren to pass unpunished? No, that could not be. They, like all others, must reap what they had sown; reap the bitter harvest not only themselves but in their offspring too, for the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. So it proved here, for it was the “fourth generation” (Genesis 13:15) which came out of Egypt. Four generations, then, reaped the harvest, and reaped precisely “whatsoever” had been sown; for just as Joseph was sold into slavery, and carried down into Egypt, so in Egyptian slavery his brethren and their children suffered!
MARTIN LUTHER: God permits the external and corporal punishment to go on, yea, sometimes over the penitent children also for examples, to the end that others may fly from sin and lead a godly life.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The consequences of conduct do not die with the doers. “The evil that men do, lives after them.” The generations are so knit together, and the full results of deeds are often so slow-growing, that one generation sows and another reaps―it is true evermore and everywhere.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Does not this approach very near to that precious truth of the New Testament times, that we are members one of another, and that the conduct of one member affects all the rest?
A. W. PINK: Today we are suffering from the compromisings, unfaithfulness, sectarianism, pride, and wickedness, of those who went before us.
MARTIN LUTHER: But He will also do good and be merciful “unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” This is a great, glorious, and comfortable promise, far surpassing all human reason and understanding, that, for the sake of one godly person, so many should be partakers of undeserved blessings and mercies. For we find many examples, that a multitude of people have enjoyed mercies and benefits for the sake of one godly man; as for Abraham’s sake, many people were preserved and blessed, and also for Isaac’s sake; and for the sake of Naaman the whole kingdom of Assyria was blessed of God.
GEORGE SWINNOCK: The branches fare the worse for the defects that are in the root; and the branches thrive the better for the sap that is in the root. “The just man walks in his integrity, and his children are blessed,” Proverbs 20:7. Thy duty is to instruct thy children in the Word and Will of God.
