thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I, Jehovah thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, and upon the third and upon the fourth [generation] of them that hate me,
God has just claimed Israel's worship for Himself alone. He backs that claim with a name He gives Himself and a warning that runs down the family line. Two questions follow. What does God mean when He calls Himself jealous? And how can it be right for children to feel the weight of what their fathers did?
In people, jealousy sounds like a fault. Commentators tie God's jealousy to His love and to His worth.
He is jealous because He cannot allow any rival to have a place in the hearts of those He loves. He must have the whole heart, because He alone is worthy of it, and He alone can fill and satisfy it forever.
Another writer sets this beside the love the New Testament reveals, and beside a line from the Song of Solomon.
Do you not see, love takes the form of jealousy if there is the smallest rival to it? In Old Testament times, the nearest thing to the Christian revelation of love is this: God is a jealous God. You remember Solomon's Song says that love is as strong as death. Do you know what follows? It is that jealousy is as cruel as the grave.
These words close the command about carved images. One commentator points back to the golden calf Israel once made and worshiped.
Bowing down to such things or worshiping them is an insult to God. Israel did this with the golden calf (Ex. 32:1-8). But God is rightly jealous of His own glory. If the fathers are guilty of such iniquity, God will visit the results of this on the children to the third and fourth generation (v. 9).
Many read this verse as if it settled a child's eternal fate. Writers answer that it describes how God governs the world now.
God is here indicating how He deals with men on earth in His holy government. When it is a question of His judgment for eternity, God will deal with the dead "according to what they had done" (Rev. 20:12-13). There is no thought of a child bearing the sin of his father.
You can watch the same principle at work in ordinary life.
What we get in Exodus 34 is not sovereign grace bringing a soul to eternal life. It is governmental power, and we may see it at work every day around us. If a man wastes his fortune, or ruins his health by intemperance of any kind, his children suffer for it. This is an invariable principle.
The reach stops at this life, so the door stays open to the child. Leslie M. Grant writes on this verse that "any one of the children may still call on the Lord and be saved, but their lives on earth will be affected by their parents' wrongdoing."
The verse does not stop at "the third and fourth generation." A short clause follows: "of those who hate me." One writer calls it the guard against every misreading.
He has Himself assured us that He visits "the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation." But then comes a clause that is badly needed, guarding what would otherwise be misread: "of those who hate Me." Elsewhere the Lord rejects, in the strongest terms, the proverb Israel had taken up from just such a misreading: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Ezek. 18). He not only says it, He swears it: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son. And the repentance of anyone will turn his doom aside.
Much of the offence people take at this verse comes from repeating it wrongly.
These words have often stirred up painful and even rebellious thoughts in people who have never been taught, mainly because almost everyone misquotes them. Books and speakers in general say that the Lord visits "the sins" of the fathers on the children. That is not what the Word of God says.
The commandment names carved objects. Writers apply it to what the heart builds inside.
And still this image of jealousy is what threatens us all. It stands, you could say, right at the entrance when we would come near to God Himself. And it need not be a visible or open image to do this. What a warning there is for us here! We are trying to have a god shaped by our own thoughts, and such a god always stands against the true God. So "covetousness," the apostle tells us, "is idolatry"; and we know this can be found in people who are correct on every other point.
- Cause — love. God is jealous because He loves. Jealousy is what love becomes the moment a rival appears. He is worthy of the whole heart.
- Claim — worship. The warning follows the command about images. Bowing to a thing we have made insults the God who has already claimed His people.
- Scope — earth. The visiting of iniquity belongs to God's government of this life. It is not His judgment for eternity, where God deals with each person according to what he has done.
- Limit — "those who hate me." The clause guards the verse. God swears the son shall not bear the father's iniquity, and repentance turns the doom aside.
- Reach — today. The image need not be visible. A god shaped by our own thoughts, or covetousness, sets up the rival the commandment forbids.
and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
This verse closes the second commandment, and it turns the warning just before it inside out. God has spoken of visiting sin on three or four generations; now He promises love that reaches thousands — so who are the people who love Him?
Moses is repeating commandments Israel already knew, but Deuteronomy 5 is not a word-for-word copy of Exodus 20. One writer explains what this book adds.
In Exodus 20 we have history; in Deuteronomy 5 we have not only history but commentary. In the second book, the lawgiver gives moral motives and makes appeals. They would be completely out of place in the first. In the one we have bare facts; in the other, facts and comments — facts and their practical application.
Israel later complained that children were paying for their fathers' sins. Their saying was that the fathers ate the sour grapes. This clause is the reply.
The people caught in the nation's present troubles clearly resent one thing. They think the third and fourth generations were suffering for faults that were in no way their own. They admit their fathers ate the sour grapes, but not themselves. But the commandment says something quite different. In it, those who love God and keep His commandments have His definite promise that He will show them mercy. So they could not come under the opposite rule of inheriting their father's sins.
The mercy promised here belongs to God's rule over people on earth. One writer keeps that separate from His grace in salvation.
There are two great principles in God's dealings with man on the earth... In the church God shows the riches of His grace. In His government He shows righteousness and displays His attributes — justice, mercy, and goodness... Exodus 34 does not show sovereign grace bringing a soul to eternal life. It shows governmental power, and we can watch it at work every day around us. For if a man wastes his fortune, or ruins his health by intemperance of any kind, his children suffer for it. This is an invariable principle.
That difference matters for the children in verse 9. What they inherit is loss in this life, not a shut door to God.
It is always true that our children will suffer because of our disobedience to God. This does not touch the question of eternal salvation. Any one of the children may still call on the Lord and be saved. But their parents' wrongdoing will still mark their lives on earth. If a man is a robber, his children will suffer for it on earth. Yet they can still receive Christ as Saviour and be saved for eternity.
Notice the numbers. God counts judgment in three or four generations. He counts mercy in thousands. Older translations use the word "mercy" here where the ESV says "steadfast love". One writer reads the thousands as thousands of generations, and shows who first heard these words.
He was and is the eternal God — merciful, gracious, slow to anger, great in goodness and truth. He keeps His goodness to thousands of generations. He pardons iniquity, transgression, and sin, yet He holds no guilty one as innocent. He visits the iniquity of the fathers on the sons and on the sons of sons, to the third and the fourth generation. This is not His language to the Christian or the Church, but simply His declaration of Himself to Moses the mediator for Israel, so that they should know His governing character and principles.
God promises this mercy to those who love Him. But a command cannot create love. One writer shows where that love comes from.
The law demanded love. That very fact shows that God's own nature desired it, and that nature is love — "God is love." ... How wonderful to know that God shall have what His own nature desired, in righteousness and holiness, through the redeeming work of His Son... What the law could not do, His love has done. "We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love"; and, "We love because he first loved us." God desired and demanded love. But His own love was fully proved in the Son of God on the cross, and so it has produced love in response.
- Two sides — the warning of verse 9 and the promise of verse 10 belong together, and the commandment ends in mercy, not in threat.
- Government — this is God ruling people on earth. A parent's ruin still lands on the children. It is not the gospel of eternal life.
- Mercy — God measures judgment in three or four generations and mercy in thousands. The second half of the verse reaches far past the first.
- Assurance — no one who loves God and keeps His commandments inherits a father's guilt. This clause answers the "sour grapes" complaint.
- Love — the law asked for the love God's own nature desires, but it could not create that love. What the law could not do, His love has done at the cross.