What mean ye, ye who use this proverb of the land of Israel, saying, [The] fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?
Israel in exile had a favourite saying: the fathers ate the sour fruit, and the children's teeth ached for it. God cuts in with a question — "What do you mean?" The rest of the chapter is His answer to a people who had turned His own law into an excuse.
The proverb was a complaint about unfair suffering. The people saw the ruin around them and traced it back to a generation not their own.
Israel complained that they were in trouble and cut off because of their fathers' sins. The fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge. Such was the law: the son bore his father's guilt, and the father's guilt fell on the children. This was to stop. The soul of the father belonged to Jehovah, and so did the soul of the son. The soul that sinned would die.
Where they said it makes it worse. They grumbled in the land God had given them, a land He won for them by open acts of power.
Notice where they were using this proverb: in the land of Israel, the land God gave them, the land that was truly "a good land." He had brought them into it by the most wonderful miracles... In this good land they could talk of the "sour grapes" their fathers had eaten, and of their own teeth set on edge through no fault of their own!
The proverb had a piece of Scripture behind it. God had said He visits the fathers' iniquity on the children. The people dropped the words that came next.
He Himself has assured us that He visits "the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation." But He adds words that are needed to stop it being misread: "of those who hate Me." Israel took up their proverb from just such a misreading, and elsewhere the Lord condemns that proverb in the strongest terms... He not only says it, but swears it: they will have no reason to use such a proverb.
Confessing a past generation's sin costs nothing. That is why the saying suited them.
They allow the wickedness of earlier generations — which is not as hard to confess as one's own — and so they admit that their fathers ate the sour grapes, but not themselves. But the commandment says something quite different. Those who love God and keep His commandments have in it a definite promise of mercy, so they could not come under a contradictory law of inheriting their father's sins.
God does not argue. He grants the terms they asked for, and those terms prove worse for them, not better.
At the captivity God acts on the murmuring of His people. He ends any further government dealings with them on the ground of Exodus 34:6-7. From now on He would take them on their own terms. They complained of the hardship of suffering for their fathers' wrongdoing, so He would now give them what they themselves deserved. Clearly a sinner must suffer for sin. If he questions the justice of paying for a parent's evil, he cannot deny that he should be punished for his own.
God's answer leaves Israel with nothing to say. Finding fault with Him only shows what the complainer has never seen.
The mouth of Israel is closed. Their murmurs were only quibbles. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? ... It is always so. Those who find fault with the Lord's ways, whether in mercy or in judgment, have never seen themselves in His light.
The chapter has a limit. The death it speaks of belongs to God's rule over Israel in this world.
It replaces the Jewish principle of government, that the "children should die for their fathers' sins," with the declaration that "each should die for his own." From other teaching in the Holy Scriptures we know the terrible result of a man dying in his sins. But that is not the subject here. If it were, a son's soul would have been lost under the law for his father's sins, and that is monstrous.
Within that rule, the door stands open: "where repentance was clear, God would pardon, for He had no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (W. T. P. Wolston).
- Complaint. The proverb blamed an earlier generation for present suffering — a charge that cost the speakers nothing.
- Misquote. It leaned on the commandment about visiting the fathers' iniquity. It dropped the rest: "of those who hate Me," and the promise of mercy to those who love Him.
- Answer. God swears the saying will end, because every soul is His alike — father's and son's — and each dies for his own sin.
- Reversal. He takes them at their own terms. The man who protests at paying for a parent's sin cannot protest at paying for his own.
- Exposure. Whoever finds fault with God's ways has never seen himself in God's light. Yet the door is still open: God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
[As] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, ye shall not have any more to use this proverb in Israel.
Israel in exile had a saying: the fathers ate the sour grapes, and the children's teeth were the ones set on edge. God answers with an oath on His own life: His people will never say it again.
They did not make this complaint in a foreign land of misery. They said it at home, in the land God had given them.
It was in this good land that they could talk about the "sour grapes" their fathers had eaten. And their own children's teeth were set on edge through no fault of their own! These people are the ones He loves. He has shown Himself mighty for them. All the more, then, must He silence this talk forever: "As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel."
The saying was not invented out of nothing. It leaned on a real word of God — the second of the Ten Commandments — twisted out of shape.
The second commandment of the law is what is in question here. That is what gave a seeming excuse for the saying itself. For God had declared that He was "a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." The resentful thought of those caught up in the nation's present troubles seems clear. They felt the third and fourth generations were suffering for faults that were in no way their own. They admit the wickedness of earlier generations, which is not so hard to confess as one's own. So they agree that their fathers ate the sour grapes, but not themselves. But the commandment says something quite different. Those who love God and keep His commandments have in it a definite promise of mercy. So they could not fall under the opposite rule of inheriting their father's sins.
What God swears here is not a new law. It repeats what Israel's own statute book said long before.
Israel's statute book had already said this plainly: "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin." (Deut. 24:16.) Long after this, the children of Israel were twisting the words of the law itself in the same way. In Ezekiel 18 God restates the principle of Deuteronomy, to vindicate the righteousness of His ways.
Ending the saying is not the relief the people were hoping for. If God will not judge them on their fathers' account, He will judge them on their own.
At the captivity God acts on the murmuring of His people. He ends any further dealings with them on the governing principle of Exodus 34:6-7. From now on He would take them on their own terms. They complained of the hardship of suffering for the failures of their fathers. So He would now give them what they themselves deserved. A sinner must suffer for sin. If he challenges the justice of paying for a parent's evil, he cannot deny that he deserves punishment for his own. All were God's, the souls of fathers and of sons alike; and the sinner must die. There was no relief or escape on any such pretext.
This chapter is often quoted to settle what happens to the soul. That use rests on a misreading of the word "die."
Another important thing to notice here is the misuse of the word "die." As spiritual people we may be quite right to see that men can be dead while they live. We can be dead in sin towards God while still alive. The judgment of death means being cut off from God, while the gift of life brings us, in principle, into blessedness with Him. But dying in its plain sense is never applied to the soul. Good people with good intentions constantly quote Ezekiel 18 for this. But it speaks only of death in this world — present judgment here; not for a father's sins, but for our own.
Taking away the excuse leaves only one honest road open. The alternative — keeping up the complaint — makes things worse.
God tested them on their own ground, with the same result of ruin because of their evil. How much better then to repent than to complain and murmur! Complaint only makes the evil worse and brings certain vengeance on such mounting rebellion against God.
- Excuse. The saying blamed the fathers for the children's suffering. People God had rescued and loved said it at home, in the good land He gave them.
- Twist. The excuse borrowed from the second commandment. But it ignored the other half: mercy for those who love God and keep His commandments.
- Oath. God swears by His own life to end the saying, restating a rule already written in the law — each one dies for his own sin.
- Reversal. Removing the excuse is no comfort. God now deals with each on his own terms. Whoever protests a parent's penalty cannot protest his own.
- Road out. With the excuse gone, only repentance remains. Complaint just adds to the guilt God judges.