Colin asks:
I had a question. In verses 5 & 6, as part of the command to not worship false gods, God says “…for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
I’m confused, because in Deuteronomy chapter 24:16 and again in Ezekiel 18, and also when Jesus healed the man who was blind from birth in John 9, it is made clear that children are not punished for the sins of their parents.
The literal Hebrew in Exodus 20 is that the “guilt” (awvone) of the “father” is “visited” (pawkod) on the “sons”. As with many Hebrew words, there is a lot of judgment involved in translating them into English.
The Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18 passages teach that the one who sins is the one who will die for the sin. So, the vocabulary is different between the Exodus 20 passage and the other two. I expect that is significant. The key words in Exodus 20 are the ones translated “guilt” and “visited”. The idea can be that punishment extends to the third and fourth generation or that the guilt of the father extends in its impact to the third and fourth generation.
The way I’ve come to put it together is something like this. The ultimate penalty for sin comes to the one who sins. The ultimate penalty is that which is between the sinner and God, in which sin leads to eternal death and separation from God. So, no one other than the sinner suffers the ultimate penalty for a sin. That seems pretty clear from the Deuteronomy and Ezekiel passages. But sin is not so neat and clean. As a father, I’m all too aware of the impact my sin has on my children and grandchildren. As a pastor, I shudder to think of the wider consequences of falling into any sin that shakes the faith of those whom I have led and taught and shepherded. God created us to live in community, and our sin is a community matter. Community and family ties are there because God has created a world in which it is so. The impact of my sin on the community or family around me is serious, and God says it will be serious right up front. Think of the complaints directed at God by those who proclaim the suffering of the innocent children and others who are “innocent”. Well, God created the world so that people are connected. It is a precondition for love and for good to flow between humans, just as it enables bad things to be communicated. People don’t give God credit for the good that can be transmitted between us in the connected world that he created, but they do blame him for the evil that is transmitted!
So, by God’s design, our sin impacts those around us – even to the third and fourth generation. However, God says that he will personally show love to a thousand generations of those who love him, magnifying the good that can be communicated . One might suppose that “a thousand” in this context means that he never stops showing love to the generations of those who love him; faithfulness and love toward him cannot be stopped. Big numbers like “a thousand” or “seventy times seven” are usually standing in for the idea of “way more than can be counted”. In modern western terms, we might say “never ending” or “infinite”.
There is likely some significance to “third and fourth” generation. This probably is idiom for “and all his living descendants”. Covenants were made between families, not just between individuals. When A makes a covenant with B, their families are expected to uphold that covenant or face the consequences – as families. I think of the young in Jerusalem when it fell. They suffered the punishment that was brought about by the sin of their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers… and so on. I expect the siege of Jerusalem and its fall took a toll on more than a few who were faithful to God, who suffered only because of the “big picture” of sin in the southern kingdom. And yet, in the ultimate sense of justice, those who were trusting in God would not suffer eternal separation from him, even if they died in the horror of the city’s fall.
That’s how I reconcile it. I wouldn’t pretend that there might not be more to it or deeper things I still don’t grasp; but that’s how I sort it out in my thinking given the whole testimony of scripture and my trust in God.