Ezekiel 18:2

concerning the land Rather, in the land, lit, upon: cf. Ezekiel 18:3 "in Israel."

fathers have eaten Or, the fathers eat; the proverb being thrown into a general form. The proverb, already noticed by Jeremiah (ch. Jeremiah 31:29-30) means that the children suffer the consequences of the sins of their fathers. Sour or unripe grapes are occasionally eaten, and naturally the effect upon the eater's teeth is immediate his teeth are set on edge, lit. blunted, the edge of them turned. Here, however, the effect is first felt by the children. Such feelings could not but arise in the troubled times of the fall of the state, when the righteous suffered with the wicked, and the most righteous were carried into exile, and just because they still slave to their own faith in the midst of heathenism endured severer sufferings than others who accommodated themselves to their circumstances. Soon after the fall of Jerusalem we hear the same complaint in literal terms: "The fathers sinned and are not, and we have borne their iniquities" (Lamentations 5:7).