Ezekiel 18:2

What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? WHAT MEAN YE, THAT YE USE THIS PROVERB CONCERNING ... ISRAEL ... THE FATHERS HAVE EATEN SOUR GRAPES, AND THE CHILDREN'S TEETH ARE SET ON EDGE. Their unbelieving calumnies on God's justice had become so common as to have assumed a proverbial form. The sin of Adam in eating the forbidden fruit, visited on his posterity. seems to have suggested the special form; noticed also by Jeremiah () where he foretells the coming reign of Messiah, wherein the proverb shall be used "no more:" and explained in , "Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities." They mean by "the children" themselv...

1-20 The soul that sinneth it shall die. As to eternity, every man was, is, and will be dealt with, as his conduct shows him to have been under the old covenant of works, or the new covenant of grace. Whatever outward sufferings come upon men through the sins of others, they deserve for their own sins all they suffer; and the Lord overrules every event for the eternal good of believers. All souls are in the hand of the great Creator: he will deal with them in justice or mercy; nor will any perish for the sins of another, who is not in some sense worthy of death for his own. We all have sinned, and our souls must be lost, if God deal with us according to his holy law; but we are invited to come to Christ. If a man who had shown his faith by his works, had a wicked son, whose character and conduct were the reverse of his parent's, could it be expected he should escape the Divine vengeance...

Verse Ezekiel 18:2. _THE FATHERS HAVE EATEN SOUR GRAPES, AND THE CHILDREN'S_ _TEETH ARE SET ON EDGE?_] We have seen this proverb already, Jeremiah 31:29, c., and have considered its general meaning. But the subject is here proposed in greater detail, with a variety of circumstances, to adapt it to all those cases to which it should apply. It refers simply to these questions: How far can the moral evil of the parent be extended to his offspring? And, Are the faults and evil propensities of the parents, not only transferred to the children, but punished in them? Do parents transfer their evil nature, and are their children punished for their offences?...

CONCERNING THE LAND OF ISRAEL - Rather, “in the land of Israel,” i. e., upon Israel’s soil, the last place where such a paganish saying should be expected. The saying was general among the people both in Palestine and in exile; and expressed the excuse wherewith they ascribed their miserable condition to anyone’s fault but their own - to a blind fate such as the pagan recognized, instead of the discriminating judgment of an All-holy God....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 18:1, EZEKIEL 18:2 WHAT MEAN YE, THAT YE USE THIS PROVERB, etc.? Another and entirely different section opens, and we see at once from what it started. Ezekiel had heard from the lips of his countrymen, and had seen its working in their hearts, the proverb with which they blunted their sense of personal responsibility. They had to bear the punishment of sins which they had not committed. The sins of the fathers were visited, as in Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:7;...

WHAT MEAN YE, THAT YE USE THIS PROVERB CONCERNING THE LAND OF ISRAEL,.... This is spoken to the Jews in Babylon, who used the following proverb concerning the land of Israel; not the ten tribes, but the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, concerning the desolation of the land, and the hardships the Jews laboured under, since the captivity of Jeconiah, and they became subject to the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar: this expostulation with them suggests that they had no just cause, or true reason, to make use of the proverb; that it was impious, impudent, and insolent in them, and daring and dangerous; and that they did not surely well consider what they said. The proverb follows: SAYING, THE FATHERS HAVE EATEN SOUR GRAPES, AND THE CHILDREN'S TEETH ARE SET ON EDGE? that is, as the Targum explains it, "the fathers have sinned, and the children are smitten,'' or punished, as the ten tribes for the s...

Ezekiel 18:1. In Ezekiel 18:1, we find the false accusation against God and the divine answer, and this is followed in Ezekiel 18:5 by the conditions of life, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). But the conditions to have life and to be just cannot be fulfilled by sinful man; nor is In these verses “eternal life” in view; these are not conditions to secure “eternal life,” but to escape physical death in the announced judgment. The conditions which bring death are given in Ezekiel 18:10. The son does not die for his father's sins, as th

EZEKIEL 18. THE PRINCIPLE OF RETRIBUTION. From many points of view the imminent doom has been abundantly justified. But on whom will it fall? on the innocent and guilty alike? This chapter proclaims that it will fall only on those whom it overtakes in a state of sin, and that it may therefore be avoided by turning in penitence to God. God is gracious as well as just, and man is free to turn he is bound neither by his ancestry nor by his own past. The chapter is an extreme expression of individualism, in criticising which it has to be remembered (_a_) that it is a pioneer statement, and (_b_) that it is addressed to men who imagine that they are hopelessly implicated in the penalties incurred by the sins of former generations. EZEKIEL 18:1. For after all, they were the generation that had participated in the reformation of Josiah; and it seemed to them that they were

THE LAND. the soil. Hebrew. _'admatk_. See note on Ezekiel 11:17. The fathers, &c. Compare Jeremiah 31:29; Jeremiah 31:30. CHILDREN'S. sons....

_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 h