Ezekiel 18:19

19 "Yet you say, 'Why [does] the son not bear the guilt of the father?' And [since] the son does justice and righteousness and he keeps all of my statutes and does them, he shall surely live!

Ezekiel 18:19 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 18:19

Yet say ye, why?
&c.] Why do you say so? why do you go on to assert that which is not fact, or which is contrary to fact, contrary to what we feel and experience every day, to say that children are not punished for their parents' sins? these are the words of the murmuring, complaining, and blaspheming Jews, quarrelling with the prophet, and with the Lord himself: doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?
have not we proof of it every day we live? are not our present case and circumstances a full evidence of it? or the words may be rendered, "why does not the son bear the iniquity of the father?" so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions; or, as the Targum,

``why is not the son punished for the sins of the father?''

and so they are an objection, which is foreseen might be made, and is here anticipated, to which an answer is returned; and so the Syriac version introduces it, "but if they said" then adds, "tell them", as follows: when,
or "because" the son hath done that which is lawful [and] right, and hath kept all
my statutes, and hath done them:
this is the reason why he shall not bear his father's sins, or be punished for them; intimating that they had not done these things that made the complaint, or put the, question; but had committed the same sins their fathers had, and so were punished, not for their fathers' sins, but their own: for otherwise the man that does what is just and right with God, and between man and man, he shall surely live; (See Gill on Ezekiel 18:17).

Ezekiel 18:19 In-Context

17 He brings back his hand from iniquity; he does not take interest and usury; he does my regulations; he goes in my statutes. He will not die because of the guilt of his father; he will surely live!

18 Because his father {oppressed severely}; {he stole from his brother}; [that] which [is] not good he did in the midst of his people, and look! He will die through his guilt.

19 "Yet you say, 'Why [does] the son not bear the guilt of the father?' And [since] the son does justice and righteousness and he keeps all of my statutes and does them, he shall surely live!

20 The person, the [one] sinning, will die. A son shall not bear the guilt of the father, and a father shall not bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be on him; the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him.

21 But if the wicked returns from all of his sins that he has done and he keeps all of my statutes and he does justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die!

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "And"