Ezekiel 18:19

19 "Yet say ye, `Why? Doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?' When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all My statutes and hath done 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 who hath taken off his hand from the poor, who hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed My judgments, hath walked in My statutes -- he shall not die for the iniquity of his father: he shall surely live.

18 As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, despoiled his brother by violence, and did that which is not good among his people, lo, even he shall die in his iniquity.

19 "Yet say ye, `Why? Doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?' When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all My statutes and hath done them, he shall surely live.

20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

21 But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all My statutes and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live: he shall not die.