Ezekiel 18:19

19 et dicitis quare non portavit filius iniquitatem patris videlicet quia filius iudicium et iustitiam operatus est omnia praecepta mea custodivit et fecit illa vita vivet

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 a pauperis iniuria averterit manum suam usuram et superabundantiam non acceperit iudicia mea fecerit in praeceptis meis ambulaverit hic non morietur in iniquitate patris sui sed vita vivet

18 pater eius quia calumniatus est et vim fecit fratri et malum operatus est in medio populi sui ecce mortuus est in iniquitate sua

19 et dicitis quare non portavit filius iniquitatem patris videlicet quia filius iudicium et iustitiam operatus est omnia praecepta mea custodivit et fecit illa vita vivet

20 anima quae peccaverit ipsa morietur filius non portabit iniquitatem patris et pater non portabit iniquitatem filii iustitia iusti super eum erit et impietas impii erit super eum

21 si autem impius egerit paenitentiam ab omnibus peccatis suis quae operatus est et custodierit universa praecepta mea et fecerit iudicium et iustitiam vita vivet non morietur