THE WORD OF THE LORD came to me: 2“What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:
“ ‘The fathers eat sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
3“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. 4For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.
5“Suppose there is a righteous man
who does what is just and right.
6He does not eat at the mountain shrines
or look to the idols of the house of Israel.
He does not defile his neighbor’s wife
or lie with a woman during her period.
7He does not oppress anyone,
but returns what he took in pledge for a loan.
He does not commit robbery
but gives his food to the hungry
and provides clothing for the naked.
8He does not lend at usury
or take excessive interest.
He withholds his hand from doing wrong
and judges fairly between man and man.
9He follows my decrees
and faithfully keeps my laws.
That man is righteous;
he will surely live,
declares the Sovereign LORD.
10“Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood or does any of these other things 11(though the father has done none of them):
“He eats at the mountain shrines.
He defiles his neighbor’s wife.
12He oppresses the poor and needy.
He commits robbery.
He does not return what he took in pledge.
He looks to the idols.
He does detestable things.
13He lends at usury and takes excessive interest.
Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these detestable things, he will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head.
14“But suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he does not do such things:
15“He does not eat at the mountain shrines
or look to the idols of the house of Israel.
He does not defile his neighbor’s wife.
16He does not oppress anyone
or require a pledge for a loan.
He does not commit robbery
but gives his food to the hungry
and provides clothing for the naked.
17He withholds his hand from sin
and takes no usury or excessive interest.
He keeps my laws and follows my decrees.
He will not die for his father’s sin; he will surely live. 18But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.
19“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. 20The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.
21“But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. 22None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live. 23Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?
24“But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live? None of the righteous things he has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness he is guilty of and because of the sins he has committed, he will die.
25“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? 26If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die. 27But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. 28Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die. 29Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?
30“Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!
Original Meaning
THIS CHAPTER CONTINUES the pattern of pictorial speech found in the preceding chapters, but this time the proverb comes from the mouth of the people, not delivered from the Lord. It is an erroneous proverb—or at least a proverb erroneously applied1—and such has been its misuse that the Lord swears that all use of it will be eliminated from Israel (18:3). The proverb runs: “The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (18:2), thus affirming that sometimes children suffer for their parent’s actions rather than the parents themselves.
The application to which the people of Ezekiel’s time had put the proverb is not hard to discern: “Our fathers sinned against God, but we their children (the generation of the Exile) are the ones paying the price; that’s the way the world is and nothing can be done about it.” A similar thought is expressed in Lamentations 5:7: “Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment.” Jeremiah also confronted the same proverb (Jer. 31:29–30), which suggests that the idea had considerable currency around the time of the Exile.
The Lord’s response to this proverb is a categorical denial of its applicability. Both father and son “belong” to the Lord; indeed, everyone belongs to him (Ezek. 18:4). The Lord is not only sovereign over all flesh, but he is also a just judge. There is no unfair attribution of punishment to the next generation for the sins of the fathers; instead, “the soul who sins is the one who will die” (18:4), a maxim that had already been applied to the earthly judicial realm in Deuteronomy 24:16.
These assertions of the sovereignty and especially the justice of God are not random theological statements drawn from a treatise on the attributes of God. Rather, they are specifically designed to meet and address the temptations of those in exile. To the temptation to fatalistic despair, Ezekiel affirms God’s sovereignty. Life is not in the hands of blind Kismet, who capriciously dispenses undeserved sufferings. To the temptation to question God’s goodness, Ezekiel affirms the justice of God’s ways. These specific temptations and their answers underlie the course of the disputation that follows.
The first part of that disputation is a case study covering three successive generations, presented in the form of priestly case law.2 The formula “If a man . . .” followed by the judicial verdict is comparable to that found in Leviticus 20:9–21. The three generations described are a righteous man who is succeeded by a wicked son, who is in turn followed by a repentant, righteous son. The behavior of each is assessed against a “checklist” of righteous behaviors, a kind of miniature Ten Commandments.3
This list covers three basic areas of morality, which may be broadly categorized as piety, chastity, and charity. The first man mentioned is orthodox in his religious practice: He does not eat on the mountains (Ezek. 18:6); that is, he is not involved in the idolatrous cults of the high places (see 6:3–7). Nor does he lift his eyes to Israel’s idols—a gesture suggesting an appeal to the idols for help.4 As with the Decalogue, undivided commitment to the Lord is the primary token of obedience. Moreover, he does not commit adultery with his neighbor’s wife, nor does he lie with a woman during her menstrual period (18:6). The latter was prohibited in Leviticus 18:19 on account of the ritual uncleanness contracted by this flow of blood, as with other bodily discharges.
In addition, this righteous man does not oppress those in debt to him; instead, he returns objects given to him as security for a debt (Ezek. 18:7). This may mean faithfulness in returning the poor man’s garment to him by nightfall so that he has something to sleep in, as required in Exodus 22:25, or it may simply mean actually returning the pledge once the debt has been repaid. There were a multitude of ways in which an unscrupulous lender could take advantage of the desperate. Far from robbing, however, this righteous man feeds and clothes the poor out of his own resources (Ezek. 18:7). He does not lend at interest; such “loan sharking” was prohibited in Leviticus 25:36–37, where it is clear that the person concerned was in desperate need and thus open to exploitation. The righteous person draws back from all such wrongdoing and practices true justice between people (Ezek. 18:8). To summarize, this person “follows my decrees and faithfully keeps my laws” (18:9). What is the verdict on such a person? “That man is righteous; he will surely live.”
On the other hand, suppose this man’s son is the antithesis of all his father stands for. He does everything bad his father abhorred and fails to do any of the good things his father did. Point by point, Ezekiel checks off his sins. What is to be the verdict on such a person? “Will such a man live? He will not!” He will die, and his death will be no one’s fault but his own (18:13).
But suppose this second man also has a son who swims against the tide. He is like his grandfather in doing what is good and right, not like his wicked father. He sees what his father does and deliberately follows a different course. His life is again a model of piety, chastity, and charity. What is the verdict on the third generation? According to the proverb of 18:2, he ought to face the inexorable consequences of his father’s misdeeds. But according to Ezekiel, “he will surely live” (18:17). His father will be judged on the basis of his sins and die (hence, he will not be rescued by the first generation’s righteousness). But the son will be judged on the basis of his own record and will live (hence, he will not die on account of his father’s sin). In the heavenly court, as in the earthly court (Deut. 24:16), “the soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezek. 18:20).5
At this point, Ezekiel envisages a hypothetical objection: “What!6 Does the son not share the guilt of the father?” (18:19a, pers. trans.). By providing this reductio ad absurdum, the complaint of Ezekiel’s audience is undermined.7 In such a clear case, no one can dispute the justice of Ezekiel’s assertion: “Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezek. 18:19b–20). But to accept this as God’s way is necessarily to abandon the applicability of the original proverb to their situation. If this generation is experiencing the “death” of exile and if God deals justly with each generation, then the only possible conclusion is that they too must also be tarred with guilt before God.
The point Ezekiel is making is not that the previous generation was any less guilty than the present generation. Far from it! He has already characterized Jerusalem’s earliest roots as pagan (16:3), and he will shortly describe the history of Israel from the desert period on as one of continuous rebellion (20:4–29). To make the picture match Israel’s history, all three generations have to be identified with the second generation: the epitome of wickedness. But Ezekiel’s point is that the present generation is not guiltless. They themselves have shared in the sins of past generations, as 20:30–32 makes explicit. Therefore, although the judgment they are now undergoing is certainly in part a judgment on the result of the sins of previous generations, the present generation are not innocent bystanders but guilty bystanders. They too have shared in eating the sour grapes, so they cannot pass the buck for the unpleasant aftertaste onto others. God’s dealings with them have been nothing other than perfectly just.
But if that point is accepted, then the possibility of despair becomes real.8 If God is indeed judging this generation for its sin, what is the point of even trying to please him? If they are condemned sinners, what room is there for hope? Since their death sentence is decreed, ought they not simply to eat, drink, and try to be merry in the time that remains to them?
By no means! Ezekiel 18:21–32 addresses that question by propounding another pair of case studies. The first concerns a wicked person who turns from his sins and does what is right (18:21). Will such a person not live? Indeed he will, for the Lord takes no pleasure in putting to death the sinner. Grace is possible for the one who repents; his transgressions will be remembered no more (18:22–23). By contrast, the righteous person who “repents” of his righteousness and abandons his service of God will not escape judgment. Right standing before God is not capital that can be banked, either by oneself or one’s ancestors, allowing one to live on the accrued interest. Apostasy is always a fearful possibility to be reckoned with.
Thus, just as this generation is not guiltless but brings on its own head divine judgment, so also as long as it exists, this generation is not fixed on its present course. Change, real change, is always possible—for better or for worse! This is fundamentally the reason for which Ezekiel was appointed a watchman back in chapter 3 so that the wicked might be turned from their ways to a godly way of life, and the righteous be warned not to fall away.
In all this, is God not just? The problem, says Ezekiel, is not God’s lack of justice. The problem is with Israel’s lack of justice. The problem is not that God has not judged this present generation according to what they deserve. Rather, it is that they deserve all too fully the judgment that has fallen on them. But that is only part of the story. The essential point the prophet is making is introduced by the word “therefore” in verse 30.9 Judgment is coming! God will judge Israel, not unjustly or capriciously but according to their ways. In the past, he has shown justice abundantly tempered with mercy to Israel. They have repeatedly fallen short of God’s standard, loving their transgressions more than they love God. What is more, in the present they continue in the way of their fathers. If the proverb were true, they would be condemned for sure.
But even now it is not too late! Even wicked, condemned sinners can still leave their transgressions behind, repent, and acquire for themselves10 a new heart and new spirit (18:31). Even now death is not inevitable. They can still return to the God of all grace and live (18:32). If they do so, God will not turn them away but will give them what they seek and what he has already promised: a new heart and a new spirit (11:19).11 Everything that precedes it—the case studies, the declaration of God’s justice, the statement of God’s mercy—everything leads up to the passionate appeal to turn from death, to choose life and live (cf. Deut. 30:15–20)!
Bridging Contexts
THE CORPORATE NATURE of Ezekiel 18. All too often Ezekiel 18 has been treated as if drawn from the pages of a systematic theology textbook. Frequently, the result of this approach has been to hail the prophet as introducing a new theological idea into Israel, that of “individual responsibility.” Previously, so the argument goes, Israelites thought in terms of “corporate responsibility,” but Ezekiel cleared the way for the New Testament by asserting the standing of the individual soul before God.12 Such an idea appeals to our individualistic age, but it is not founded in the text.
In our exposition, we have demonstrated that the case studies, though they describe hypothetical individuals, actually are building an argument that applies to Ezekiel’s generation as a whole. It was the corporate group (the “house of Israel,” 18:25, 29–30) on whom judgment had come and who is urged to repent and turn once more to the Lord. This same corporate emphasis is found elsewhere in Ezekiel. Israel’s long history of sin has now made their final doom inevitable (cf. Ezek. 20).
However, that fate does not descend on an innocent generation but one that is also guilty of the same sins as its predecessors. The corporate nature of judgment is not arbitrary, any more than is the corporate aspect of salvation, but it is bound up with the transmission of those same sinful characteristics on to the next generation. Following the example of the fathers, the children have also been eating sour grapes. Just as the blessings of the covenant community are not transmitted to the next generation as something separate from their parent’s faith, so also the covenant curse is transmitted in company with unbelief.
A similar theme emerges in the books of Judges to Kings, where repeated cycles of apostasy reach a point of no return with the excesses of Manasseh, from which not even the reform of Josiah can rescue Judah (2 Kings 23:26).13 Yet at the same time, the generations after Manasseh are not excused. Though Josiah is righteous and receives the reward of at least being buried in his own tomb (23:30), the four kings leading up to the exile (Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah) each do evil in the eyes of the Lord. Punishment for the sins of their forebears falls not on the heads of the innocent but the guilty. The question being addressed by Ezekiel, then, is not whether judgment is corporate, but whether that corporate judgment is just or not.
Indeed, the very categories Ezekiel utilizes—“righteous/unrighteous,” “life/death”—are corporate categories in the Old Testament. The “legal lists” were not expressions of some impersonal entity called “Right” or “Natural Law” or “Truth.” The prophets would never have begun their arguments with the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. . . .” To be righteous was to be in right relationship with the Lord, to accept him as your overlord, and therefore to accede to his demands on your life.
Necessarily, rightly relating to the Great King involved rightly relating to his friends and enemies as well. Thus, righteousness prohibited idolatry (giving allegiance to any other overlord) and taking advantage of the poor (oppressing the King’s people). Chastity and purity were prerequisites to entering his presence. To be unrighteous, on the other hand, was to live as the antithesis of an obedient vassal, consorting with the King’s enemies and doing the things he had forbidden. The law was an expression of the wisdom of the Great King that provided opportunity for the vassal to express loyalty.
The one who is faithful to these requirements will “live,” that is, enjoy the fullness of relationship with the Great King that flows from obedience.14 Such life is not merely physical existence, or even the future hope of return from exile, but a place among the people of the King in the presence of the King. Death, on the other hand, means estrangement from both God and the covenant community, along with all of the blessings that went with that status. To be cut off from God’s people is to be “dead” even while physically still alive, for one would be separated from the source of life. There is no life apart from the Source and Giver of life; as Deuteronomy 30:20 puts it: “The LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
The individual dimension. Yet this stress on the corporate nature of both life and death, of blessing and curse, should not blind us to the fact that these elements have always had an individual dimension to them in the Bible. As early as the Flood, God was concerned to rescue the righteous out of the midst of the judgment (Gen. 6:9). “Righteous” Lot (as Peter calls him in 2 Peter 2:7) was similarly delivered out of the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, though his unbelieving sons-in-law were consumed in the conflagration. Joshua and Caleb, the two spies to bring a positive report of the Promised Land, were the only two from that generation to enter it (Num. 13–14). When Ahab’s sin resulted in drought, God provided supernaturally for Elijah first by means of ravens and then by means of a foreign widow (1 Kings 17). In the midst of the judgment that finally falls on the wicked for their sin, God is able to protect his own.
Contemporary Significance
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. When I was growing up, two of the top three things we were never allowed to say were, “It’s not my fault,” and, “It’s not fair.” (The other was, “I couldn’t help it.”) Those very phrases are, in effect, what Ezekiel’s contemporaries were saying to God by using the parable about the fathers having eaten sour grapes and the children having their teeth set on edge. As they suffered the discipline of God in the Exile, their first response was, “This is not our fault,” which in turn led logically to the accusation, “God, that’s not fair.” Ezekiel’s response is to affirm that, along with previous generations, it is indeed their fault. It is not God’s unfairness but their sin that is the problem. They are simply in denial about the true nature of their case. But Ezekiel doesn’t take away their excuses in order to leave them crushed under the full impact of God’s law. He pleads with them even now to turn and live.
The question of why bad things happen in this world is a problem for anyone who thinks about the world at all, who lives beyond the level of momentary feelings. That’s why Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen to Good People15 was such a best-seller. The issue he posed is a real one—even if the answer he gave to that question was seriously flawed. His solution is that God means well but is ultimately unable to prevent everything bad from hitting home. According to him, God is like a good parent, doing everything in his power to protect his children, but ultimately powerless against the intrusions of chaos into the order of the world and the free expression of evil on the part of those he has created.
Those of us who believe in the God whom the Bible reveals have a problem with Rabbi Kushner’s “solution,” however.16 It is based on a wrong picture of God. The Bible portrays God as victorious over the forces of chaos from the beginning of Genesis on. Nothing can stand against his omnipotent, creative word. The mighty Egyptian army is smothered by the Red Sea when it seeks to make bad things happen to God’s people. As a general principle, the writer of Proverbs teaches us that there is no such thing as chance in this world: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD “(Prov. 16:33). Nor is the Lord helpless even against the decisions of wicked people. Indeed, he declares in Isaiah 8 that he will use the fierce and godless ruler of the Assyrians to execute judgment on his own people. No, the problem is not with God’s power.
Recognizing that reality, the temptation is for us to oversimplify in a different direction. We may baldly reply to Rabbi Kushner in words that sound superficially like those of Ezekiel: “Bad things don’t happen to good people, for there are no good people. Bad things only happen to bad people, for we are all bad.” Certainly there is a strong element of biblical truth in that statement. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” says Paul in Romans 3:23. Thus, we are all bad people, who deserve much more in the way of bad things than we ever receive in this life.
A “pro-life” God. Yet that approach oversimplifies the problem in a different direction by suggesting that there is only one reason why these bad things are happening, which is as a punishment from God because of our sin. Ultimately, this approach leads to the kind of question we find the disciples asking Jesus when they encountered a man born blind: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). In the face of profound personal tragedy, we are content merely to debate suffering as an interesting theological issue, considering our duty done if we prove God “not guilty” of the charge of unfairness.
Not so, says Ezekiel! Certainly he answers the theological issue, but important though the issue is, he doesn’t stop there. He is concerned not merely to demonstrate that God is just in condemning his people to death, but also to show that in spite of everything they have done, God is resolutely “pro-life.” Even when the “life” in question is the life of those who have rebelled against him, God desires that they should turn and live.17 He therefore presses on from the abstract theological issue (“Where does this suffering come from?”) to the intensely personal issue (“What is your relationship to God?”).
You see, though suffering in this life ultimately flows from Adam’s sin, a sin in which we corporately share not as innocent bystanders but as guilty coconspirators, yet it also has a multitude of diverse purposes in the providence of God. Some suffering has indeed as its purpose the judgment of sinners, here and now. Those who flout the Word of God find that there is often a price to pay. In other cases, however, suffering has a redemptive purpose, providing the occasion for those outside the kingdom to be brought to an awareness of their need for God. So Ezekiel faces his contemporaries with the challenge posed by their exile. He confronts them passionately with the need to choose between life and death, to choose between repenting and turning to God or continuing on their present course, with all of its ultimate consequences.
What did Jesus say in answer to the disciples’ question as to which one had sinned, the man born blind or his parents? His answer was: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned . . . but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3). This suffering, says Jesus—indeed all suffering—is a work of God in the world. As we have noted, it sometimes has a redemptive purpose and sometimes a purpose of judgment. The latter should indeed not surprise us since we are sinners, born to sinners. God will certainly be glorified in executing judgment on sin. The truly surprising part is the first part: that God, through suffering, works for good in us and others, redeeming us, deepening our devotion to him, and drawing others to himself through us. The real question we face in this topsy-turvy world is: “How can bad things achieve a good purpose in bad people?”
The ultimate answer. The full answer to that question comes only at the cross. There God brought to remembrance my sins and the sins of all of his people so that they might not be remembered finally against us (Ezek. 18:22). Those sins must be dealt with. They cannot simply be swept under the carpet. The death penalty that they deserve must be executed. Someone must surely die for them. But there at Calvary, instead of putting me to death, or even me and my children for my sins, he put to death rather his own Son, his own beloved Son, who had no sin of his own.
We have not begun to grasp the reason why we suffer if we have not first considered the suffering of Christ in our place. For it was on the cross that his suffering made it possible for my suffering to be for good, for God’s glory in my redemption, for God’s glory in my growth in grace. That doesn’t make it any less suffering. It is indeed painful, frequently very painful, as we endure it. But it does mean that for Christians, suffering is not for our judgment but is the means of God’s gracious work in our lives, by which we are increasingly conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
Ezekiel’s passion to convey that message of life for everyone who will repent fits the cost paid by Jesus to make it possible. What can we say, however, about our own anemic efforts to share the good news? Faced with the reality of millions going to a lost eternity, do we form debating clubs to bat around the issue of the fate of those who have never heard of Jesus? Do we sit around and argue about the sociological factors that have caused so many fewer people to go to church nowadays than thirty years ago? Or do we rather determine that if sinners will go to hell, it will at least be over our dead bodies? As Charles Haddon Spurgeon put it:
Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.18
The only appropriate response to the cross is to plead and exhort and pour out our lives to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like Ezekiel, we must confront men and women here and now with their desperate need to turn from their sins and to receive forgiveness and new life through Christ, and thus live forever with God and his people.