Our fathers have sinned, and are not, and we have borne their iniquities.
Zion’s sufferings
The terms unfolded, When in the depths of our distress the iniquities of our forefathers come to our remembrance, at once they aggravate our sins and augment our sorrows (2Ki_22:13; Dan_9:16; Jer_14:19-20). When God comes to find sin successive in generations, the last shall be sure to drink deep of the cup of Divine vengeance (Neh_9:34-35; Neh_9:38; Jer_4:24-25). When ancestors’ sins are not our cautions (Eze_18:14), it deeply aggravates the guilt of our souls (Neh_13:18; Ezr_9:7; Jer_16:11-13; Zec_1:4-6). The longer heaven’s patience is abused, the greater and more dreadful is the wrath of God that is deserved (Rom_2:4-5; Rom_1:18; Jer_49:9-11). If we promote sin by indulgence, or by example in our posterities, we shall be sure to entail judgment upon our issue (1Sa_2:29; 1Sa_2:34; 1Sa_2:36). Children are many times executors, they enter upon their father’s sins, and you know that in justice the executor may be sued, the debtor being dead. God may punish the sins of the parents upon the children, and yet the cause of the punishment may be in themselves (Hos_4:12-13). As if any being sick of the plague infect others, every one that dies, is said to die, not of others’, but of his own plague. Had their parents been good, had they been pious and zealous for God, there would have been no ground, no cause for this complaint; they could not then have said, “Our fathers’ iniquity is laid as a burden upon our shoulders.” It is good to be good parents, parental holiness is advantageous to posterity (Psa_102:28; Psa_112:1-2; Pro_14:26; Jer_32:39).
1. Exemplary piety in the fathers makes an impression upon the children’s hearts (Zec_10:7).
2. Heaven’s benediction descends from the parents to the children (Act_2:39).
3. Wicked fathers infelicitate their posterity (Job_5:3-4). The Jews were very unhappy parents (Mat_27:25). Children, plead if you can your ancestors’ integrity before the Lord. The father’s piety is the child’s privilege (Psa_116:16; Psa_86:16; 1Ki_8:23-25). Let us labour to be good ourselves, and to plant holiness in our families, that so we may have God’s blessings estated upon our children (Gen_18:19). (D. Swift.)
