Yeshua Explored
31st October 2022
Generations
How are we affected by the deeds of our parents?
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There’s also a subtle and insidious form of false worship that involves the energy we expend in our search for money and success. Mammon, that persistent false idol! Job claimed to be untouched by this in his self-justification:
“If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, ‘You are my security,’ if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained, …” (Job 31:24-25)
We read of Abraham accumulating much cattle and was, in his day, quite a wealthy man. But money was not an end in itself, it wasn’t an idol to worship and we trust that he used his wealth responsibly.
For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me …
And here are the consequences of misplaced worship. The only place in Scripture where God is termed ‘jealous’ is here, when dealing with idol worship. When the Israelites accepted God’s offer at Sinai to be His favoured nation, His Kingdom of priests, what we saw in effect was a marriage, a bond of matrimony created between God and His ‘chosen people’. A Jew worshipping ‘another god’ is as a spouse engaging in adultery so God, the jilted partner, has every right to respond in jealous anger. The Hebrew word used here for ‘jealous’, qanna, is related to a similar word, pronounced the same but featuring an ‘h’ (hey) rather than a silent “a” (aleph) as its final letter. This word takes the meaning of ‘owning’, giving the sense that the Israelite nation was God’s possession and no foreign “god” has the right to entice His people away from Him. So the bond between the Creator and His chosen people was a strong one, explaining why punishments for breaking this bond were going to be severe.
Yet the punishment seems unfair. Why should the kids, grandkids and great-grandkids suffer for our mistakes? Before we judge according to our own standards – which is a dangerous thing to do of course and quite inadvisable – let’s see if the Bible provides us with examples of this principle actually working.
The one that really comes to mind is the result of the lengthy reign of wicked old King Manasseh. I wrote about this in God’s Blueprint: You can’t choose your family and Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, was probably the worst King of all. “And he did that which was bad in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the nations, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.” (2 Kings 21:2)
Manasseh was the straw that broke the camel’s back and it is because of his many evil acts that God chose to hold back no longer: “And the LORD spoke by His servants the prophets saying, Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, having done wickedly above all that the Amorite did, who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols: therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle.” (2 Kings 21:10-12)
But this doesn’t happen during his reign. Ironically it happens during the reign of his saintly grandson, Josiah, the righteous King who discovers the ancient scrolls of the Torah and dedicates his people to God, cleansing the land and the people: “And there was no king before him like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with his entire being, and with all his might, according to all the Torah (Teaching) of Moses, nor did any like him rise after him.” (2 Kings 23:25)
But, in the very next verse: “Nevertheless the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, by which His anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him”. (2 Kings 23:26)
God brought judgement in the reign of Josiah’s son, the fourth generation since Manasseh.
One could see this principle as an effective deterrent to a people who cherished family relationships above everything. The period spanned by four generations is probably the upper limit for them all to be alive together and so, for someone’s sins to have an effect on one’s great-grandchildren would provoke feelings of sheer shame and horror. In modern history one wonders how our unforgiving culture would deal with any near descendants of such as Stalin, Hitler and their demonic henchmen.
Then, finally, there’s a more positive spin offered:
… but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Here’s a concrete statement of God’s mercy trumping judgement. If you misbehave then your shame is going to be paraded to your living descendants, but if you behave yourself then your legacy will shine throughout all future days. Some translations prefer the term ‘thousands of generations’, which is close enough to saying ‘forever’ as you can get. If this is not an incentive for leading a good and faithful life, then I don’t know what is!
This is an extract from the book, Sinner’s Charter: Are the ten commandments for today?, available for £10 at https://www.sppublishing.com/the-sinners-charter-260-p.asp
