Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 31:29
In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
29, 30. The words “The fathers have eaten, etc.” occur also in Eze 18:2, where they are spoken of as a proverb. The people complain that they are being punished for the sins of an earlier generation (perhaps under Manasseh) and murmuring against God’s justice. In the future individual responsibility will be recognised. The earlier view that responsibility for the crime of an individual was as a matter of course shared by all his belongings animate and inanimate alike (see examples in Jos 7:24 f.; 1Sa 22:16-19; 2Sa 21:1-9), gradually yielded (see 2Ki 14:5 f.) as the more enlightened conscience revolted against it. Deu 24:16 marks the change. But Israel in its protest ignores its own sin. As a matter of fact Jeremiah’s generation were as much involved in guilt, and that of no trifling kind, as their predecessors. See further on the general subject, Peake, Problem, etc. pp. 21 f.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Jer 31:29
In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the childrens teeth are set on edge.
The bequethment of the ungodly
There is this great difference between moral and physical evil–that men will use all their carefulness to avoid the one, while every imaginable prohibition is ineffectual to deter them from the other. It is quite evident that there is not in our nature a principle of what we may call a moral self-preservation. Hence it is that, whilst the Governor of the universe has not thought it necessary to interpose the precepts of the statute-book that we may be warned against physical evil, He has heaped together edicts and motives which all bear on the avoidance of moral evil. We know, indeed, that such is the desperate proneness of man to misdoing, that all this mighty instrumentality is practically of no effect; but it is singular to observe how every motive by which our nature can be plied is brought into play, so that the Divine Legislator has left nothing untried in order to save us from iniquity. If a man be wrapt up in selfishness, why, he is told that health, and peace, and reputation will be best consulted by his seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then, if he care only for himself–if he would not hate his own flesh, and mar his own happiness, let him cultivate that godliness which hath the promise of the present life, as well as that which is to come. And if a man be inaccessible to this kind of attack–if he can be contented, for the gratification of his senses and the indulgence of his passions, to brave the penalties of the law of the Almighty, the Bible will open upon him another battery, and seek to move him by his affection for others. Those yet unborn may be sufferers by your sin; for the days spoken of in our text are assuredly not yet come–the days in which they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the childrens teeth are set on edge. Yes, you may say, it is not to be denied that God doth visit on the children the iniquity of the fathers; but is this just? The innocent seem made to suffer for the guilty. Can this be right? No, it cannot be just that the innocent should suffer for the guilty. If you can show the children to be innocent, and therefore deserve nothing of what they receive, you will make good your point–that the visitation is unjust; but to maintain the thorough innocence of the children would be to maintain the purity of human nature. If in themselves they deserve not to be visited with calamity, they must be exceptions to the rule that men are born in sin and shapen in iniquity. It is certain that every one born into the world is born in a state of wrath and condemnation: the child, whether of believing or unbelieving parents, has not a particle of right to one solitary blessing; and if, therefore, whatever be His reasons for making a distinction, God withholds many blessings from this or that child, He withholds nothing to which the child has a claim; and if He permits many calamities to fall on the child, He permits nothing which is wholly undeserved. Wherein, then, can lie the violation of justice if nothing be kept back to which there was right, nothing inflicted but in the way of retribution? But still if you allow the strict justice of the measure, yon may profess to think it hard that the child should have to endure what, but for the parents offences, it would have escaped. Let us not, however, be carried away by appearances. The child, for example, is of a diseased constitution, of a dishonoured name, of broken fortunes; these constitute that setting the teeth on edge, which you think it so hard that the fathers eating the sour grape should have caused. But who can prove to me that the child is injured by the visitation? Nay, who can prove to me that the child is not really advantaged? Are penury and affliction never overruled for good? Is it necessarily an evil to have been born poor in place of rich–to be of weak health instead of strong–to struggle with adversity, in place of being lapped in prosperity! No man who feels himself immortal, who is conscious that this confined theatre of existence is but the school in which he is disciplined for s higher and nobler, will contend for the necessary injuriousness of want and calamity. We are poor judges of injuries. What seems to be injurious, is so capable of being overruled for good, that it may turn out beneficial. There may be many a tongue which would never have been tuned to the high praise of God, had not the teeth been set on edge by the sin of the father. Now there would seem no more important and practical application of this subject, than the pressing home on parents the duties which they owe to their children. Fathers of the present day will rise early and late take rest, they will ply without ceasing at laborious occupations, and the strength of intellect, and the powers of muscle shall be devoted with a like prodigality; and the animating thing throughout the unwearied enlistment of every talent and every moment in one engrossing pursuit shall be the upholding of a family in sufficiency and obtaining the means of future independence. And it may never occur to these fathers that if they so indulge the passion of accumulation as to become the slaves of covetousness, or if they so engross themselves with the wharf and the exchange as to leave comparatively no time for the Church and the closet–or if the resolve to be rich induce them to depart from high-toned rectitude, and to carry on trade with those shuffling and underhand tricks by which it is often deformed–it may never, we fear, occur to them that in their zeal for their childrens welfare they may be storing up for them calamity, and that with every pound they lay by, they may lay by a worm which, if it sleep till their own death, shall then struggle into life and gnaw at the core of their familys happiness. Yet, if then be truth in the text, the father s sin goes down to his posterity: and where shall be the profit of a large bequeathment of land or consols if there be fastened to it the entailment of the Almightys displeasure? God has ordained that wickedness shall defeat its own end; He may allow you to heap up wealth, but He puts the stamp of His anger on the silver and the gold; and the nothing which s pious beggar has to leave were a better inheritance than the coffers of ingots on which were impressed the stamp of the Lords indignation. The days are not yet come, in which it shall no longer be mid, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the childrens teeth were set on edge. But the days shall come when the prophecy shall be accomplished, even as will be that which asserts the universal extinction of war; though nation is as yet ready to rise against nation, and no signs appear of the sword being beaten into the ploughshare. Prophecies like these are commands as well as prophecies; and their being fulfilled as predictions may greatly depend on their being obeyed as precepts. Here is a clear practical lesson for parents. Would you save your children from the having the teeth set on edge? Take heed, then, that you eat not the sour grape yourselves! You may be sure that you then consult best for the interests of your families when you consult most your own souls. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The hereditary principle in Gods government of humanity
I. Man has been subject to this hereditary principle of government through all past ages.
1. Its necessary working is secured by the connection existing between the members of our race.
(1) How close is the tie of physical relationship subsisting between men and generations! We are all made of the one blood, all descendants from the same stock. Our parents transmit to us not merely their natures, but their idiosyncrasies, their diseases, their characteristic propensities.
(2) How close, too, is the tie of social interdependence. Every man is dependent upon his brother. One has something to impart which the other requires.
2. It is registered in the everyday experience of humanity.
(1) You see it written in a man s history as the lineal descendant from a particular family. Some inherit a princely fortune, and some a crushing penury, from their ancestors. Their social status, too, is often ruled by the position and conduct of those of whom they were born.
(2) You see it written in his history as the offspring of past generations. The human plant does not grow up in its wild luxuriance and unassisted strength, but is trained against the walls and espaliers of law and government, and pruned by the hand of public customs and manners.
II. This hereditary principle of the Divine government is to man no just ground of complaint.
1. No man is made to suffer more than he actually deserves on account of his own personal sins. The method is for the Judge of all the earth to determine and no one else. In sooth, since suffering must come to the sinner, I would sooner have it through parents than in any other way; for that medium seems to afford some alleviating considerations. Love modifies suffering, cools its fires on the nerves, and lessens its pressure on the heart.
2. The evil which thus descends to us from our ancestors is not to be compared with that which we produce ourselves. With evils that are transmitted to you there can be no remorse. You bear them as calamities; and you have the grace of heaven, the sympathy of the good, and the smiles of an approving conscience to enable you to bear them with calm magnanimity, and even with triumphant exultation.
3. Whilst this hereditary principle of the Divine government entails evil, it also entails good. Whence came our political constitution, which, notwithstanding its defects, affords a better guarantee of personal liberty, social order, and human progress, than any other government under heaven? Did we elaborate it ourselves? No. It is the production of days. It has grown out of the enlightening instructions, the importunate prayers, the patriotic sacrifices and struggles of the best men of the generations that are gone.
4. This hereditary principle tends to restrain vice and stimulate virtue. What sacrifices will not parents of the ordinary natural affection make to serve the interest of their children! Now the hereditary principle of government brings this mighty impulse in the worlds heart to act in the restraint of evil and in the development of good.
III. The time will come when men will cease entirely complaining of this principle. In those days of universal knowledge, virtue, and blessedness, not a solitary man will be found to complain of this hereditary principle in the Divine government. Every man shall have such an insight into the nature of Gods administration that he shall see the wisdom and feel the beneficence of this principle. In those days the successive generations of holy and happy men will clearly see that the good, that will then have come out of this principle to humanity, will far out-measure all the evil that has ever grown out of its operation, through all the past history of man. In those days, parents, through many a circling age, down to the solemn day of doom, will transmit nothing to their offspring, but halesness of constitution, elasticity of intellect, purity of felling, nobleness of soul, and honour of name, knowledge, and blessed example, on which it shall leave its successor to lay another, and thus on for centuries; until humanity shall find itself on that rich and lofty soil, where the choicest productions of paradise will bloom for ever.
1. This subject serves to show the right which every reformer has to protest against the sins of individuals.
2. It serves to show the solemn responsibility of the parental character.
3. It serves to show that the best way to elevate the race is to train the young.
4. It serves to throw some light upon what is called original sin. A deterioration of our nature, and a disturbance of our moral relations, is a fact palpable to every eye, incontrovertible to every intellect, conscious to every soul
5. It serves to indicate the philosophy of Christs incarnation. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 29. The fathers have eaten a sour grape] A proverbial expression for, “The children suffer for the offences of their parents.” This is explained in the next verse: “Every one shall die for his own iniquity.” No child shall suffer Divine punition for the sin of his father; only so far as he acts in the same way can he be said to bear the sins of his parents.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That is, We are punished for our fathers sins; which yet God may justly do; and none questioneth the justice of man in the case, depriving children of their patrimonial estates for their parents treasons; nor more than God threateneth in the second commandment, God indeed, Eze 18:2, seemeth displeased at their use of this proverb; but the reason is, because they so used it as to acquit themselves, intimating they were guiltless, and suffered only for the sins of their parents, whereas that was false; otherwise the punishment of children for the sins of their parents was no more than God had threatened, Exo 20:5; 34:7; Jer 15:4. But, saith God, your captivity shall, as to you, expiate your parents guilt past, and you shall no more say so.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
29. In those daysafter theirpunishment has been completed, and mercy again visits them.
fathers . . . eaten . . .sour grape . . . children’s teeth . . . on edgethe proverbamong the exiles’ children born in Babylon, to express that theysuffered the evil consequences of their fathers’ sins rather than oftheir own (Lam 5:7; Eze 18:2;Eze 18:3).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
In those days they shall say no more,…. The following proverb or byword; they should have no occasion to use it, nor should they choose to use it; since they would understand themselves, and the dispensations of Providence towards them, better than to use it:
the fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge; that is, the fathers have sinned, and the children are punished for their sins. So the Targum,
“the fathers have sinned, and the children are smitten.”
This was in some sense true; they were punished for their fathers’ sins in the captivity, particularly for Manasseh’s; nor was it unusual with God to visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children; nor at all unjust, since they were a part of their parents, and especially since they were guilty of the same sins; nor is it thought unjust among men to punish children for the treason of their parents, as every sin is treason against God. But this was not all that was meant by this proverb; the sense of those that used it was, that they themselves were quite clear and innocent, and that they only suffered for their fathers’ faults; which was false, of which they should be convinced, and use the proverb no more, as charging God with injustice.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The proverb, which Ezekiel also (Eze 18:2.) mentions and contends against, cannot mean, “The fathers have begun to eat sour grapes, but not till the teeth of their sons have become blunted by them” (Ngelsbach); the change of tense is against this, for, by the perfect and the imperfect , the blunting of the children’s teeth is set down as a result of the fathers’ eating. The proverb means, “Children atone for the misdeeds of their fathers,” or “The sins of the fathers are visited on their innocent children.” On this point, cf. the explanations given in Eze 18:2. “Then shall they no more say” is rightly explained by Hitzig to mean, “They shall have no more occasion to say.” But the meaning of the words is not yet made plain by this; in particular, the question how we must understand Jer 31:30 is not settled. Graf, referring to Jer 23:7-8, supplies after , and thus obtains the meaning, Then will they no more accuse God of unrighteousness, as in that wicked proverb, but they will perceive that every one has to suffer for his own guilt. Hitzig and Ngelsbach have declared against this insertion – the former with the remark that, in Jer 23:7-8, because both members of the sentence begin with protestations, the whole is clear, while here it is not so – the latter resting on the fact that the dropping of the proverb from current use certainly implies a correct knowledge of the righteousness of God, but one which is very elementary and merely negative; while, on the other hand, the whole connection of the passage now before us shows that it is intended to describe a period when the theocratic life is in a most flourishing condition. Then expositors take Jer 31:30 as the utterance of the prophet, and as embodying the notion that the average level of morality shall be so high at this future period, that only some sins will continue to be committed, and these as isolated exceptions to the rule. Taken all in all, Israel will be a holy people, in which the general spirit pervading them will repress the evil in some individuals, that would otherwise manifest itself. But we cannot imagine how these ideas can be supposed to be contained in the words, “Every man shall die for his own sins,” etc. Jer 31:30 unquestionably contains the opposite of Jer 31:29. The proverb mentioned in Jer 31:29 involves the complaint against God, that in punishing sin He deals unjustly. According to this view, Jer 31:30 must contain the declaration that, in the future, the righteousness of God is to be revealed in the punishment of sins. As we have already remarked on Eze 18:3., the verse in question rather means, that after the re-establishment of Israel, the Lord will make known to His people His grace in so glorious a manner that the favoured ones will fully perceive the righteousness of His judgments. The experience of the unmerited love and compassion of the Lord softens the heart so much, that the favoured one no longer doubts the righteousness of the divine punishment. Such knowledge of true blessedness cannot be called elementary; rather, it implies a deep experience of divine grace and a great advance in the life of faith. Nor does the verse contain a judgment expressed by the prophet in opposition to that of his contemporaries, but it simply declares that the opinion contained in that current proverb shall no longer be accepted then, but the favoured people will recognise in the death of the sinner the punishment due to them for their own sin. Viewed in this manner, these verses prepare the way for the following announcement concerning the nature of the new covenant.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Ezekiel shews that it was a complaint commonly prevailing among the people, that they suffered for the sins of their fathers, as Horace also says, a heathen and a despiser of God, “O Roman, thou dost undeservedly suffer for the faults of thy fathers.” (51) Such, then, was the arrogance of the Jews, as to strive with God, as though he punished them, while they were innocent; and they expressed this by using a proverb, “If our fathers have eaten sour grapes, what is the reason that our teeth are set on edge?” We know that teeth are set on edge when unripe fruits are eaten; but the word properly means sour grapes, which the Greeks call omphakes. Then the Prophet says, that this proverb would be no longer used, for after having been tamed by evils, they would at length know that God had not dealt so severely with them without a just cause.
We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet. And he says, In those days, that is, after God had punished the people, and also embraced them through his mercy; for both these things were necessary, that is, that their perverseness and pride should be subdued, and that they should cease to expostulate with God, and also that the gratuitous favor of God should be manifested to them. At that time then, he says, they shall not use this impious proverb, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth have been blunted: (52) but on the contrary, he adds, every one shall die in his own iniquity; and whosoever eateth a sour grape, his teeth shall be blunted; that is, at that time the just judgment of God shall be exalted, so that there will be no place for these insolent and blasphemous clamors; the mercy of God will also be made manifest, for men, worthy of death, will be delivered, but not otherwise than through the gratuitous goodness of God.
(51) Carm., Lib. 3, Od. 6.
(52) The Targum thus interprets this proverb, “The fathers have sinned, and the children have been smitten.” “Blunted,” or deprived of feeling, obstupuerunt, is both the Vulg. and the Syr. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(29, 30) The fathers have eaten a sour grape . . .The proverb was one which, as we find from Eze. 18:2-3, had at this time come into common use. Men found in it an explanation of their sufferings which relieved their consciences. They were suffering, they said, for the sins of their fathers, not for their own. They distorted the words which, as asserting the continuity of national life, were attached to the second Commandment (Exo. 20:5), and instead of finding in them a warning restraining them from evil by the fear of transmitting evil to another generation, they found in them a plea for their own recklessness. Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah felt that the time was come when, even at the risk of a seeming contradiction to words clothed with a Divine authority, the other aspect of Gods government had to be asserted in all its fulness: and therefore they lay stress on the truth that each man is responsible for his own acts, and for those alone, and that the law of the inheritance of evil (what we have learnt to call the law of hrdit) leaves untouched the freedom of mans will. The eater of the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge, is, as it were, an emendation of the proverbial saying. The words of the Latin poet, Delicta majorum immeritus lues, Thou, for no guilt of thine, shalt pay the forfeit of thy fathers sins (Hor. Od. iii. 6, 1), show how ready men have been at all times to make a like excuse. How the two truths are to be reconciled, the law of hereditary tendencies, and punishments that fall not on the original offenders, but on their children, and the law of individual responsibility, is a question to which we can give no formal answer. We must be content to accept both laws, and rest in the belief that the Judge of all the earth will assuredly do right.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
29. They shall say no more, etc. There is here no incongruity with those passages which describe God as”visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children.” Both are exactly true. The fearfully destructive nature of sin is illustrated in that it casts a blight upon everything it touches. A curse rests on the physical universe and on the processes of nature on account of it. Children suffer the consequences of their parents’ sins, but no being is ever punished for the sins of another. There cannot be punishment for sin without a conscience of sin. If a man dies it will be for his own iniquity.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 31:29-30. In those days, &c. See the note on Exo 20:5.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 31:29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
Ver. 29. In those days they shall say no more. ] There shall be rectius de operibus Dei iudicium, a more correct judgment passed upon God’s proceedings. See about this byword, Eze 18:2 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
set on edge. A proverb, mentioned here for the first time. Here restated, and corrected in Jer 31:30.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jer 31:29-30. In these days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the childrens teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
God was going to deal with the Israelites individually, personally; and that is how he will deal with us.
Jer 31:31. Behold,
Here is something worth beholding; read this great promise with tears in your eyes:
Jer 31:31-33. The days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto than, saith the LORD: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
It is all wills and shalls; it is all covenant life; no longer the law graven upon the tables of stone, but the law written on the heart; no more the Lords command without mans power and will to obey it; but God will renew our nature, and change our disposition, so that we shall love to do what once we loathed, and shall loathe the sins that we once loved. What a wonderful mass of mercies is included in the covenant of grace!
Jer 31:34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they shall all know me,
All thy children shall be taught of the Lord. All believers, whatever else they may not know, do know their Lord: they shall all know me,
Jer 31:34. From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD:
How will they learn to know the Lord? Well, it will be in a very wonderful way;
Jer 31:34. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Let me read that again, and may come poor wandering children of God hear the promise, and be glad that it applies to them: I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Jer 31:35-37. Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: if these ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundation of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Jer 31:30, Lam 5:7, Eze 18:2, Eze 18:3
Reciprocal: Lev 26:39 – and also Deu 24:16 – General 2Ch 25:4 – as it is written Eze 18:20 – soul that
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 31:29-30. The language is figurative and teaches individual responsibility. The people had to suffer the captivity largely because of the sins of the leaders; that will not occur again.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 31:29-30. They shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, &c. God had often declared that he would visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, and had particularly threatened to execute judgment upon the present generation for the idolatries and other sins of their forefathers. See note on Exo 20:5, and chap. Jer 15:4. This gave occasion to the proverb mentioned in this verse, which they that were in captivity applied to their own case, as if the miseries they endured were chiefly owing to their fathers sins: see Lam 5:7; Eze 18:2; but when this judgment should be removed, then there would be no further occasion to use this proverb, as Ezekiel there speaks. But every one shall die for his own iniquity, &c. These national judgments ceasing, every one shall suffer only for his own faults. This promise, says Lowth, will be remarkably verified when God shall cease to visit upon the Jewish nation that imprecation which they laid upon themselves by the crucifixion of Christ, his blood be upon us, and upon our children. It was the opinion of Bishop Warburton, that the punishment of children for the iniquity of their parents, was to supply the want of the sanction of a future state, which he supposed was very obscurely, if at all, revealed under the Mosaic dispensation. For, says he, while a future state was kept hid from the Jews there was an absolute need of such a law to restrain the more daring spirits by working upon their instincts. But when a doctrine was brought to light which held them up, and continued them after death, the objects of divine justice, it had then no further use, and was therefore reasonably to be abolished, with the rest of the Jewish laws peculiar to the Mosaic dispensation. But it may be inquired here, Do not children still suffer for the sins of their parents in the only sense in which they ever did, namely, in all national calamities, and in that poverty and reproach, and those bodily afflictions, which the vices of their parents entail upon them?
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
31:29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have {g} eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
(g) The wicked used this proverb when they murmured against God’s judgments pronounced by the prophets, saying that their fathers had committed the fault and that the children were punished, Eze 18:2-3 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
In that time of future blessing, people would no longer repeat a popular proverb that said that the children were suffering because of their fathers’ sins. This proverb expressed a popular misconception (cf. Deu 24:16; Eze 18:2-4). It blamed present trouble on past ancestors inordinately. In that day, everyone would bear the consequences of his own actions. Justice would be obvious then, even though at present it did not seem to be operating. Whereas people do suffer consequences for the sins of their ancestors to a limited extent (corporate responsibility), they much more consistently suffer for their own sins (individual responsibility).