Job 27:14 Commentary and Bible Study

God judges the children of the wicked and he does this in spite of the truth that guilt is not ordinarily transferred from one to another – the exception to this is obviously the Lamb of God to whom our sins were imputed. But human justice does not operate in this way. God is very clear, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him’ (Ezekiel 18:20). And again, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin’ (Deuteronomy 24:16). 2 Kings 14:6 and Jeremiah 31:29-30 say the same. And yet God certainly can and does punish the children of the wicked, sometimes in their parents’ lifetime and sometimes after they have died. As the second commandment says, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: ⁵ Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; ⁶ And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments’ (Exodus 20:4-6). If God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation and if ‘A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. ³ An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever’ (Deuteronomy 23:2-3), then he certainly does judge the following generations for the sins of the parents as part of his government of the world. In this last case, the retribution was to be implemented by men, but it was a ban on entrance into the house of God and therefore reflected divine justice and not human justice. How is it that God acts in this way when he forbids human justice to do the same? God’s justice goes far beyond human justice because of his far greater power to implement it. Nothing that he does can of course be unjust, because his actions are the definition of justice and there is no other standard outside of him to which he is accountable. When God punishes the children of the wicked he does so in a way that is perfectly consistent with personal responsibility. It is not because the children are punished for something that they did not do. Rather, God removes his hand of restraint from them, and allows them to commit sins which they might have might have declined to do out of fear of punishment. But in their case he did not restrain them, and so they went ahead and sinned and may therefore be justly punished for what they did wrong. God treated them this way for the sake of their father’s but they were punished for their own sins. Human justice could never operate according to such a principle because human justice does not have the power to act secretly in the heart like this. The principles of human justice enshrined in the commandments of the law, continue to be honoured even when God allows the wicked to be wicked, because no one is punished for what another did.Therefore, says Job, the children of the wicked may be many and the prospects for them may seem good, but God disappoints their hopes and their children perish. This may happen during their lifetimes, or it may wait till they are gone. It is not a universal rule, for there are also Josiahs born to Amons, and Hezekiahs born to Ahazes, but it is normally the case.