2. Ye use this proverb. The fact that it was termed a “proverb” indicates that the saying was popular. The tense of the Hebrew verb shows that the words were oft repeated. Jeremiah referred to and condemned the same proverb (Jer. 31:29, 30). The sour grapes the fathers ate represented their own personal sins. The setting of the children’s teeth on edge represented the suffering the Jews felt came upon them in consequence of their fathers’ sins. On the surface it may appear that this proverb is in harmony with what is expressly stated in the second commandment, that the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children (Ex. 20:5; Ex. 34:7; Deut. 5:9). Then why should Ezekiel so strongly condemn it? Ezekiel’s statement and the statement in the law deal with two different aspects of the problem. Ezekiel’s contemporaries insisted that they suffered for their fathers’ guilt. The law deals with the handing down of depravity. “It is inevitable that children should suffer from the consequences of parental wrong-doing, but they are not punished for the parents’ guilt, except as they participate in their sins” (PP 306).
Sin depraved and degraded the nature of Adam and Eve. It was impossible for the parents of the human race to pass on to their posterity that which they themselves did not possess (see GC 533). Hence, we, as their offspring, suffer the result of the transgression of our forefathers, but not through any arbitrary imputation of their guilt. If the latter were true, the charge of unfairness could be sustained. But in the former case, the element of unfairness is eliminated by the observation that the only alternative course would have been the annihilation of the human family at the time of the first sin. The setting into operation of the plan of salvation involved the necessity of perpetuating the lives of our first parents even though such a perpetuation would permit the working out of the law of heredity. However, the situation was fair in view of the fact that the plan of salvation was instituted, for it provided for ultimate freedom from perverted appetites, debased morals, physical disease and degeneracy, which are transmitted as a legacy from father to son. It provided also victory in this life over hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil. The ultimate salutary effect will be not only the salvation of untold multitudes but eternal immunity against future transgression. Ezekiel’s countrymen failed to comprehend this truth and falsely charged God with inflicting upon them the punishment for sin for which they in no wise were responsible.