Ezekiel 18: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD tells Ezekiel that the people must stop repeating the proverb about fathers eating sour grapes and their children's teeth being set on edge. He describes three generations (an upright man, his violent son, and that son's upright son) to show that each person answers for his own conduct and not his father's. He then says a wicked person who turns from his sins will live, and an upright person who turns to wrongdoing will die, and he answers the complaint that his way is not fair. The chapter closes with a call to turn away from wrongdoing, since the Lord takes no pleasure in anyone's death.

Claim by Claim

1. 18:1
   • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
   • The word of the LORD came saying the following.
2. 18:2
   • God asks the people what they mean by using this proverb.
   • The proverb is used concerning the land of Israel.
   • The proverb says the fathers have eaten sour grapes.
   • The proverb says the children's teeth are set on edge.
3. 18:3
   • The Lord GOD swears by his own life.
   • The Lord GOD declares this.
   • The people shall no longer use this proverb in Israel.
4. 18:4
   • All souls belong to God.
   • The soul of the father belongs to God.
   • The soul of the son likewise belongs to God.
   • The soul that sins is the one that shall die.
5. 18:5
   • Consider the case of a man who is righteous.
   • That man does what is just and right.
6. 18:6
   • He has not eaten upon the mountains.
   • He has not lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel.
   • He has not defiled his neighbour's wife.
   • He does not approach a woman during her menstrual impurity.
7. 18:7
   • He has not oppressed anyone.
   • He restores to the debtor the pledge taken for the debt.
   • He has committed no robbery.
   • He gives his bread to the hungry.
   • He covers the naked with a garment.
8. 18:8
   • He has not lent out money at interest.
   • He has not taken any increase.
   • He withdraws his hand from injustice.
   • He executes true judgment between one man and another.
9. 18:9
   • He walks in God's statutes.
   • He has kept God's ordinances so as to act faithfully.
   • That man is righteous.
   • That man shall surely live.
   • The Lord GOD declares this.
10. 18:10
    • Suppose that man begets a son who is violent.
    • That son is a shedder of blood.
    • That son does any one of these things.
    • The text is unclear whether the son does these things to a brother or merely does any one of these things.
11. 18:11
    • The son does none of those good things.
    • The son has eaten upon the mountains.
    • The son has defiled his neighbour's wife.
12. 18:12
    • He has oppressed the poor and needy.
    • He has committed robbery.
    • He has not restored the pledge.
    • He has lifted up his eyes to the idols.
    • He has committed abomination.
13. 18:13
    • He has lent out money at interest.
    • He has taken increase.
    • The question is asked whether such a man shall live.
    • He shall not live.
    • He has done all these abominations.
    • He shall surely be put to death.
    • His blood shall be upon himself.
14. 18:14
    • Suppose that man begets a son.
    • The son sees all the sins his father has done.
    • The son considers them.
    • The son does not do the like.
15. 18:15
    • He has not eaten upon the mountains.
    • He has not lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel.
    • He has not defiled his neighbour's wife.
16. 18:16
    • He has not oppressed anyone.
    • He has not held a pledge in security.
    • He has not committed robbery.
    • He has given his bread to the hungry.
    • He has covered the naked with a garment.
17. 18:17
    • He has withdrawn his hand from harming the poor.
    • He has not taken interest or increase.
    • He has done God's ordinances.
    • He has walked in God's statutes.
    • He shall not die for the iniquity of his father.
    • He shall surely live.
18. 18:18
    • His father practiced extortion.
    • His father robbed his brother.
    • His father did what is not good among his people.
    • His father shall die in his own iniquity.
19. 18:19
    • The people say: why does the son not bear the iniquity of the father?
    • The son has done what is just and right.
    • The son has kept all God's statutes.
    • The son has performed them.
    • The son shall surely live.
20. 18:20
    • The soul that sins is the one that shall die.
    • A son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.
    • A father shall not bear the iniquity of the son.
    • The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself.
    • The wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
21. 18:21
    • Suppose the wicked man turns from all the sins he has committed.
    • He keeps all God's statutes.
    • He does what is just and right.
    • He shall surely live.
    • He shall not die.
22. 18:22
    • None of the transgressions he has committed shall be remembered against him.
    • He shall live because of the righteousness he has done.
23. 18:23
    • God asks whether he takes any pleasure in the death of the wicked.
    • The Lord GOD declares this.
    • God asks whether he would rather that the wicked turn from his ways and live.
24. 18:24
    • Suppose a righteous man turns away from his righteousness.
    • He commits iniquity.
    • He does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does.
    • The question is asked whether he shall live.
    • None of the righteousness he has done shall be remembered.
    • He shall die in the treachery he has committed and in the sin he has sinned.
25. 18:25
    • The people say the way of the Lord is not just.
    • God calls the house of Israel to hear.
    • God asks whether it is his way that is not just.
    • God asks whether it is not their ways that are unjust.
26. 18:26
    • When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he dies for these things.
    • He shall die for the iniquity he has done.
27. 18:27
    • When a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall keep his own soul alive.
28. 18:28
    • He considers.
    • He turns away from all the transgressions he has committed.
    • He shall surely live.
    • He shall not die.
29. 18:29
    • The house of Israel says the way of the Lord is not just.
    • God asks whether his ways are not just, addressing the house of Israel.
    • God asks whether it is not their ways that are unjust.
30. 18:30
    • God will judge the house of Israel, each one according to his ways.
    • The Lord GOD declares this.
    • God commands them to repent and turn from all their transgressions.
    • Then iniquity shall not be a stumbling block to them.
31. 18:31
    • God commands them to cast away from themselves all the transgressions by which they have transgressed.
    • God commands them to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit.
    • God asks why the house of Israel should die.
32. 18:32
    • God takes no pleasure in the death of the one who dies.
    • The Lord GOD declares this.
    • God commands them to turn back and live.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

18:1

"The word of the LORD came to me" is the standard opening formula for a prophetic message; it marks the start of a new unit rather than describing how the message arrived. Note also the printing convention: "LORD" in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God (the four Hebrew letters YHWH), while "Lord GOD" later in the chapter renders a double title, roughly "my Master YHWH."

18:2

Ezekiel spoke to Judeans deported to Babylon after Jerusalem's first surrender in 597 BC. The saying they were repeating (a popular proverb, also quoted at Jeremiah 31:29) meant that one generation eats the sour fruit and a later generation suffers the consequences: we are being punished for what our ancestors did. "Teeth set on edge" describes the rough, blunted feeling in the teeth after eating something sharply acidic.

18:3

"As surely as I live" is an oath formula, the strongest form of promise in Hebrew: the speaker stakes his own life on the statement being carried out.

18:4

The word behind "life" (and "the person who sins") is Hebrew *nephesh*, which means a living being, the breathing self, the individual person. It does not mean a soul as something separable from the body, and the older translation "soul" can mislead here.

18:5

"Upright" translates *tsaddiq*, in origin a courtroom word: the person who would be found in the right if his case were tried. The list that follows in verses 6-9 functions like a legal checklist of what being "in the right" consists of.

18:6

"Eat at the mountain shrines" refers to sacrificial meals at open-air worship sites on hilltops, the "high places" condemned throughout Kings and Jeremiah, used for the worship of other gods or of Israel's God by forbidden means. "Look to" the idols renders a gesture: lifting the eyes toward an image was a posture of prayer and dependence. Approaching a woman during her period was prohibited in Israel's purity laws (Leviticus 18:19; 20:18); the point of listing it here is that it belonged to the same body of law as the other items.

18:7

The "item held as security" is a pledge: an object handed over to guarantee repayment of a loan. Israelite law limited what could be taken and required a poor man's cloak to be given back before nightfall, since he slept in it (Exodus 22:26-27; Deuteronomy 24:10-13). Keeping a pledge was therefore not a private matter between lender and borrower but a breach of law.

18:8

Israelite law forbade charging a fellow Israelite interest on a loan at all (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:35-37; Deuteronomy 23:19-20); lending at interest to outsiders was permitted. Two Hebrew terms are used, one meaning roughly "a bite" (interest deducted at the start) and one "an increase" (extra repaid at the end); whether they were two distinct practices or one practice named twice is not certain.

18:9

"Rules" and "laws" render two standard Hebrew terms for categories of commandment, *chuqqot*, fixed decrees, and *mishpatim*, rulings of the kind a judge hands down. They are paired throughout the Old Testament as a way of saying "the whole body of law."

18:10

"Beget a son" means become the father of a son. "A shedder of blood" means a murderer.

18:11

The Hebrew of verses 10-11 is compressed and difficult, and translations divide the clauses differently: the phrase rendered "does none of the good things his father did" could also be read as "though the father did none of these things." The overall sense, a bad son of a good father, is not in doubt, but the wording is.

18:12

"Detestable things" translates *to'evah*, a technical term for what is offensive within the covenant. It is used most often of idolatry and of forbidden sexual and ritual practices, and marks an act as excluded outright rather than merely disapproved of.

18:13

"His death will be his own fault" renders the legal formula "his blood shall be upon him", a courtroom expression declaring that responsibility for a person's execution rests on the condemned man himself, not on those who carry out the sentence or on his family.

18:14

"Considereth" means he thinks it over carefully instead of just copying what his father did.

18:17

The Hebrew here reads "withholds his hand from the poor," which is odd, since the parallel line in verse 8 reads "withholds his hand from wrongdoing"; the two words are similar in Hebrew and the ancient Greek translation has "wrongdoing" in both places. Translations divide over which to follow, so "harming the poor" and "doing wrong" are both defensible readings of this line.

18:18

"Squeezed people cruelly" translates a verb (*'ashaq*) used for exploiting someone you have power over, withholding a hired worker's wages, taking what is owed to a dependent. "His brother" means a fellow Israelite, not a blood sibling.

18:19

"Carry the guilt of" is a legal idiom meaning to bear the liability for an offense and its penalty, the way a person might be made to shoulder another's debt. The question in this verse assumes an older principle stated at Exodus 20:5 and Deuteronomy 5:9, that consequences for wrongdoing fall on later generations; this chapter is the reply to that assumption as the exiles were applying it to themselves.

18:20

"Bear the iniquity" is an idiom for carrying the penalty of an offense, the way you might say someone carries the can. The word translated "iniquity" covers the wrong act, the guilt it creates, and the punishment that follows, all in one, which is why the same word can be lifted and carried.

18:21

To "turn" means to stop and go a different way. Here it means changing how you live.

18:22

"Shall not be mentioned unto him" is courtroom language. The past offenses are not brought up as evidence against him; the record is not read out.

18:24

"Broke faith" translates *ma'al*, a term for treachery against someone who trusted you; in law it was used especially for misappropriating what had been dedicated to God, and so carries the sense of a betrayal rather than a lapse.

18:25

The old wording, "the way of the LORD is not equal," uses "equal" in its 1611 sense of evenly weighted or level: that is, fair. The Hebrew verb pictures measuring or weighing something out, so the complaint is that God's dealings do not balance.

18:27

"Save his soul alive" means to save his own life.

18:30

"Turn back" translates *shuv*, the ordinary Hebrew word for turning around and going the other way on a road. Used of conduct, it means reversing direction; the older English word for it is "repent," which in modern usage suggests feeling sorry, while the Hebrew word is about changing course.

18:31

In Hebrew usage the "heart" is the seat of thinking, choosing and intention rather than of feeling, closer to the modern "mind." "Spirit" (*ruach*) is the same word as breath or wind, and used of a person means the animating disposition, the settled inclination that drives behavior.

18:32

"Wherefore" is an old word for so, or therefore. "I have no pleasure" means it does not make God glad.