Someone asked me recently: Does God punish children for the sins of their parents? In this post I’ll attempt to answer this question.
This idea (that God punishes children for the sins of their parents) comes from the Mosaic Law (the law God gave to the Israelites through Moses):
- Exodus 20:4–6, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
- Exodus 34:5–7, Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
- Deuteronomy 5:8-10, ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Admittedly, these verses, on their own, are a little confusing. So we need to turn to other Scriptures that speak to the question at hand to provide further clarity. For example:
- Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin.”
- 2 Kings 14:1–6, In the second year of Joash…king of Israel, Amaziah…became king over Judah…he did what was right in the sight of the Lord…Now it happened, as soon as the kingdom was established in his hand, that he executed his servants who had murdered his father the king. But the children of the murderers he did not execute, according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, in which the Lord commanded, saying, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; but a person shall be put to death for his own sin.”
- Jeremiah 31:29–30, In those days they shall say no more: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.
- Ezekiel 18:20, “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.”
Clearly, the Bible teaches that each person rises or falls on their own merit. Therefore, Exodus 20:4–6, Exodus 34:5–7, Deuteronomy 5:8-10 cannot mean that God punishes an innocent generation for the sins of a previous generation. What then do these verses mean?
- In Exodus 20:4-6, “…the iniquities of the fathers upon the children…” refers to sins the parents committed that the children are now repeating.
- And when Exodus 34:5-7 says “…by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children…” it’s clear that the children are guilty of sin themselves.
Therefore, we conclude that what these verses are affirming is God’s determination to punish successive generations for committing the same sins they learned from their parents. They do not teach that God punishes the children for the sins of their parents.
So in sum, the Bible teaches:
- If kids repeat the sins they learned from their parents, God will punish them just the same as the parents (Exodus 20:4–6, Exodus 34:5–7, Deuteronomy 5:8-10).
- But kids will not be punished by God for the sins of their parents, because each person will rise or fall before God based on their own merit, not someone else’s (Deuteronomy 24:16, 2 Kings 14:1-6, Jeremiah 31:29-30, Ezekiel 18:20).
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah brings these two truths together nicely in Jeremiah 32:18–19 when he wrote, “You show love to thousands but bring the punishment for the fathers’ sins into the laps of their children after them…Your eyes are open to all the ways of men; you reward everyone according to his conduct and as his deeds deserve.”
Note: Just because the Bible teaches that God will not punish kids for the sins of their parents, does not mean that kids won’t suffer for the sins of their parents. Many times they do. As they learn bad habits from the example their parents have set, they suffer the natural consequences of sin.