Does God really “[visit] the iniquity of the fathers on the children?” Is that fair?
Every new generation seems to feel superior to the old fogies, don’t they. We’re more tech savvy, they think, and more relaxed about our parents’ old hang-ups. Less judgmental, too (except about the old fogies, of course). But, as my father warned me, it will be one of our great shocks in life when we discover, like Elijah, “I am no better than my fathers!” (1 Ki 19:4). In our story today (Gen 26:6-17), Isaac has a hard lesson to learn. It’s one thing to keep yourself away from worldly influences around you; the problem is those worldly attitudes within you. New fogies get them from their old fogies. There is a string of Bible verses that, on the surface, seem to suggest children are punished for their fathers’ sins. But in the preamble to the Ten Commandments, the Lord says the following: “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on 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” (Ex 20:5-6). A careful observer will notice the real problem: both hating and loving God are contagious! And Isaac’s duplicity about his wife being his sister to protect himself was learned at home not-so-sweet home. Parents can easily pass on their attitudes about God to their children. The idiom, “Little pitchers have big ears,” sees the curved handle of a pitcher looking like a human ear, and has been a popular expression since at least 1546, found in a proverb collection by John Heywood. It means, of course, that parents freely speaking in the home to (or at) each other have an audience, the child’s first school. Do they hear cursing or blessing? Criticism or affirmation? What are our little ones hearing?