A Jealous God

…for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. – Deuteronomy 5:9-10.

I don’t know about you, but over the years as I have read this passage I have been puzzled by the punishment of “children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation”. That seems pretty harsh to me – after all, why? Why punish the children?

Once again, the ole taken out of context bug raises its little pointy head and I have ignored the rest of the passage and the context within which it resides.  This passage in Deuteronomy is within several chapters, well let’s be honest an entire book, about obeying God and the blessings that come with that. Moses is reminding the Israelites as they camp on the banks of the Jordan River, of all he has told them and taught them over the past forty years. They are on the verge of ending the longest, most unnecessary road trip in history. The trip from Egypt to the Promised Land takes about eleven days ON FOOT. Yet because of disobedience (and massive amounts of grumbling and whining which it turns out get classified as disobedience), they were stuck in the moment for forty years. Classic scenario of the “third and fourth generation” being punished. No wonder Moses spends an entire book of the Bible reminding them of what they are supposed to be doing when they finally cross the Jordan River.

(Above map located at https://www.aeragon.com/itz/01-introduction.html.)

So let’s go back and look at this passage a bit closer, starting with the statement by God that He is a “jealous God”. Dictionary.com gives several definitions of “jealous”, two of which fit appropriately: