2 Kings 14:5-6

14:5 When he had secured control of the kingdom, ¹  he executed the servants who had assassinated his father. ²  14:6 But he did not execute the sons of the assassins. He obeyed the Lord’s commandment as recorded in the law scroll of Moses, ³  “Fathers must not be put to death for what their sons do, ⁴  and sons must not be put to death for what their fathers do. ⁵  A man must be put to death only for his own sin.” ⁶ 

2 Kings 14:2

14:2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. ⁷  His mother ⁸  was Jehoaddan, who was from Jerusalem.

2 Kings 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ⁹  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ¹⁰  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ¹¹  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ¹² 

Jeremiah 31:29-30

The Lord Will Make a New Covenant with Israel and Judah

31:29 “When that time comes, people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but the children’s teeth have grown numb.’ ¹³  31:30 Rather, each person will die for his own sins. The teeth of the person who eats the sour grapes will themselves grow numb. ¹⁴ 

Ezekiel 18:20

18:20 The person who sins is the one who will die. A son will not suffer ¹⁵  for his father’s iniquity, and a father will not suffer ¹⁶  for his son’s iniquity; the righteous person will be judged according to his righteousness, and the wicked person according to his wickedness. ¹⁷ 

¹ tn Heb “when the kingdom was secure in his hand.”

² tn Heb “he struck down his servants, the ones who had struck down the king, his father.”

³ tn Heb “as it is written in the scroll of the law of Moses which the Lord commanded, saying.”

⁴ tn Heb “on account of sons.”

⁵ tn Heb “on account of fathers.”

⁶ sn This law is recorded in Deut 24:16.

⁷ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁸ tn Heb “the name of his mother.”

⁹ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

¹¹ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

¹² sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.

¹³ tn This word only occurs here and in the parallel passage in Ezek 18:2 in the Qal stem and in Eccl 10:10 in the Piel stem. In the latter passage it refers to the bluntness of an ax that has not been sharpened. Here the idea is of the “bluntness” of the teeth, not from having ground them down due to the bitter taste of sour grapes but to the fact that they have lost their “edge,” “bite,” or “sharpness” because they are numb from the sour taste. For this meaning for the word see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:197.

¹⁴ sn The Lord answers their charge by stating that each person is responsible for his own sin and will himself bear the consequences. Ezek 18 has a more extended treatment of this and shows that this extends not just to the link between parents and children but between former behavior and future behavior of the same individual. To a certain extent the principle articulated here is anticipatory of the statement in v. 34 which refers to the forgiveness of former sins.

¹⁵ tn Heb “lift up, bear.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “lift up, bear.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “the righteousness of the righteous one will be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked one will be upon him.”