Esther 5:11

5:11 Haman then recounted to them his fabulous wealth, ¹  his many sons, ²  and how the king had magnified him and exalted him over the king’s other officials and servants.

Exodus 20:5

20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, ³  for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous ⁴  God, responding to ⁵  the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations ⁶  of those who reject me, ⁷ 

Job 18:18-19

18:18 He is driven ⁸  from light into darkness

and is banished from the world.

18:19 He has neither children nor descendants ⁹  among his people,

no survivor in those places he once stayed. ¹⁰ 

Job 27:13-15

27:13 This is the portion of the wicked man

allotted by God, ¹¹ 

the inheritance that evildoers receive

from the Almighty.

27:14 If his children increase – it is for the sword! ¹² 

His offspring never have enough to eat. ¹³ 

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ¹⁴ 

and their ¹⁵  widows do not mourn for them.

Psalms 21:10

21:10 You destroy their offspring ¹⁶  from the earth,

their descendants ¹⁷  from among the human race. ¹⁸ 

Psalms 109:12-13

109:12 May no one show him kindness! ¹⁹ 

May no one have compassion ²⁰  on his fatherless children!

109:13 May his descendants ²¹  be cut off! ²² 

May the memory of them be wiped out by the time the next generation arrives! ²³ 

[5:11]  ¹ tn Heb “the glory of his riches” (so KJV, NASB); NRSV “the splendor of his riches.”

[5:11]  ² sn According to Esth 9:10 Haman had ten sons.

[20:5]  ³ tn The combination of these two verbs customarily refers to the worship of pagan deities (e.g., Deut 17:3: 30:17; Jer 8:2; see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research [SBT], 86). The first verb is לאֹ־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (lo’ tishtakhaveh), now to be classified as a hishtaphel imperfect from חָוָה (khavah; BDB 1005 s.v. שׁחה), “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” It is used of the true worship of God as well. The second verb is וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם (vÿlo’ to’ovdem). The two could be taken as a hendiadys: “you will not prostrate yourself to serve them.” In an interesting side comment U. Cassuto (Exodus, 242) offers an explanation of the spelling of the second verb: he suggests that it was spelled with the qamets khatuf vowel to show contempt for pagan worship, as if their conduct does not even warrant a correct spelling of the word “serve.” Gesenius says that the forms like this are anomalous, but he wonders if they were pointed as if the verb was a Hophal with the meaning “you shall not allow yourself to be brought to worship them” (GKC 161 §60.b). But this is unlikely.

[20:5]  ⁴ sn The word “jealous” is the same word often translated “zeal” or “zealous.” The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. The word can also have the sense of “envy,” but in that case the object is out of bounds. God’s zeal or jealousy is to protect his people or his institutions or his honor. Yahweh’s honor is bound up with the life of his people.

[20:5]  ⁵ tn Verses 5 and 6 are very concise, and the word פָּקַד (paqad) is difficult to translate. Often rendered “visiting,” it might here be rendered “dealing with” in a negative sense or “punishing,” but it describes positive attention in 13:19. When used of God, it essentially means that God intervenes in the lives of people for blessing or for cursing. Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev 18:25; Isa 26:21; Jer 29:32; 36:31; Hos 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep his commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them. Deut 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut 7:10 and Ezek 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 243). God is showing here that his ethical character is displayed in how he deals with sin and righteousness, all of which he describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to him and for avoiding idolatry. There is a justice at work in the dealings of God that is not present in the pagan world.

[20:5]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew word for “generations” is not found in v. 5 or 6. The numbers are short for a longer expression, which is understood as part of the description of the children already mentioned (see Deut 7:9, where “generation” [דּוֹר, dor] is present and more necessary, since “children” have not been mentioned).

[20:5]  ⁷ tn This is an important qualification to the principle. The word rendered “reject” is often translated “hate” and carries with it the idea of defiantly rejecting and opposing God and his word. Such people are doomed to carry on the sins of their ancestors and bear guilt with them.

[18:18]  ⁸ tn The verbs in this verse are plural; without the expressed subject they should be taken in the passive sense.

[18:19]  ⁹ tn The two words נִין (nin, “offspring”) and נֶכֶד (nekhed, “posterity”) are always together and form an alliteration. This is hard to capture in English, but some have tried: Moffatt had “son and scion,” and Tur-Sinai had “breed or brood.” But the words are best simply translated as “lineage and posterity” or as in the NIV “offspring or descendants.”

[18:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in his sojournings.” The verb גּוּר (gur) means “to reside; to sojourn” temporarily, without land rights. Even this word has been selected to stress the temporary nature of his stay on earth.

[27:13]  ¹¹ tn The expression “allotted by God” interprets the simple prepositional phrase in the text: “with/from God.”

[27:14]  ¹² tn R. Gordis (Job, 294) identifies this as a breviloquence. Compare Ps 92:8 where the last two words also constitute the apodosis.

[27:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “will not be satisfied with bread/food.”

[27:15]  ¹⁴ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ¹⁵ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[21:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “fruit.” The next line makes it clear that offspring is in view.

[21:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “seed.”

[21:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “sons of man.”

[109:12]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “may there not be for him one who extends loyal love.”

[109:12]  ²⁰ tn Perhaps this refers to being generous (see Ps 37:21).

[109:13]  ²¹ tn Or “offspring.”

[109:13]  ²² sn On the expression cut off see Ps 37:28.

[109:13]  ²³ tn Heb “in another generation may their name be wiped out.”