Who's Responsible Here?
From today's readings: "Therefore I
will judge you, house of Israel,
each one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD.... Create a clean heart in
me, O God.... Suffer the little children to come to Me...."
Another hallmark of Ezekiel is his insistence and clarification
of personal responsibility. Elsewhere in the Bible, the collective consequences
of sin are explicitly affirmed, e.g., Exodus 20:3, that part of the First
Commandment where God explains, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the
fourth generation of those who hate Me." A pessimistic and fatalist
misapplication of this principle led to the proverb quoted today, "Fathers
have eaten green grapes, thus their children's teeth are on edge,"
suggesting that even a bit of imprudence (eating green grapes) leads to a
vindictive aftermath for the succeeding generation (crooked teeth).
