{"id":73925,"date":"2020-04-29T16:15:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T13:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=73925"},"modified":"2020-04-29T16:15:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T13:15:49","slug":"sour-grapes-are-their-own-punishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/sour-grapes-are-their-own-punishment\/","title":{"rendered":"Sour Grapes Are Their Own Punishment"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"73925","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"470","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Bottom line: repent and live!\u00a0\r\n\r\n","content":"

The word of the LORD came to me: What do you mean by quoting this proverb upon the soil of Israel, \u201cParents eat sour grapes and their children\u2019s teeth are blunted\u201d? As I live\u2014declares the Lord GOD\u2014this proverb shall no longer be current among you in Israel. Consider, all lives are Mine; the life of the parent and the life of the child are both Mine. The person who sins, only he shall die. (1-4)<\/span><\/p>\n

The use of sour grapes as a metaphor for sin and of blunted teeth (or: teeth standing on edge) for its consequence, is already familiar to us from Jeremiah, where it was addressed with the selfsame divine resolution: \u201cIn those days, they shall no longer say, \u2018Parents have eaten sour grapes and children\u2019s teeth are blunted\u2019 but every one shall die for his own sins. Whosoever eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be blunted\u201d (31:29-30). Jeremiah, as the author of Lamentations, also presented this issue in a more prosaic form: \u201cOur ancestors sinned, yet they are gone, while we have suffered [on account of] their iniquities\u201d (Lamentations 5:7).<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201csour grapes\u201d proverb in the opening verses poses two challenges to God\u2019s justice (theodicy): If the children have not sinned, why would they be punished, and, if the parents did sin, how did they escape their punishment? The answer, however, seems to address only one of the two premises. By saying that only sinners die, God is implying that the children are being punished for their own sins, rather than for those of their parents. However, it leaves unanswered the question of how the parents escaped punishment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eating sour grapes, though, is perhaps not a metaphor for the sin, but a form of punishment. Sour grapes set teeth on edge and, arguably, are not eaten by choice but out of dire necessity. The eating and blunting are not a cause and its effect, but the two ends of a single process, yielding a form of inclusion\u2014like \u201ctop to bottom\u201d or \u201ca to z.\u201d The parents began the sinful behavior; the children carry it on. Each is responsible and each is punished.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is the theme through v.20, while the balance of the chapter features its corollary, summed up in the final verse: \u201cFor it is not My desire that anyone shall die\u2014declares the Lord God; repent, therefore, and live!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Note that these questions of theodicy also arise regarding Exodus 34:7: \u201cHe accounts the sins of the parents to the children and the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations,\u201d where a panoply of classical and medieval rabbinic sources addressed them. For a highly accessible representation of these views, see<\/span> here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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