Ezekiel 18:1
New International Version
The word of the LORD came to me:

New Living Translation
Then another message came to me from the LORD:

English Standard Version
The word of the LORD came to me:

Berean Standard Bible
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

King James Bible
The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,

New King James Version
The word of the LORD came to me again, saying,

New American Standard Bible
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

NASB 1995
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

NASB 1977
Then the word of the LORD came to me saying,

Legacy Standard Bible
Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Amplified Bible
The word of the LORD came to me again, saying,

Christian Standard Bible
The word of the LORD came to me:

Holman Christian Standard Bible
The word of the LORD came to me: “

American Standard Version
The word of Jehovah came unto me again, saying,

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And the word of LORD JEHOVAH was upon me, saying:

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

Contemporary English Version
The LORD said:

Douay-Rheims Bible
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: What is the meaning?

English Revised Version
The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying,

GOD'S WORD® Translation
The LORD spoke his word to me. He said,

Good News Translation
The LORD spoke to me

International Standard Version
This message came to me from the LORD:

JPS Tanakh 1917
And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying:

Literal Standard Version
And there is a word of YHWH to me, saying,

Majority Standard Bible
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

New American Bible
The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man,

NET Bible
The word of the LORD came to me:

New Revised Standard Version
The word of the LORD came to me:

New Heart English Bible
The word of the LORD came to me again, saying,

Webster's Bible Translation
The word of the LORD came to me again, saying,

World English Bible
Yahweh’s word came to me again, saying,

Young's Literal Translation
'And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying:

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
A Proverb about Israel
1Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge’?…

Cross References
Ezekiel 17:24
Then all the trees of the field will know that I am the LORD. I bring the tall tree down and make the low tree tall. I dry up the green tree and make the withered tree flourish. I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done it.'"

Ezekiel 18:2
"What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge'?


Treasury of Scripture

The word of the LORD came to me again, saying,

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Ezekiel 18
1. God defends his justice
31. and exhorts to repentance














Verses 1, 2. - What mean ye, that ye use this proverb, etc.? Another and entirely different section opens, and we see at once from what it started. Ezekiel had heard from the lips of his countrymen, and had seen its working in their hearts, the proverb (already familiar to him, it may be, through Jeremiah 31:29) with which they blunted their sense of personal responsibility. They had to bear the punishment of sins which they had not committed. The sins of the fathers were visited, as in Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:7; Leviticus 26:39, 40; Numbers 14:18; Deuteronomy 5:9, upon the third and fourth generations. Manasseh and his people had sinned, and Josiah and his descendants and their contemporaries had to suffer for it. The thought was familiar enough, and the general law of the passages above referred to was afterwards applied, as with authority, to what was then passing (2 Kings 23:26; 2 Kings 24:3). Even Jeremiah recognized it in Lamentations 5:7 and Jeremiah 15:4, and was content to look, for a reversal of the proverb, to the distant Messianic time of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:29-31). The plea with which Ezekiel had to deal was therefore one which seemed to rest on the basis of a Divine authority. And that authority was confirmed by the induction of a wide experience. Every preacher of righteousness in every age has to warn the evil doer that he is working evil for generations yet unborn, to whom he transmits his own tendencies, the evil of his own influence and example. It is well that he can balance that thought with the belief that good also may work in the future with a yet wider range and mightier power (Exodus 20:5). Authority and experience alike might seem to favour the plea that the fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge. Ezekiel was led, however, to feel that there was a latent falsehood in the plea. In the depth of his consciousness there was the witness that every man was personally responsible for the things that he did, that the eternal righteousness of God would not ultimately punish the innocent for the guilty, he had to work out, according to the light given him, his vindication of the ways of God to man, to sketch at least the outlines of a theodicy. Did he, in doing this, come forward as a prophet, correcting and setting aside the teaching of the Law? At first, and on a surface view, he might seem to do so. But it was with him as it was afterwards with St. Paul He "established the Law" in the very teaching which seemed to contradict it. He does not deny (it would have been idle to do so) that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, i.e. affect those children for evil. What he does is to define the limits of that law. And he may have found his starting point in that very book which, for him and his generation, was the great embodiment of the Law as a whole. If men were forbidden, as in Deuteronomy 24:16, to put the children to death for the sins of the fathers; if that was to be the rule of human justice, - the justice of God could not be less equitable than the rule which he prescribed for his creatures. It is not without interest to note the parallelism between Ezekiel and the Greek poet who was likest to him, as in his genius, so also in the courage with which he faced the problems of the universe. AEschylus also recognizes ('Agam.,' 727-756) that there is a righteous order in the seeming anomalies of history. Men might say, in their proverbs, that prosperity as such provoked the wrath of the gods, and brought on the downfall of a "woe insatiable;" and then he adds -

"But I, apart from all,
Hold this my creed alone."
And that creed is that punishment comes only when the children reproduce the impious recklessness of their fathers. "Justice shines brightly in the dwellings of those who love the right, and rule their life by law." Into the deeper problem raised by the modern thought of inherited tendencies developed by the environment, which itself originates in the past, it was not given to Ezekiel or AEschylus to enter.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Then the word
דְבַר־ (ḏə·ḇar-)
Noun - masculine singular construct
Strong's 1697: A word, a matter, thing, a cause

of the LORD
יְהוָ֖ה (Yah·weh)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3068: LORD -- the proper name of the God of Israel

came
וַיְהִ֥י (way·hî)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 1961: To fall out, come to pass, become, be

to me,
אֵלַ֥י (’ê·lay)
Preposition | first person common singular
Strong's 413: Near, with, among, to

saying,
לֵאמֹֽר׃ (lê·mōr)
Preposition-l | Verb - Qal - Infinitive construct
Strong's 559: To utter, say


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OT Prophets: Ezekiel 18:1 The word of Yahweh came to me (Ezek. Eze Ezk)
Ezekiel 17:24
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