“visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children...”
Hmmm.. . though in Ezekiel it’s made plain that the sins of the fathers don’t pass to their children, but that everyone is judged on his own.
(”he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.”
Ezekiel 18 is saying that inherited traits aren’t destiny, that a person who lives a good life before God may gain his favor and be granted an escape from any sin traits/ or guilt originating from his father. Chapter 18 destroys the notions of caste or stigmas societies may lay upon a family for the sins of an ancestor who might have been heinous but are not necessarily being repeated in successive generations. A person has his own soul before God and he can’t use the excuse that because his daddy did something, he is also trapped into continuing that same pattern. The chapter also destroys the notion of generational blood guilt, i.e as in the notion of demanding reparations of caucasians for the actions of just some of their members against blacks some 150 years ago.