Please FReepmail me to get on/off the Alleluia Ping List.
From: Ezekiel 18:1-10, 13b, 30-32
Individual responsibility
[5] If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right — [6] if he does not eat
upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not
defile his neighbour’s wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity, [7] does
not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery,
gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, [8] does not
lend at interest or take any increase, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes
true justice between man and man, [9] walks in my statutes, and is careful to
observe my ordinances — he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord God.
[10] “If he begets a son who is a robber a shedder of blood, […] [13] shall he then
live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely
die: his blood shall be upon himself.
[30] “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,
says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be
your ruin. [31] Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have com-
mitted against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you
die, O house of Israel? [32] For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says
the Lord God; so turn, and live.”
*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:
18:1-32. Here Ezekiel uses the father-son relationship as a key to this ongoing
explanation of the catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile. In the pre-
vious chapters he showed that the Lord did not give up on his special love for Is-
rael; punish her he will, because she deserves it, but the broken Covenant will
be re-established. Now he repeats a lesson that the exiles must learn: the Lord
is not being very cruel or unjust towards them; nor is he whenever he allows peo-
ple to suffer.
Traditional teaching put more emphasis on solidarity and unity among the people
— in terms of both space (all its parts formed one Israel) and time (all generations
made up the same people). Thus, it defined the Lord as just and merciful when
he rewarded or punished successive generations for the things their forebears did
(cf. Ex 34:6-7 and note). But Ezekiel breaks new ground by asserting the princi-
ple of individual retribution/responsibility: the exiles have been punished for their
own sins, not those of their forebears. This explanation for suffering is a very
considerable advance, but the focus is still a narrow one.
The book of Job, too, tackles the question of the suffering of the blameless, and
the answer it gives does not go far enough. Not until the New Testament will the
full picture emerge in the light of Jesus’ death on the cross. Christ suffers for the
sins of men, he dies in order to redeem us, and he shows that suffering of every
sort, even the suffering of the innocent, has a redemptive value: “When we consi-
der once more the central mysteries of our faith, we are surprised to see how
very human gestures are used to express the deepest truths: the love of God the
Father who gives up his Son, and the Son’s love which calmly leads him to Cal-
vary. God does not approach us in power and authority. No, he ‘takes the form
of a servant, being born in the likeness of man’. Jesus is never distant or aloof,
although sometimes in his preaching he seems very sad, because he is hurt by
the evil men do. However, if we watch him closely, we will note immediately that
his anger comes from love. It is a further invitation for us to leave infidelity and
sin behind. “’Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” says the Lord God,
“and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?’” These words explain
Christ’s whole life. They allow us to understand why he has come to us with a
heart made of flesh, a heart like ours. This is a convincing proof of his love and
a constant witness to the mystery of divine charity” (St J. Escrivá, Christ Is
Passing By, 162).
18:1-20. To counter the spiteful adage about the sour grapes and the teeth on
edge (cf. Jer 31:29), Ezekiel offers a practical case involving three generations —
a righteous father (vv. 5-9) who has a violent son (vv. 10-13), who in turn has a
son who is righteous (vv. 14-20). The moral in each case is the same: “The soul
that sins shall die” (v. 20; cf. v. 9); “the righteousness of the righteous shall be
upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself” (v. 20; cf.
9). Any possible confusion about personal or communal guilt for sin is addressed
by the Catechism in the following way: “God’s threat to inflict his punishment un-
to the third and fourth generation should be understood not as proof that children
will suffer for the sins of their parents, but that the need for penance and expia-
tion is fundamental [...l. Therefore, there is no contradiction between this threat
and the words of the prophet: the soul that sins shall die (Ezek 18:4). St Grego-
ry, whose teaching follows in the line of what all the Fathers taught, tells us:
‘Every man who sins as his father did shares in his father’s guilt. But the man
who has no part in his father’s iniquity bears none of his fault. The evil son of the
evil father will pay not only for his own sins, but for those of his father as well, be-
cause he added his own sins to his father’s sins against the Lord; it is just, in
the eyes of a strict judge, that he who followed in the footsteps of his evil father
should pay for the sins of his father in this life” (Roman Catechism, 3, 2, 31-32).
The sins listed here (idolatry, adultery, uncleanness, oppression, greed: vv. 6-8;
11-13; 15-17) are meant to include all the Lord’s commandments, especially
those written in what is known as the “Deuteronomic code” (Deut 12:1 26:15)
and the “law of holiness” (Lev 17:1-26:46). In Ezekiel’s time people were familiar
with the Decalogue and with standard lists of virtues (cf. Ps 15:2-4; Is 33:15-16;
Jer 22:3-5; Mic 6:8) and sins (cf. 22:6-12). The New Testament, too, uses simi-
lar lists (cf. 1 Cor 5:11; Eph 5:5) as a memory aid in moral instruction. So, one
can see that Ezekiel was familiar with teaching methods that were in use in the
temple. Following this tradition, the Church has always argued that the most ef-
fective means be used in catechetical teaching: “so that the faithful, according
to their talents, ability and state in life, can learn Catholic doctrine most effec-
tively and put it into practice” (Code of Canon Law, 779).
18:21-32. These verses reply to a question that may arise from the doctrine of
personal retribution: If the sinner must live with the consequences of his sins,
what is the purpose of repentance? Ezekiel takes the question very much to
heart, and his reply includes one of the most beautiful summaries of divine mer-
cy: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked …, and not rather that he
should turn from his way and live?” (v. 23; cf. 33:11). It is true that the explana-
tion of divine justice and punishment develops over a long period until the New
Testament is reached; even so, from the very beginning of divine Revelation,
there is never any doubt but that God is always ready to forgive. Over the cen-
turies, Christian spirituality has written beautiful pages filled to overflowing with
heartfelt trust in God’s mercy. As an example, we will quote a prayer by a Chris-
tian writer of the Armenian Church: “You are the Lord of Mercy. Have mercy on
me, a sinner, who beseeches you with sighs and tears. [...] O kind and merciful
Lord! You are patient with sinners, for you have said: if a wicked man turns away
from all his sins which he has committed … none of the transgressions which
he has committed shall he remembered against him (Ezek 18:21-22). Look, see
how I have come before you and fallen at your feet: your guilty servant pleads for
your mercy. Do not recall my sins, nor spurn me because of my wickedness.
[…] You are the Lord of goodness and mercy: you forgive all sin” (John Manda-
kuni, Oratio, 2-3).
Of course, God’s forgiveness is closely interwoven with personal conversion.
Therefore, it is not surprising to find these verses of Ezekiel being quoted in con-
nexion with the need for the sacrament of penance: “at all times, the practice of
penance in order to obtain grace and attain righteousness was necessary for all
those who fell into mortal sin, even those who sought to he washed clean by the
waters of baptism, so that, when sinfulness had been purged and set to rights,
they would detest any offence against God through their hatred of sin and the
sorrow of their souls. Thus says the Prophet: Repent and turn from all your trans-
gression, lest iniquity be your ruin (Ezek 18:30)” (Council of Trent, Session 14,
1). There is also a need for genuine contrition: “Contrition, which is the most im-
portant element of penance, is a sorrow of the soul, a hatred of all the sins that
have been committed, and a desire not to sin again in the future. This sense of
contrition has always been a fundamental condition of forgiveness; the man who
falls into sin after his baptism can only receive pardon if he is contrite, trusts in
the mercy of God, and fulfills all the other conditions that are binding in this sa-
crament. This Council declares that contrition encompasses not only the end
of sin and the beginning of new life, but the reparation of the old, sinful life, as it
was written: Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have commit-
ted against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! (Ezek 18:31)”
(Council of Trent, Session 14, 4).
*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.