Exodus 34:7
Who keepest mercy unto thousands: who takest away iniquity, and wickedness, and sin, and no man of himself is innocent before thee. Who renderest the iniquity of the fathers to the children, and to the grandchildren, unto the third and fourth generation.
Open Exodus 34:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →In the palace
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- qui custodis misericordiam in millia ; qui aufers iniquitatem, et scelera, atque peccata, nullusque apud te per se innocens est ; qui reddis iniquitatem patrum filiis, ac nepotibus in tertiam et quartam progeniem.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ δικαιοσύνην διατηρῶν καὶ ἔλεος εἰς χιλιάδας, ἀφαιρῶν ἀνομίας καὶ ἀδικίας καὶ ἁμαρτίας, καὶ οὐ καθαριεῖ τὸν ἔνοχον, ἐπάγων ἀνομίας πατέρων ἐπὶ τέκνα καὶ ἐπὶ τέκνα τέκνων ἐπὶ τρίτην καὶ τετάρτην γενεάν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- נֹצֵ֥ר חֶ֨סֶד֙ לָאֲלָפִ֔ים נֹשֵׂ֥א עָוֺ֛ן וָפֶ֖שַׁע וְחַטָּאָ֑ה וְנַקֵּה֙ לֹ֣א יְנַקֶּ֔ה פֹּקֵ֣ד עֲוֺ֣ן אָב֗וֹת עַל בָּנִים֙ וְעַל בְּנֵ֣י בָנִ֔ים עַל שִׁלֵּשִׁ֖ים וְעַל רִבֵּעִֽים
Haydock's commentary
Keepest. So the Targum of Jerusalem reads. Hebrew and Septuagint have, "keepeth."
No man, &c. All have sinned, Romans iii. 23. Hebrew, "who will not clear the guilty," which is followed by the Chaldean and Septuagint. God is a just judge, who will assuredly punish the impenitent. Yet even in justice, he will remember mercy, and will stop at the third and fourth generation, (Calmet) when the influence of the progenitors' example can have but small influence upon their descendants. If, however, they prove guilty, they must expect chastisement, Exodus xx. 5.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book IV, Chapter XX. That one God formed all
8. Inasmuch, then, as the Spirit of God pointed out by the prophets things to come, forming and adapting us beforehand for the purpose of our being made subject to God, but it was still a future thing that man, through the good pleasure of the Holy Spirit, should see [God], it necessarily behoved those through whose instrumentality future things were announced, to see God, whom they intimated as to be seen by men; in order that God, and the Son of God, and the Son, and the Father, should not only be prophetically announced, but that He should also be seen by all His members who are sanctified and instructed in the things of God, that man might be disciplined beforehand and previously exercised for a reception into that glory which shall afterwards be revealed in those who love God. …
Tertullian On Modesty, Chapter II
“But,” say they, “God is ‘good,’ and ‘most good,’ and ‘pitiful-hearted,’ and ‘a pitier,’ and ‘abundant in pitiful-heartedness,’ which He holds ‘dearer than all sacrifice,’ ‘not thinking the sinner’s death of so much worth as his repentance’, ‘a Saviour of all men, most of all of believers.’ And so it will be becoming for ‘the sons of God’ too to be ‘pitiful-hearted’ and ‘peacemakers;’ ‘giving in their turn just as Christ withal hath given to us;’ ‘not judging, that we be not judged.’ For ‘to his own lord a man standeth or falleth; who art thou, to judge another’s servant?’ ‘Remit, and remission shall be made to thee.’” Such and so great futilities of theirs wherewith they flatter God and pander to themselves, effeminating rather than invigorating discipline, with how cogent and contrary (arguments) are we for our part able to rebut, (arguments) which set before us warningly the “severity …
Tertullian On Fasting, Chapter VI
On the other hand, he whose “heart” was habitually found “lifted up” rather than fattened up, who in forty days and as many nights maintained a fast above the power of human nature, while spiritual faith subministered strength (to his body), both saw with his eyes God’s glory, and heard with his ears God’s voice, and understood with his heart God’s law: while He taught him even then (by experience) that man liveth not upon bread alone, but upon every word of God; in that the People, though fatter than he, could not constantly contemplate even Moses himself, fed as he had been upon God, nor his leanness, sated as it had been with His glory! Deservedly, therefore, even while in the flesh, did the Lord show Himself to him, the colleague of His own fasts, no less than to Elijah. …