Visiting the Sins of the Father on the Sons (Exodus 34:7)

I have always had a curiosity about the phrase, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation." that is used in four places in the Old Testament (Ex. 20:5; 34:7; Nu. 14:18 and Deut. 5:9). The passages seem to contradict other passages such as Deut. 24:16 and 2 Kings 14:6, where scripture teaches that each person is responsible for their own sin. I did some digging in some good commentaries on the passages and here are my results. I uploaded my more complete notes in the following document on www.mediafire.com:
Iniquity of the Father's Study

Exodus 20:5-6

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Commentary on Exodus 20:5b-6

This explanatory section of the second commandment, with its assertion that God is “jealous … punishing the children for the sins of the fathers,” has been widely misunderstood. It does not represent an assertion that God actually punishes an innocent generation for sins of a predecessor generation, contrary to Deut. 24:16 (Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin”; cf. 2 Kgs 14:6). Rather this oft-repeated theme speaks of God’s determination to punish successive generations for committing the same sins they learned from their parents. In other words, God will not say, “I won’t punish this generation for what they are doing to break my covenant because, after all, they merely learned it from their parents who did it too.” Instead, God will indeed punish generation after generation (“to the third and fourth generation”) if they keep doing the same sort of sins that prior generations did. If the children continue to do the sins their parents did, they will receive the same punishments as their parents. But to this is contrasted his real wish: to “covenant loyalty” [NIV “love”] to “a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” By the greatest numerical contrast in the Bible (three/four to thousands), God identified eloquently his real desire: to have his people remain loyal forever so that he might in turn show them the rich blessings of his resulting loyalty to them. In vv. 5b-6 the terminology “love” and “hate” refers idiomatically to loyalty, not to emotional attitudes, feelings, or sentiment. (Douglas K. Stuart, The New American Commentary - Volume 2 - Exodus , p. 454)

Exodus 34:6-7

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Commentary on Exodus 34:7

In the list “wickedness, rebellion and sin,” the final term, “sin,” is the most inclusive. These are not three distinct kinds of behaviors but three vocabulary words used together to indicate what any of them might convey; and since they are used together, they combine to indicate what Jesus meant when he said, “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven” (Matt 12:31). (Douglas K. Stuart, The New American Commentary - Volume 2 - Exodus , p. 454)

In connection with the wording “he punishes the children and their children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation,” see comments on 20:5-6. As already suggested there, this wording means something quite different from what it might seem to mean to the casual reader. It does not mean that God would punish children and grandchildren for something their ancestors but that they themselves did not do. Rather, it describes God’s just punishment of a given type of sin in each new generation as that sin continues to be repeated down through the generations. In other words, God here reminded his people that they could not rightly think something like “we can probably get away with doing this in our generation because God punished an earlier generation for doing it, so the punishment for it has already been given, and we don’t have to worry about it.” (Stuart, p. 455)

Deuteronomy 5:9-10

You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Commentary by John Calvin on Deut. 5:9-10

But when God declares that He will cast back the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of the children, He does not mean that He will take vengeance on poor wretches who have never deserved anything of the sort; but that He is at liberty to punish the crimes of the fathers upon their children and descendants, with the proviso that they too may be justly punished, as being the imitators of their fathers.

The key teaching I get from these passages is that God limits His punishment of sin and iniquity to the 3rd or 4th generations, but extends His lovingkindness to the thousands. John Piper has a good article on this at
John Piper's Article