NOTE: Years ago, I served as a curriculum writer for the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, where I developed Spanish-language lessons to help adult Sunday School teachers prepare their classes. One series of lessons focused on the book of Ezekiel, which was published in 1986. I have since translated these lessons into English, updated the content, and reformatted them as essays. The complete series of Ezekiel studies can be found in my post “Studies on the Book of Ezekiel.” This post examines the just man of Ezekiel 18. The study in Chapter 18 will be divided into four parts:
Part 1: Personal Responsibility in Crisis
Part 2: The Just Man: Responsibility in Right Action
Part 3: The Evil Son: Responsibility in Transgression
Part 4: The Good Son: Redemption through Choice
The Text
“But if he begets a violent son, a bloodshedder, who does any of these things, and does not do the others, but eats upon the mountains or defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not return the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, and does abomination, lends at interest and takes usury—shall he live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die. His blood shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:10–13).
The Reversal of Righteousness
To continue his defense of God’s justice and individual responsibility, Ezekiel now describes the second generation: the evil son of the just man mentioned in verses 5–9. This contrast is strategically important. If a righteous father had an evil son despite his example and presumably his instruction, this demonstrates conclusively that the son’s wickedness cannot be attributed to the father’s sins or to inherited corruption. Rather, the son has made his own choices.
The word “violent” does not describe merely someone who steals but someone who acts maliciously or with violence, a bloodshedder. The description paints a picture not of petty transgression but of one whose fundamental character opposes the father’s righteousness.
The Son’s Deliberate Opposition
The evil son is completely the opposite of his father. He does everything his father, the just man, would never do. The evil son sacrifices on the mountains to pagan gods and participates in idolatrous feasts, directly rejecting his father’s religious fidelity. He violates the sanctity of the home by defiling his neighbor’s wife, showing contempt for both the neighbor and for the marital covenant.
The prophet’s description suggests not merely the natural weakness of the flesh but deliberate, conscious opposition to the father’s values and example. This is not a son led astray by circumstances but one who actively chooses a path contrary to the way he has been taught.
The Son’s Exploitation of the Vulnerable
The evil son does not follow his father’s example of compassion for the poor and needy in the community; instead, he actively oppresses them and violently exploits his neighbor in violation of covenant demands. This evil and ungrateful son resembles the man described by the prophet Micah, who “constantly devises iniquity, plots evil, covets fields, robs land, and oppresses the poor” (Micah 2:1–2).
This evil son delights in idolatry and, in the process, forgets Yahweh, the God of his father. His spiritual apostasy manifests itself in social cruelty. He becomes, in essence, an enemy of the covenant community and its values.
The Consequence of Iniquity
The evil son practices usury and bribery, encouraging exploitative loans to the poor and needy in the community. This man is evil because he has not fulfilled the demands of the covenant nor walked in the ways of the Lord. The just life of his father is of no use to him; this evil man has no right to life and is condemned to death.
The integrity of his father does him no good. He dies because of his own sin, not because of his father’s sin. He is entirely responsible for his actions and thus becomes the author of his own death: “His blood shall be upon him.” This phrase is crucial—it means the guilt of his actions rests upon him alone. He cannot displace responsibility onto his father, onto circumstances, onto fate. His death is the just consequence of his voluntary choices.
The Contemporary Application
These words of Ezekiel can help many Christians today. The teaching of personal responsibility, that each individual is responsible for his or her actions, can liberate each person to feel free from the undeserved guilt of their parents’ sins, their children’s sins, or others’ sins. Each person stands in direct accountability before God for his or her own choices.
In our churches, there are many faithful Christians who have sons and daughters who abandoned the church and turned away from the Lord after becoming independent from their parents. Parents sometimes ask in anguish, “Where did we fail?” when they see their children leave the Gospel path and the ways of goodness. The weight of guilt they carry can become spiritually destructive.
The truth is that, in most cases, children choose to follow their own paths, separate from their parents. Instead of following the example of their parents and the ways of the Lord, they chose their own ways, even if they were evil. While parental influence is real and significant, and parents bear responsibility for their own faithfulness and instruction, they do not bear ultimate responsibility for their adult children’s choices. Each child, upon reaching moral maturity, becomes responsible for his or her own relationship with God.
The classic biblical example of this principle appears in the succession of Judean kings:
• Ahaz was a bad king, but his son Hezekiah was a good king devoted to God, breaking the cycle of evil.
• Hezekiah was a good king devoted to God, but his son Manasseh was an evil king, an idolater and pagan who undid the good works his father had done.
• Manasseh was a bad king, and his son Amon was a bad king too, continuing the evil.
• A bad father (Amon) had a good son, Josiah. Josiah was a good king devoted to God, breaking the cycle again.
• Josiah was a good king devoted to God, but his son Jehoiakim was a bad king, falling away from his father’s faithfulness.
This succession demonstrates conclusively that righteousness and wickedness do not flow automatically through family lines. A wicked father may raise a righteous son, whose own son turns to wickedness, continuing a pattern his son may follow, until that generation produces a righteous son, who may yet father a wicked son. The cycles break and reform unpredictably. Each generation faces its own moral choices, free to embrace or reject the examples—whether virtuous or corrupt—left by those who came before.
This truth teaches that if a Christian truly teaches his or her children to love and serve the Lord, and does so faithfully, he or she should not bear the guilt and shame if their children, upon reaching maturity, turn away from the LORD’s ways. The child’s choice becomes the child’s responsibility. The parent must trust the seed sown and the God who alone can ultimately call a child to himself.
Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 