Commentary on Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

Ezekiel 18 engages in an ongoing question that is explored throughout the Bible and asked by many people today: Are God’s ways fair? “It’s not fair” is a phrase often associated with children today. Fairness is a pressing concern for children as they grow and develop, learning the ways in which the world and people around them work. Some consider “It’s not fair” to be the cry of the spoiled child who doesn’t get what they want, but many children’s inconvenient observations point to uncomfortable truths about the lack of fairness in our world. Being new to this world, children have not yet become accustomed to the inequities that surround them. 

The people Ezekiel 18 addresses are very much aware that life isn’t fair. The prophet is among the religious and political leaders of Judah who have been sent into exile after the Babylonian Empire conquered their small nation. This was standard policy for Babylon, believing that a conquered nation would be less likely to rise up against its colonizers without its leaders. The former leaders of Judah had gone from being Jerusalem elites to being subsistence farmers, held captive in a small cultural enclave in Babylon. They had witnessed war, death, and destruction, losing everything they cared about in the process. 

The prophet Ezekiel had been one of the religious leaders in the Jerusalem Temple. They believed this was the only acceptable place to worship their one God and that if they worshipped only one God, only in the Jerusalem Temple, in the correct way, as dictated in the book of Deuteronomy, that God would protect them and that Jerusalem could never be conquered because it was God’s holy city. They were the ones who had followed all the rules, but their city had been conquered, their temple destroyed, and they were the ones sent into exile. It’s no wonder they thought this wasn’t fair. 

Ezekiel 18 calls out these exiles for quoting the proverb “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” suggesting that the Judean exiles are blaming their fate on previous generations who did not worship God alone, only in the Jerusalem Temple, in the correct way. This cross-generational blame is a disputed topic throughout the Hebrew Bible. A moral act-consequence theology pervades the book of Proverbs, and Exodus 20:5 and 34:7, Numbers 14:18, and Deuteronomy 5:9 state that God punishes up to the third and fourth generation for previous generations’ actions. However, the book of Job acts as a dispute to this. The book of Ezekiel’s contribution to this ongoing theological debate within scripture argues that each generation stands on its own.

Similar to the divine response in the book of Job, Ezekiel 18:25–32 responds to the cry that God’s ways are unfair with a rejoinder: “Is it not your ways that are unfair?” In doing so, God simultaneously asks the exiles to take responsibility for their own actions and reminds them that their own actions are the only thing they can control in this new life they have been thrust into. The actions on which the prophecy focuses are different than the ones the Judean leadership had focused previously. These actions are achievable in exile because they are not about worshipping in the correct way or place. They have lost everything that would have allowed them to do so. 

Instead, God reminds the Judean elites in exile of the ways in which they themselves have been unfair to the poor and needy by collecting interest and taking their collateral (referred to here as a pledge, which often would have been a coat that also served as a bed). The prophecy in Ezekiel 18 communicates that these actions are transgressions against God just as much as idol worship and sexual assault. The elites have been focused on serving God by worshipping in the right way but have neglected those they were supposed to serve in their community.

Christian tradition has often been attributed with the theology that when we serve “the least of these,” we are serving God or Jesus. It is certainly among Christ’s teachings, but it is rooted in his own Jewish context. As a Jewish teacher, Jesus would have been familiar with the Hebrew Bible, including the book of Ezekiel. He was not innovating with this theology but rather continuing the ongoing conversation within scripture. He also continued the conversation about cross-generational punishment, concurring with Ezekiel that those who turn away from such “unfair” practices are forgiven. 

More than a few parents have responded to the complaint “It’s not fair” with the rejoinder “Life’s not fair!” It is certainly true that life is not fair, but God’s parental response to the exiled Judeans who are already painfully aware that life is not fair is a little bit different: “Is it not your ways that are unfair?” So much in life, whether in the Babylonian exile or our contemporary world, is incredibly unfair. The pain of exile and perhaps of childhood and even modern life is not just loss but also lack of control. This prophecy encourages God’s people then and now to turn our attention to what we can control. We cannot understand God’s ways, or why life is so very unfair, but we can make life less unfair by turning our attention to our own ways.