"The Iniquity of the Fathers"

There’s a verse in the Book of Exodus (20:5) that has long struck me as one of the most fascinating in the whole Bible.

“…for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

A similar formulation appears in Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, and Deuteronomy 5:9.

The Hebrew phrase is pōqēd ‘ăwōn ’ābōṯ ‘al-bānîm — literally, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.” God is telling his people that if the men who have made the covenant behave badly, he will visit the consequences of their bad behavior on their descendants for generations to come.

An anthropologist studying the ancient Hebrews might conclude that they were keen observers of human affairs and the consequences of human behavior, and that they attributed all of these consequences to the breaking of an agreement.

The verse strikes me as going to the heart of most of the social ills that now plague our society. I often thought of the verse while researching the chapter on transgender ideology for my forthcoming book, Mind Viruses.

Consider that 25 percent of U.S. children under age eighteen—around nineteen million—live in a household with a single mother, which makes the U.S. the leading country in the world for children raised by a single mother.

The absence of a strong and stable father in the household leaves these children without a masculine role model, and raised by single mothers, many of whom do not discourage cross-gender behavior.

In a 1974 book titled Sexual identity conflict in children and adults, the transgender researcher, Richard Green, observed that, in the case of young boys fantasizing about being girls:

what comes closest so far to being a necessary variable is that, as any feminine behavior begins to emerge, there is no discouragement of that behavior by the child’s principal caretaker.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that Moses revealed a profound truth when he wrote down the verse of Exodus 20:5. Most of the psychosocial ills afflicting our society originate in “the iniquity of the fathers.”

The problem is self-perpetuating, because boys who aren’t raised by strong, masculine fathers will lack the moral and social skills necessary to husband a wife and family.

The lack of a strong, masculine role model at home continues at elementary school, where 91% of teachers are female, many of whom have embraced the same nonsensical gender ideology as the moms at home.

The “iniquity of the fathers” also has profoundly negative consequences for daughters. Girls who grow up in a home with an absent, chaotic, or alcoholic father often struggle to find and bond with stable men. Even if a girl suffering from a “father wound” does find a stable man, the stability of the relationship may be so unfamiliar to her that she subconsciously sabotages it in order to recreate the drama with which she is familiar.

By John Leake
LewRockwell.com

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

PS: My Note: This principle of visiting the iniquity of the FATHERS to the third and fourth generation has wide-ranging applications. Abuse, neglect, anger, addictions. We reap what we sow — not immediately but generationally!