a day (as the warm hours) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
say
יֹאמְר֣וּyo.me.Ru
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
fathers
אָב֖וֹת'a.Vot
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural absolute
eaten
אָ֣כְלוּ'A.khe.lu
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
grape
בֹ֑סֶרVo.ser
H1155
an immature grape · noun, common masculine singular absolute
children’s
בָנִ֖יםva.Nim
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
teeth
וְשִׁנֵּ֥יve.shi.Nei
H8127
a tooth (as sharp) · conjunction + noun, common feminine dual construct
edge
תִּקְהֶֽינָהtik.Hei.nah
H6949
to be dull · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Lamentations 5:7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
Ezekiel 18:2-3 What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth a…
Jeremiah 31:30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 31:27-34
The prophet, having found his sleep sweet, made so by the revelations of divine grace, sets himself to sleep again, in hopes of further discoveries, and is not disappointed; for it is here further promised,
I. That the people of God shall become both numerous and prosperous. Israel and Judah shall be replenished both with men and cattle, as if they were sown with the seed of both, Jer 31:27. They shall increase and multiply like a field sown with corn; and this is the product of God's blessing (Jer 31:23), for whom God blessed, to them he said, Be fruitful. This should be a type of the wonderful increase of the gospel-church. God will build them, and plant them, Jer 31:28. He will watch over…
In those days--after their punishment has. been completed, and mercy again visits them.
fathers . . . eaten . . . sour grape . . . children's teeth . . . on edge--the proverb among the exiles' children born in Babylon, to express that they suffered the evil consequences of their fathers' sins rather than of their own (Lam 5:7; Eze 18:2-3).
John Gill on Jeremiah 31:29
In those days they shall say no more,.... The following proverb or byword; they should have no occasion to use it, nor should they choose to use it; since they would understand themselves, and the dispensations of Providence towards them, better than to use it:
the fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge; that is, the fathers have sinned, and the children are punished for their sins. So the Targum,
"the fathers have sinned, and the children are smitten.''
This was in some sense true; they were punished for their fathers' sins in the captivity, particularly for Manasseh's; nor was it unusual with God to visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children…
Jeremiah 31:29-30
29. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.
29. In diebus illis non dicent amplius, Patres comederunt omphacium (uvam acerbam) et dentes filiorum obstupuerunt:
30. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.
30. Quin potius vir (hoc est; quisque) in sun iniquitate morietur; omnis homo comedens (hoc est, quisquis comederit) uvam acerbam obstupescent dentes ejus (aut, omnis viri qui comederit, dentes obstupescent)
Ezekiel shews that it was a complaint commonly prevailing among the people, that they suffered for the sins of t…
The Church Fathers
It is similarly impossible, he says, for children to be called to account for ancestral sins, because I promise to children the greatest blessings even when their parents sin.
In the mean time, whom will you be able to persuade that by receiving the lapsed the whole Church hath perished? That by the admission of penitents, the people of those who admit them has been made a denier of the Faith? But even if the people here or there have been too lax, have the other peoples also who approved not of their deed, but followed custom and peace, lost the Christian name? Hear the voice of Jeremiah, In those days shall they not say, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity.
(Verses 29-30) In those days, they shall no longer say, 'The fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge,' but each one shall die for his own iniquity. Every person who eats a sour grape, their teeth will be stunned. And what is implied by: In those days they shall no longer say, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge, and so on, we have explained more fully in the explanations of Ezekiel, when we interpreted that passage: Son of man, what do you mean by these proverbs of the children of Israel, saying, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. Thus says the Lord: 'As I live, if there is beyond this parable in Israel, for all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins, it shall die' (Ezekiel 18:1-4). From this, we learn that it is not death that the Lord does, but sin. For the soul that sins, it shall die. And in this present place, it is said that Israel will by no means be condemned eternally for the sins of their fathers; but through their own merits and faith in Christ, they will be saved after many ages. And it should be noted that vices and sins are called sour grapes, so that the teeth of those who eat them are stunned, and they cannot taste its sweetness, of which it is said: Taste and see, for the Lord is sweet (Psalm 33:9). Whoever does not understand the Scriptures as the truth of the matter has eaten sour grapes. Hence all heretics who believe perverse things cannot eat the bread that comes down from heaven, but their teeth are stunned, not by the harshness of food, but by the vice of their teeth.
Dictionary and topics
Blood, Revenger Of — He who avenged the blood of one who had been killed. The nearest relative of the deceased became the authorized avenger of blood. (Numbers 35:19) The law of retaliation was not to extend beyond the…
Heredity · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Proverbs · MISCELLANY OF — MISCELLANY OF
Vine, The · Proverbial allusion to fathers eating the unripe fruit of — Proverbial allusion to fathers eating the unripe fruit of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The proverb, which Ezekiel also (Eze 18:2.) mentions and contends against, cannot mean, "The fathers have begun to eat sour grapes, but not till the teeth of their sons have become blunted by them" (Ngelsbach); the change of tense is against this, for, by the perfect אכלוּ and the imperfect תּקהינה, the blunting of the children's teeth is set down as a result of the fathers' eating. The proverb means, "Children atone for the misdeeds of their fathers," or "The sins of the fathers are visited on their innocent children." On this point, cf. the explanations given in Eze 18:2. "Then shall they no more say" is rightly explained by Hitzig to mean, "They shall have no more occasion to say." But th…
Some seemed to think that this proverb (apparently a misinterpretation of Exod 20:5; 34:7; Num 14:18) meant that innocent children were dying because of their parents’ sins. The Lord made it clear that each individual is punished for his or her own sins (see Lam 5:7; Ezek 18:2-32; 33:10-20).
Rashi on Jeremiah 31:29
unripe grapes A fruit that is not yet ripe, and it sets the teeth on edge.
And the teeth of the children shall be set on edge... The children for the fathers’ iniquity.
