Ezekiel 18:25

Yet ye say, The way … equal And ye say. The "way" of the Lord is the principle on which he acts, or his action on it, Isaiah 55:8, cf. ch. Ezekiel 33:17; Ezekiel 33:20. The objection of the people may really have been expressed (cf. Ezekiel 18:19). The prophet's principle of the freedom of the individual and his independence was a novelty running counter to cherished notions of that age, notions corroborated by much that is seen in history and life. The instance of Korah, whose children perished with him for his sin, the case of Achan, whose transgression was imputed to the whole camp, the history of Jonathan, and no doubt multitudes of instances were familiar to the people where men were treated as bodies and the individuals shared the fate of the mass though personally innocent. To us now the prophet's principle is self-evident. Still even to us it is only a theoretical principle, and can be maintained against facts only by drawing a distinction, which the people in Israel had not yet learned to draw, between the spiritual relation of the mind to God and the external history of the individual. See end of chapter.