Jeremiah 31:29-30

The words "The fathers have eaten, etc." occur also in Ezekiel 18:2, where they are spoken of as a proverb. The people complain that they are being punished for the sins of an earlier generation (perhaps under Manasseh) and murmuring against God's justice. In the future individual responsibility will be recognised. The earlier view that responsibility for the crime of an individual was as a matter of course shared by all his belongings animate and inanimate alike (see examples in Joshua 7:24 f.; 1 Samuel 22:16-19; 2 Samuel 21:1-9), gradually yielded (see 2 Kings 14:5 f.) as the more enlightened conscience revolted against it. Deuteronomy 24:16 marks the change. But Israel in its protest ignores its own sin. As a matter of fact Jeremiah's generation were as much involved in guilt, and that of no trifling kind, as their predecessors. See further on the general subject, Peake, Problem, etc. pp. 21 f.