Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bill Ross" <wross AT farmerstel.com>]

<Bill>
All of these translations add the words "the guilty" and IMHO turn this
verse into "double-speak":

Num 14:18

18
NIV
`The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and
rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the
children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.'
RSV
'The LORD is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving
iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty,
visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children, upon the third and upon the
fourth generation.'
KJV
The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and
transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
DBY
Jehovah is slow to anger, and abundant in goodness, forgiving iniquity and
transgression, but by no means clearing [the guilty], visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth [generation].

This seems to me to be a much more faithful translation:

YLT
Jehovah [is] slow to anger, and of great kindness; bearing away iniquity and
transgression, and not entirely acquitting, charging iniquity of fathers on
sons, on a third [generation], and on a fourth; --

Am I correct in my reading of this verse that it asserts:

* God forgives freely
* But He doesn't always entirely suspend the consequences

Bill Ross