Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Sesamo m." <sesamox AT hotmail.com>]

Dear group.
I'm not an expert, and so I'll just contribute a couple of ideas in case you 
find them of interest.

Exo 20:5. Does this mean necessarily that God would punish individually the 
children of the sinners? I mean, when the nation of Israel rejected God to 
worship Baal, for example, God abandoned them and without His protection 
they were victims of other peoples. Also, those faithful to Yahweh found it 
difficult in the religious environment they were living. Those were cases of 
children paying the consequences of their parents' actions. (For instance, 
Deut 5:9 repeats the idea from Exo 20:5, but doesn't find it in 
contradiction to Deut 24:16).
It is interesting that Korah was the foremost rebel, the "Judas" of the 
Pentateuch, whereas his sons had a very good standing, and a lot of psalms 
were attributed to them.

1 Sam 15. Could not this be because Amalec was still showing the same spirit 
their forefathers had shown? In later passages of 1 Sam they attack the 
Israelites and Philistines several times, plundering and destroying, they 
seem to be a kind of warrior people that today might be labelled as 
terrorists.

2 Sam 21. Could not be that Saul's children shared a direct responsibility? 
The verse 1 explicitly states that the guilt was on Saul and his household. 
The Guibeonites said it was not a question of gold or silver, which fits 
with the Law (Num 35:30, 31), so this could just be an application of Deut 
19:21, a punishment that should have been applied years earlier.