God Answers The Charge of Unfairness.
It is worthy of note that the people felt that God was being unfair precisely for the opposite reason than many of us would, bringing out how important, attitude transforming and thought provoking his words were seen to be. They considered, without thinking of the consequences with regard to themselves, that a man should suffer because of the evils of his family. They did not consider that that would then leave them with no hope. They did not see themselves as iniquitous. They looked on themselves as satisfactory.
“Yet you say, ‘Why does the son not bear the iniquity of the father?'
They had grown up with the idea of corporate responsibility. They judged others on the basis of it, and what we see as proper and right because of our background in the word of God they saw as unreasonable and unfair. If a man has done great harm, they argued, then his son must share the responsibility for it, whatever his own behaviour. And to a certain extent this is true in society, but God's point is that it is only to a certain extent. Of course they would then have gone on to argue that because they belonged to the covenant community God should have treated them as special cases because of it. Thus they did not like the idea that they could be called to personal responsibility.
But God was pointing out that in the end everyone is responsible solely for his own actions, at that time a revolutionary thought. We only have to take responsibility for what we could have done something about. He was not denying that if we sit back and do nothing when wrong things are done then we share responsibility for them. Note His emphasis on the need for positive actions. But He was facing men up with the fact that blame finally depended on personal attitude and behaviour. He gave His reply.