Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Keeping mercy for thousands. The Septuagint has: dikaiosuneen diateeroon kai eleos eis chiliadas, keeping justice and mercy. The Chaldee version has for "thousands" - `for a thousand generations.'
Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. These three terms are not to be separated or considered unmeaning repetitions of the same idea. They describe different phases and shades of evil-guilt, transgressions, trespasses-sins committed both against God and man-sins of a moral as well as positive nature.
And that will by no means clear the guilty. This translation, which intimates the divine vengeance on sinners, and is commonly regarded as an addition, to correct erroneous impressions of God's unlimited goodness-to show, in short, that He is just and righteous, as well as benevelent and merciful-is quite inconsistent with the occasion as well as the object of this proclamation, which was, in answer to the solicitude and prayer of Moses for the people of Israel, to announce, His special kindness in dealing with that chosen nation. But the word "guilty," being in italics, is an improper supplement by our translators. Gesenius, who renders the words, 'but will by no means always leave unpunished,' connects them with the preceding clause; so that the passage will stand thus: 'keeping mercy for thousands, but not always pardoning the guilty' (Nahum 1:3).
But others, preferring another meaning of the verb, given also by that lexicographer, to be vacant, empty, destroyed, render these words, in connection with the subsequent context, thus-`but I will not utterly empty or destroy, though visiting the iniquities,' etc. This translation accords with Jeremiah 25:29; Jeremiah 30:11; Jeremiah 46:28; Jeremiah 49:12; Nahum 1:3, where the same phrase, though rendered in our version, "I will not leave thee altogether unpunished" - the best commentators prefer, as the parallelism requires, 'I will not utterly destroy thee;' and with Numbers 14:18, where Moses, taking up this phrase, which came from the mouth of God, urges it as a plea for the exercise of clemency, though it would have been singularly inapposite if the right sense had been that given in the English translation (see 'Israel after the Flesh,' p. 19).