What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?
What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning ... Israel ... The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. Their unbelieving calumnies on God's justice had become so common as to have assumed a proverbial form. The sin of Adam in eating the forbidden fruit, visited on his posterity. seems to have suggested the special form; noticed also by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:29) where he foretells the coming reign of Messiah, wherein the proverb shall be used "no more:" and explained in Lamentations 5:7, "Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities." They mean by "the children" themselves, as though they were innocent, whereas they were far from being so. The partial reformation effected since Manasseh's wicked reign, especially among the exiles at Chebar, was their ground for thinking so; but the improvement was only superficial, and only fostered their self-righteous spirit, which sought anywhere but in themselves the cause of their calamities; just as the modern Jews attribute their present dispersion, not to their own sins, but to those of their forefathers. It is a universal mark of corrupt nature to lay the blame on others which belongs to ourselves, and to arraign the justice of God. Compare Genesis 3:12, where Adam transfers the blame of his sin to Eve, and even to God - "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."