As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.
He inculcates the same thing more at length, not for the sake of ornament so much as to refute that impious saying in which the Israelites so perniciously persisted. Since then it was difficult to tear from their minds what was so deeply rooted in them, the Prophet often exclaims that no one was punished except he deserved it for his crimes.
A godly father's prayers and pains cannot compel his son's obedience. The child may have every advantage, instruction, discipline, example, yet still shake off all good and run to robbery and idolatry, becoming the grief of his family and the curse of his generation. Parentage changes nothing in God's reckoning.
AI summary
Commenting on Ezekiel 18:10-20
Yet say ye, why?.... Why do you say so? why do you go on to assert that which is not fact, or which is contrary to fact, contrary to what we feel and experience every day, to say that children are not punished for their parents' sins?