Exodus 20:6

And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me,.... And show their love by worshipping God, and him only, by serving him acceptably with reverence and godly fear, by a cheerful obedience to

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not make

Unto thousands, to wit, of their generations, i.e. for ever; whereas his punishment extended only to three or four of them: so far is God’ s mercy exalted above his justice. Compare . Them that love me, and keep my commandments: this conjunction is very observable, both against those that falsely and foolishly pretend or insinuate that the inward affection of love to God is not absolutely and always necessary to salvation; and also against them who, pretending inward love to God, live in the customary breach of God’ s known commands.

Exodus 20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.Ver. 6. Unto thousands.] Of succeeding generations. Personal goodness is profitable to posterity. And this promise, though made to all, yet is more specially annexed to this second commandment; to teach, saith one, that parents should chiefly labour to plant piety in their families, as they would have God’ s blessing entailed upon their issue.

(6) Shewing mercy unto thousands.—Rather, to the thousandth generation, as is distinctly expressed in Deuteronomy 7:9. God’s mercy infinitely transcends His righteous anger. Sin is visited on three, or at most four, generations. Righteousness is remembered, and advantages descendants, for ever.

Verse 6. And showing mercy unto thousands] Mark; even those who love God and keep his commandments merit nothing from him, and therefore the salvation and blessedness which these enjoy come from the mercy of God: Showing mercy, c. What a disproportion between the works of justice and mercy! Justice works to the third or fourth, mercy to thousands of generations! The heathen had maxims like these. Theocritus also teaches that the children of the good shall be blessed because of their parents' piety, and that evil shall come upon the offspring of the wicked: - Ευσεβεωνπαιδεσσιταλωΐα, δυσσεβεωνδ' ου. Idyll. 26, v. 32. Upon the children of the righteous fall The choicest blessings on the wicked, wo. That love me, and keep my commandments.] It was this that caused Christ to comprise the fulfilment of the whole law in love to God and man; See Clarke on Exodus 20:1. And as love is the grand principle of obedience, and the only incentive to it, so there can be no obedience without it. It would be more easy even in Egyptian bondage to make brick without straw, than to do the will of God unless his love be shed abroad in the heart of the Holy Spirit. Love, says the apostle, is the fulfilling of the law; Romans 13:10.

6. unto thousands, of them, &c.] i.e. not thousands consisting of them that love me, but (notice the comma added in RV.) thousands belonging to them that love me (Heb. le, just as in v. 5, properly ‘belonging to them that hate me’). The antithesis is between the narrow limits, the third or fourth generation of descendants, within which the sin is visited, and the thousands belonging to,—i.e. primarily, descended from, though possibly those ‘belonging to’ in a wider sense, as servants or other dependents, may be included,—such as love God, who, in virtue of this relation, and for the sake of those who thus love Him, experience His mercy. The intention of the passage is thus to teach that God’s mercy transcends in its operation His wrath: in His providence the beneficent consequences of a life of goodness extend indefinitely further than the retribution which is the penalty of persistence in sin. Naturally ‘thousands’ is not to be understood literally: it is simply intended to convey an impressive idea of the greatness of God’s mercy. It is not apparent how it can mean (RVm.) ‘a thousand generations’: Deuteronomy 7:9 is a rhetorical amplification, not an exact interpretation, of the present passage. that love me] shew towards Him the pure and intense affection and devotion which we denote by the term ‘love.’ The thought is one strongly characteristic of Deuteronomy. ‘Love to God is in Dt. the essence of religion, and the primary motive for obedience to His commands. In no other stratum of the Hexateuch is this lofty conception of religion to be found’ (Bä.). See Deuteronomy 6:5 [Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27], Deuteronomy 10:12, Deuteronomy 11:1; Deuteronomy 11:13; Deuteronomy 11:22, Deuteronomy 13:3, Deuteronomy 19:9, Deuteronomy 30:6; Deuteronomy 30:16; Deuteronomy 30:20, Joshua 22:5; Joshua 23:11 both Deuteronomic); and cf. the writer’s Deuteronomy, pp. xxi, xxviii, lxxviii, 91. Love to God is not mentioned elsewhere in the Hexateuch, except in the parallel, Deuteronomy 5:10 (cf. Exodus 7:19 : see, however, Judges 5:30). It is, of course, not through extraordinary or miraculous interferences that the sins of parents are visited upon their children, but through the natural providence of God, operating through the normal constitution of society, which in its turn takes its organization and form from the character of human nature, which is His appointment. History and experience alike teach how often, and under what varied conditions, it happens that the misdeeds of a parent result in bitter consequences for the children. The principle here asserted is not in conflict with Deuteronomy 24:6 (children not to be put to death for the fathers): the legislator is not there dealing with a principle involved in the constitution of society itself; he is laying down a rule for the administration of justice by the State. See, on the distinction between the two cases, Mozley’s Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, Lect. V.

6. Showing mercy — Or, doing kindness. His lovingkindness and favour are never withheld from the good and obedient. Unto thousands — Some would understand generations here, as after third and fourth in the previous verse.