Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar;
Exodus 20:5, 6: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep my commandments.”
Matthew 6:13: “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
All of us know and have recited the Lord’s prayer. After hundreds or maybe thousands of recitations, did you ever stop to wonder what in the blazes you are talking about when you ask that God “lead us not into temptation?” Would Got lead us into temptation and do we have to pray that does not? Sounds a little masuganah doesn’t it?
Of course to the Jews hearing this it made perfect sense. They understand a little grammatical point in the Hebrew language that does not exist in the English or Greek. It is a Hithpael. Now remember Jesus was speaking in Aramaic and Matthew took the Aramaic word spoken by Jesus and used the Greek word, eispero. Eispero does mean to lead or bring into. However, when looking at how eispero is used in the Septuagint you find it is sometimes used for the Aramaic and Hebrew word “darak.” Darak can mean path, or bow down to. Now this is not the word used in Exodus 20:5 for bow which is shachah and means to prostrate yourself. This is a little milder form of bowing. The Hithpael form in Aramaic is most likely the form that Jesus used here. Hence “do not allow me to cause myself to bow down or be led into evil.”
The Jews listening to this would most likely be thinking of Exodus 20:5-6 as all evil stems form bowing down, or worshipping something other than God. To use the word darak rather shachah Jesus would have been referring to his followers, which he indeed was, as this was directed to his disciples. The disciples would never consider prostrating themselves before evil , but they were, as we are, prone to a simple bowing to evil.
Now in Exodus 20:5 the word bow, shacah, is put into a Hithpael form which is really rendered, “You will not cause yourself to bow down to the other gods.” For God Jehovah is a jealous God visiting the iniquities or sins of the fathers on the third and forth generation. The word here for visiting is “paqed.” In it’s prime state is means to watch over or oversee, to observe, hence to visit. When you visit the Grand Canyon, you don’t live there or participate in it’s beauty (unless your husband puts you next to a canyon wall so he can take a picture of it’s now enhanced beauty) otherwise you are simply an observer. So too, God is not saying he is putting the sins or iniquities of the fathers on the children, he is the jealous lover, watching the children serve the gods of their fathers. Indeed, the word iniquity here is “‘on” which means co-habitation , dwelling, refuge.
It is a proven fact that if your parents were alcoholics, the odds are with you that you will become one just by living in their household. God is a jealous lover watching over you as you’re dwelling in whatever sinful state your parents may live in. Hence Jesus instructs us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation” or what the disciples most likely understood: “Do not even let me bow to the generational sins of my father.”
Note that the Bible does not say: “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” but the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” To be sure my father influenced me to follow God, and it was very easy to follow God under that influence and it was his influence that kept me from wandering too far from God, but still I had to find “my God.” I had to find God as He relates to me, not my father.
Oh, one other thing, that “thousandth generation?” The Hebrews did not get hung up on exact numbers like we do. More often then not they used numbers for symbolism rather than calculation. 1000 is the number for the Glory of God. So if you do not come from a Christian home or even worse one where there was addictions and abuse, God is the jealous lover who will lead you out of that generational “on” or dwelling to the 1000th or to His Glory. He will even use that to help you reach others to enhance His Glory. He will use you to enhance the beauty of His “canyon wall.”
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