Section Nine

Each will die for their own

sin

Deuteronomy contains a lot of rules, commands and laws for the Israelites of the time to live by. One of the laws concerns the issue of parents and children and their sin. This law states that parents should not be put to death for the sins of their children. Likewise, children should not be put to death for the sins of their parents. Each person must only ever be put to death for their own sins. Interestingly, this law appears elsewhere in the Old Testament, when it is applied to a situation by a king. Someone called Amaziah becomes king of Judah. He takes over the throne from his father (Joash), who was murdered. When Amaziah becomes king, he seeks revenge and kills all those involved in his father’s murder. However, because of the law above, he does not have the children killed. The version in 2 Kings notes that Amaziah ‘did what was right in the eyes of the Lord’.