Jeremiah 31:30

30 "But 1everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.

Jeremiah 31:30 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 31:30

But everyone shall die for his own iniquity
His own personal iniquity; and not a corporeal death only, but an eternal one, which is the just wages of sin. It seems to intimate, that, after the Babylonish captivity, no public calamity should come upon them for the sins of their fathers and their own jointly, but for their own iniquities singly; so their last destruction by the Romans was for their personal disbelief and rejection of the Messiah; see ( John 8:24 ) ; and the calamities upon them ever since have been for the same reason. Indeed, they imprecated his blood upon them, and upon their children, and so it is; but then, their children are under the power of the same sin of unbelief, and will remain so, until the veil is taken away, and they turn to the Lord; after which it will still be a more clear case that everyone shall die for his own iniquity; every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge;
sin, though it may be esteemed a sweet morsel, is a sour grape, and will prove so in the issue; and will give a man as much trouble and disquietude, when he is convinced of the evil of it, or suffers the punishment of it, as when a man's "teeth are set on edge"; and indeed the consequence of it will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Jeremiah 31:30 In-Context

28 "As I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to overthrow, to destroy and to bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant," declares the LORD .
29 "In those days they will not say again, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children's teeth are set on edge.'
30 "But everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.
31 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD , "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD .

Cross References 1

  • 1. Deuteronomy 24:16; Isaiah 3:11; Ezekiel 18:4, 20

Footnotes 1

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