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What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? (v. 2)

The prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah both quote a popular proverb, homespun wisdom, if you will, to the effect that, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” And when you think about it, this can be true. When many of us watch someone take a bite of something sour, like lemons, we may have an intense physical reaction to something they’re doing, and we’re not.

Of course, there are some people who can eat lemons and other sour fruit with no ill effects. Perhaps it’s just a question of getting used to the sharp flavors and growing to bear them. But some of us will always scrunch up our shoulders, grit our teeth, and shudder if we watch someone eat something eating sour fruit. It’s as if we’re tasting it ourselves.

Why should someone else’s experience affect us like that? I suspect our brains record tastes that we experience in the past. Flavor, a combination of tasting with our mouths and smelling with our noses, is sometimes so overwhelming we can’t help but store the memory in our brain, which is, after all, where we truly perceive everything.

When we experience something wild, revolting, strong, or alarming I think we record the event, almost like a warning, and so for many of us we only need to think about the experience, without actually biting into sour grapes or lemons, in order to experience it again, sometimes faintly, sometimes even more vividly than when the event actually took place.

For some of us who are thrill seekers, we may actually seek out such experiences, second hand. Some people love to watch shows where others are biting into something strange, even revolting, like insects. Others turn away, or even turn the channel. No thank you!

Of course, it’s not just taste that affects the lives of others. Surely those of us who are older can remember when chalkboards were used instead of whiteboards or tablets. Sometimes the teacher accidently scraped the chalk across the board, causing everyone to flinch and a few of the truly squeamish to scream!

How about when the teacher left the room, and suddenly some class clown would run back and forth in the front of the room, deliberately scraping fingernails across the chalkboard! They were seemingly unaffected but everyone else wanted to crawl under their desks!

Researchers have suggested that the pitch of fingernails on a chalkboard is at the upper edge of what humans can hear – and that it is also the painful edge of what humans can bear. Remember that next time your dog reacts howlingly to some of your music!

Sometimes the way one generation’s actions affect another is incalculable. Researchers were shocked to discover that Neanderthal DNA discovered in the Denisov cave in Siberia carried the gene for diabetes, and that this particular gene was passed along to a group of humans in that region, many of whose descendants journeyed into North America at a time when the Bering Strait was crossed by a land bridge. That gene, which may have been harmless in Neanderthals, is one of the reasons that half of all Native Americans and a fourth of Hispanics struggle with diabetes in one way or another.

So, while this proverb has literal truth going for it, it’s obviously meant figuratively too. The prophet seems to be suggesting that the actions – possibly sinful – by one generation, have an adverse effect on another. The flip side of this proverb is that sometimes a generation’s choice can have a good effect on succeeding generations. When people choose to emigrate, for instance, to another country it is often so their children can grow up to have a better life. The immigrants may always struggle with a different language, customs, and a sense of being an outsider, the next generation benefits and will be comfortable.

Bad decisions regarding the environment, political system, crop management, debt management, care for a house or a property, or even the decision to buy a pet at an advanced age that an adult child will inherit, all these are ways that the bad decisions by the parents to eat sour grapes can affect the children. But in this verse, the prophet is talking about removing the bad consequences of one person or one generation’s actions have on their successors. Thank heavens the prophet is suggesting that at least with regards to the ledgers kept by God, the sins of the parents will no longer mar the lives of the children.