Generational Curses

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, of that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a Jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those that hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.”

-          Exodus 20:4-6

What does it mean when God through Moses said that he will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations? Does it mean the children have to suffer for the sins of their fathers? No. Every person is responsible for their own sin.

In the book of Ezekiel we read, “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself” (Ezekiel 18:20).

The passage is clear. Everyone pays for their own sins. So, what about the generational curse that is described in Exodus 20? It seems to contradict Ezekiel 18. I believe the best way to understand the curse is to go back to the beginning with, Adam and Eve.

When Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God in the garden, that act of original sin was so systemic that it affected the entire universe. The result of that original sin brought a curse on man and the earth (Genesis 3:16-19).

The reverberating effects of the curse have affected mankind up until the present day. We suffer as a result of the disobedience of our original parents, and the sins we commit ourselves proving our sinful solidarity with them.

Similarly, in Exodus 20 notice what Moses says; God will visit (italics mine) the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those that hate me.   For those children that disobey the Lord like their fathers did before them, the curse will abide on them and their descendants for three and four generations. Now in the Bible a generation is around forty years. So for those who are worshipping false gods in the land of Israel, they could expect the curse to last for 120-160 years.[i]

The wonderful contrast is that God would bless those that love him and keep his commandments (Exodus 20:6).

Also, understand that the curse being described here is not making reference to genetics. For instance, if a family has a history of battling diabetes or cancer, there may be a likelihood that some of their descendants may suffer with it because of a genetic predisposition, not because of a generational curse.

God did not assign every family with a specific generational curse.

There are those that believe that if their Father or Mother is alcoholic, then they will become one. That is not always true. Being around someone that is always drunk may compel the children to despise it because of the damage it does to the person who’s always drunk, and to the family they are destroying. Some make the wise decision to have nothing to do with liquor. Being an alcoholic is not a result of a generational curse, nor is anyone predisposed to it. It is an individual choice one makes to escape the pain of their reality in booze.

How to reverse the curse of your soul

Jesus came to give all men life-for those who are willing to repent of their sins and believe in his completed work on the cross. All believers are eternally blessed. There is absolutely no curse on God’s church. Now we are all still subject to the curse the Lord the placed in the earth due to Adam’s sin-means death to all of creation, but for the person that is in Christ Jesus, there is everlasting blessings.

In Galatians 3:13 we read, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing may become upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

Anyone who is not a Hebrew or Jew is a Gentile. Jesus Christ destroyed the curse when he died on the cross. When we believed in what he did, we received the blessing of eternal life through the Holy Spirit by faith. One cannot be blessed and cursed by God at the same time can they?

I asked this rhetorical question because either you are blessed by God or cursed by him. The ultimate cursing by God are those who die in sin. Jesus said to them, “Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 7:23; 25:41).

We are not generationally cursed. Some may disagree because of the horrific things they have endured in their family, or someone they know has endured. It is true that some decisions we make can affect our children negatively, but we they are not culpable for our sins. Neither are we responsible for the sins of our parents.

In Moses day, God declared that as long as people committed the sin of idolatry-worshipping false gods, it would incite the ire of God to the degree that he would remember the sins of those idolaters and punish them to the third and fourth generations because the descendants of the fathers perpetuated the same sin.

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[i] The generational curse amount is debatable. Some have said 30 years. Others have said

40 and 50 years make up a generation.