The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
Read Chapter 14
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Mercy. Septuagint, "merciful and true "as Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7. On that occasion, it is not written that God swore. (Haydock)
But equal credit is to be given to his word, as to an oath. (Menochius)
Clear, or, as St. Jerome expresses it in Exodus, and no man of himself is innocent before thee. (Calmet)
By these titles God will be addressed; and therefore Moses mentions them all, though some of them might seem to obstruct his petition of pardon. (Menochius)
He knew that none of God's perfections were contrary to one another, or to his nature of consummate goodness; and he sued for the pardon of his people, with all due submission to the dictates of his justice. (Haydock)
That is to say, God will not punish us at once for our thoughts and resolves but will send retribution upon their offspring, that is, upon the evil deeds and habits of sin which arise out of them.
