Deuteronomy 24:16

Summary

Deuteronomy 24:16 establishes that parents are not to be put to death for the offenses of their children, nor children for the offenses of their parents. Each person is to be put to death only for their own sin.

Key words

• yumeTu ("they will be put to death", H4191) — hophal imperfect, a causative-passive form indicating that someone else's action causes the death; repeated three times to structure the verse.
• 'aVot ("parents", H0001G) — feminine plural noun (irregular plural of the word for "father"), the general term for parents/ancestors here.
• baNim / vaNim ("children", H1121A) — masculine plural noun, paired with 'aVot in reversed order in the second clause.
• chet' ("own sin", H2399) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it grammatically links to the following possessive suffix ("sin of...").
• -O ("his", H9023) — pronominal suffix attached to chet', producing "his sin," emphasizing individual ownership of the offense.

What the text says

The verse is built as three parallel clauses, each using the same hophal imperfect verb yumeTu ("they will be put to death", H4191). The hophal stem is causative-passive: it does not simply state that someone dies, but that someone is caused to die by an external agent (i.e., executed by legal action), which fits the passage's judicial context.

The first two clauses form a chiastic-like reversal: "'aVot ('parents') 'al ('on') baNim ('children')" is mirrored by "vaNim ('children') 'al ('on') 'aVot ('parents')." The preposition 'al (H5921A), glossed "on," functions here to indicate substitutionary punishment — one party being executed "on account of" or "in place of" another. Both clauses use the same negation lo' (H3808) before the verb, producing a strict prohibition rather than a general statement.

The third clause shifts construction: instead of 'al + plural noun, it uses 'ish ("anyone", H0376I) as subject, followed by be-chet'-o ("for his own sin", H2399 + H9023), where the construct + suffix combination chet'o tightens the connection between the individual and the specific offense committed. The verb yumatu ("they will be put to death", H4191) appears here without the negation lo', marking a positive statement following the two negative ones — the sentence moves from prohibiting substitutionary execution to affirming individual accountability for one's own chet' ("sin", H2399).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yumeTu ("they will be put to death") with ἀποθανοῦνται ("they will die"), a non-causative future middle/passive form, differing from the Hebrew hophal's explicit causative-passive sense of being put to death by another's action. The Vulgate's occidentur ("they will be killed") preserves a passive sense closer to the Hebrew's causative nuance than the LXX's more neutral "will die." In the third clause, the Vulgate uses morietur ("will die"), again shifting from the causative "will be put to death" toward a more general verb of dying, similar to the LXX's approach throughout.