May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
Parallel translations
- WEB Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by Yahweh. Don’t let the sin of his mother be blotted out.
- KJV Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
- ESV May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out!
- NKJV Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, And let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
- NASB ¶May the guilt of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, And do not let the sin of his mother be wiped out.
- NLT May the Lord never forget the sins of his fathers; may his mother’s sins never be erased from the record.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David asks that the ancestral sins of the wicked man not be forgiven or forgotten before God. It calls for a full accounting of a family steeped in evil.
Overview
The plea assumes that the enemy's wickedness continued a pattern of generational rebellion against God. Rather than seeking personal revenge, David asks God to remember and judge rightly. The petition reflects the seriousness of sin's reach, even as the gospel offers a decisive end to its guilt for all who turn to Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Exod 20:5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
- Neh 4:5Do not cover up their iniquity or let their sin be blotted out from Your sight, for they have provoked the builders.
- Jer 18:23But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me. Do not wipe out their guilt or blot out their sin from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.
- Isa 43:25I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.
- 2 Kgs 9:27When King Ahaziah of Judah saw this, he fled up the road toward Beth-haggan. And Jehu pursued him, shouting, “Shoot him too!” So they shot Ahaziah in his chariot on the Ascent of Gur, near Ibleam, and he fled to Megiddo and died there.
- 2 Kgs 8:27And Ahaziah walked in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the LORD like the house of Ahab, for he was a son-in-law of the house of Ahab.
- 2 Kgs 10:13–14Jehu met some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah and asked, “Who are you?” “We are relatives of Ahaziah,” they answered, “and we have come down to greet the sons of the king and of the queen mother.”
- Lev 26:39Those of you who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away in their iniquity and will decay in the sins of their fathers.
- 2 Chr 22:3–4Ahaziah also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor in wickedness.
- 2 Kgs 11:1When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to annihilate all the royal heirs.
- Matt 23:31–36So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.
- 2 Sam 3:29May it whirl over the heads of Joab and the entire house of his father, and may the house of Joab never be without one having a discharge or skin disease, or one who leans on a staff or falls by the sword or lacks food.”
- 2 Sam 21:8–9But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons whom Rizpah daughter of Aiah had borne to Saul, as well as the five sons whom Merab daughter of Saul had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.
- 2 Sam 21:1During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the LORD. And the LORD said, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family, because he killed the Gibeonites.”
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 109:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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