Deuteronomy 24:16

The context

Deuteronomy 24 is a collection of statutes on divorce, pledges, kidnapping, leprosy, and harvest gleanings. Verse 16 is a short rule on judicial execution, set between the law about a poor man's cloak and the command not to withhold wages. It limits what a court may do when a capital case arises.

What it establishes

The verse establishes a rule of judicial proportion: the family is not to be executed with the offender. It is a restriction on the reach of the death penalty, and it is addressed to those who judge, not to a general theory of guilt and inheritance.

What it does not establish

It is a rule for courts, not a doctrine of guilt before God. The verse says nothing about inherited sin, corporate responsibility, or the consequences of one generation's failures. Nor does it abolish the death penalty; it narrows who may be put to death.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving, why does he permit starvation, child molestation, rape, torture and genocide? And don't tell me these victims are suffering for Adam's sin.

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.