who were trying to sort their way through the course of events that had overtaken and overwhelmed them. First there is the question of responsibility. “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Similar proverbs probably have arisen in every culture of any time. It asserts, “we are suffering not for our own faults but for what our ancestors did before us.” (Jer. 31:27–30 cites the same proverb. In Jeremiah the citation is probably secondary and dependent on the