Keeping steadfast love for thousands, literally “guarding chesed for thousands,” uses the same word as verse 6. The word for keeping means to preserve or maintain. Thousands may be understood as referring to individuals or to “generations” (Good News Translation). New Revised Standard Version now has “for the thousandth generation.” (See the comment at 20.6.) Although Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version interpret this as “keeping promises,” it is more likely that Yahweh is saying “I will keep on loving my people for thousands of generations [or, forever].”

Forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin lists three words that are very similar in meaning. The word for iniquity suggests activity that is crooked or wrong. The word for transgressions refers to rebellion or revolt. The word for sin, chataʾ, is discussed at 20.20. In certain languages it will be necessary to make it explicit that what God forgives is people who do these things; for example, “I forgive people who do evil, who rebel, and commit sin.” There will also be languages that do not have three synonyms for “sin” as in the Hebrew and English. One may therefore follow Good News Translation and say “forgive evil and sin” or combine the three as Contemporary English Version does, “anyone who sins.” Forgiving comes from the word meaning to lift or raise. In context it may be understood as “taking away the guilt or consequences” of the three conditions listed. (See the discussion on forgive at 10.17.)

But who will by no means clear the guilty is literally “and clearing he will not clear.” This is the same emphatic negative form used in some of the participial laws discussed in chapter 21. (See 21.12, 15-17.) The words the guilty are implied by the verb and the context. Revised English Bible has “without acquitting the guilty,” but New Jerusalem Bible has “yet letting nothing go unchecked.” Good News Translation combines this with the idea expressed in the following phrase, “but I will not fail to punish.” Contemporary English Version has two separate sentences, “but I also punish anyone who sins. When people sin, I punish them and their children….”

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers … is similar to the expression in 20.5, with a few differences. (See the comment there.) Here it has upon the children and the children’s children, which may be rendered as “children and grandchildren” (Good News Translation). To the third and the fourth generation is literally “upon the third and upon the fourth.” Here again generation is implied by the context. Contemporary English Version has “their children, and also their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .