Exodus 20:5 vs. Exodus 18:20

Exodus 18:20 states that a son shall not die for his father, this is in reference to a common practice in the olden days was this exact concept, if a man couldn't pay a debt or was in need of punishment, it was common to strike the heir or a relative of them. An idea of this is found in Hammurabi's code. Specifically, Code #117, "If a man is in debt and sells his wife, son, or daughter, or binds them over to service, for three years they shall work in the house of their purchaser of master; in the fourth year they shall be given their freedom." Laws like these are what the Bible forbids here. Literal judicial crimes, not mere sins.

In Exodus 20:5, it seems to state the opposite. "You shall not worship them nor serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, inflicting the punishment of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me," (Exodus 20:5 NASB). This passage's context is Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God. It is to be noted that these have very different contexts. Exodus 18 is a command that fathers may not sell their sons to pay for their faults, but this passage (Exodus 20) is speaking of a different concept.

As Barnes explains: "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children - (Compare Exodus 34:7; Jeremiah 32:18). Sons and remote descendants inherit the consequences of their fathers' sins, in disease, poverty, captivity, with all the influences of bad example and evil communications. (See Leviticus 26:39; Lamentations 5:7 following) The "inherited curse" seems to fall often most heavily on the least guilty persons; but such suffering must always be free from the sting of conscience; it is not like the visitation for sin on the individual by whom the sin has been committed," (Barnes). The sins of their fathers fall on the descendants, for by their living in sin it leads to disaster. It leads to the need for righteous punishment, as to bring back the people from their sins.

As we see in Isaiah: "The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating disaster;
I am the Lord who does all these things," (Isaiah 45:7 NASB). The Lord brings judgment upon the nations when they fall from their trust, but prosperity when they live in him.

Ellicott reiterates stating: "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.—It is a fact that, under God’s natural government of the world, the iniquity of fathers is visited upon their children. Diseases caused by vicious courses are transmitted. The parents’ extravagance leaves their children beggars. To be the son of a felon is to be heavily handicapped in the race of life. ... We all inherit countless disadvantages on account of our first parents’ sin. We each individually inherit special tendencies to this or that form of evil from the misconduct of our several progenitors. The knowledge that their sins will put their children at a disadvantage is calculated to check men in their evil courses more than almost anything else; and this check could not be removed without a sensible diminution of the restraints which withhold men from vice," (Ellicott).

References:

Barnes' Notes on the New Testament. United Kingdom, Kregel Publications, 1962.

Ellicott's Bible Commentary, Volume 1. N.p., Delmarva Publications, Inc., 2015.

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