יחזקאל, פרק י״ח, פסוק כ״ה

A profound philosophical conflict arises between human ideas of fairness and God's method of judgment, centering on how a person's life should be evaluated. The Israelites complain about how God runs the world, arguing that His justice is unbalanced and illogical [מצודת ציון, מלבי״ם, שטיינזלץ]. Their frustration stems from the fact that God judges individuals based on their current state and latest actions, rather than calculating an average of their entire lives. They feel that if a good person sins near the end of their life, a fair judge should weigh the recent wrongs against a lifetime of good deeds to lighten the punishment [מצודת דוד, רד״ק, שטיינזלץ]. From a human perspective, it seems unfair for God to ignore the rewards earned in the past simply because of present failures [אברבנאל].

God completely reverses their argument, pointing out that it is actually the people's standards that are flawed. A person is judged by their most recent behavior because turning away from an honest life reveals a rejection of their past good deeds. Consequently, a person's history cannot be used to dictate or excuse their present choices [רד״ק, שטיינזלץ].

To expose the flaw in the people's thinking, [אברבנאל] points to the human justice system itself. Imagine a citizen who lives as an honest, law-abiding person for sixty years, but suddenly commits murder in his old age. A human court will condemn him for the murder and will not excuse the crime just because he had a clean record for decades. If people naturally judge a person based on a present offense while ignoring a righteous past, they have no grounds to complain when God uses that exact same moral logic in His own supreme judgment.