=2. Personal Responsibility.=--The transition from group to individual responsibility was thoroughly worked out by the prophets, even if they were not able to carry full popular assent. In early days the whole kin was treated as guilty for the offense of the kinsman. Achan's case has already been cited; and in the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, "Their wives and their sons and their little ones" were all treated alike.[55] In like manner, the family of the righteous man shared in the divine favor. The later prophets pronounced a radical change. The proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge," is no more to be used, declares Ezekiel, speaking for Jehovah. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son;" and it is especially interesting to note that the Lord is represented as pleading with the people that this is fair, while the people say, "Wherefore doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?" The solidarity of the family resisted the individualism of the prophetic conception, and five hundred years after Ezekiel the traces of the older conception still lingered in the question, "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"[56] For another aspect of responsibility, viz., intent, as distinct from accidental action,[57] we have certain transitional steps shown in the interesting "cities of refuge"[58] for the accidental homicide in which he might be safe from the avenger of blood, provided he was swift enough of foot to reach a city of refuge before he was caught. But the fullest development in the ethics of responsibility along this line seemed to take the form described under the next head.