Ezekiel 7:13

13 No merchants will live long enough to get back what they have lost, because God's anger is on everyone. Those who are evil cannot survive.

Ezekiel 7:13 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 7:13

For the seller shall not return to that which is sold
In the year of jubilee, because he shall be in captivity: according to the law in ( Leviticus 25:13 ) , when a man had sold his possession, he returned to it again, if alive, in the year of jubilee; let it come sooner or later, within thirty, or twenty, or ten years after the sale, be it as it will: now the Babylonish captivity being seventy years, in that time there must be a jubilee; and yet those that had sold their estates, being captives in another land, could not return to them: although they were yet alive:
either though what they have sold is in being, and in good condition; or rather, though they that have sold them are in the land of the living, but, not being in their own land, cannot possess: for the vision [is] touching the whole multitude thereof;
the prophecy of the destruction of the Jews is general, and respects the whole body of the people; men of all ranks and degrees, the buyer and the seller, the rich and the poor: [which] shall not return;
void and of no effect, but shall be fully accomplished; see ( Isaiah 54:11 ) ; though some think this refers not to prophecy, but to the people, who did not upon it return by repentance; in this sense it is taken by Jarchi and Kimchi; and so the Targum,

``for the prophets prophesied to the whole multitude of them to return by repentance, and they returned not:''
neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life:
either secure himself from danger by his unrighteous mammon, his ill gotten goods; or think to escape by his daring impiety, and vicious course of life, continued in without repentance.

Ezekiel 7:13 In-Context

11 Violence produces more wickedness. Nothing of theirs will remain, nothing of their wealth, their splendor, or their glory.
12 The time is coming. The day is near when buying and selling will have no more meaning, because God's punishment will fall on everyone alike.
13 No merchants will live long enough to get back what they have lost, because God's anger is on everyone. Those who are evil cannot survive.
14 The trumpet blows, and everyone gets ready. But no one goes off to war, for God's anger will fall on everyone alike.
15 There is fighting in the streets, and sickness and hunger in the houses. Anyone who is out in the country will die in the fighting, and anyone in the city will be a victim of sickness and hunger.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. [Verse 13 in Hebrew is unclear.]
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.