Ezekiel 7:13

13 The bottom has dropped out of buying and selling. It will never be the same again. But don't fantasize an upturn in the market. The country is bankrupt because of its sins, and it's not going to get any better.

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 strutting, brandishing the evil scepter. But there's nothing to them, and nothing will be left of them.
12 Time's up. Countdown: five, four, three, two . . . Buyer, don't crow; seller, don't worry: Judgment wrath has turned the world topsy-turvy.
13 The bottom has dropped out of buying and selling. It will never be the same again. But don't fantasize an upturn in the market. The country is bankrupt because of its sins, and it's not going to get any better.
14 "'The trumpet signals the call to battle: "Present arms!" But no one marches into battle. My wrath has them paralyzed!
15 On the open roads you're killed, or else you go home and die of hunger and disease. Either get murdered out in the country or die of sickness or hunger in town.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.