(13) The seller shall not return.--The previous verse described the general cessation of all the business of life in the utter desolation of the land. Among the Israelites the most important buying and selling was that of land, and it was provided in the law (Leviticus 25:14-16) that this should in no case extend beyond the year of jubilee, when all land must revert to its possessor by inheritance. The seller in that year should return to his possession. Now it is foretold that the desolation shall continue so long that, even if the seller lived, he should be unable to avail himself of the jubilee year. "It is a natural thing to rejoice in the purchase of property, and to mourn over its sale, but when slavery and captivity stare you in the face, rejoicing and mourning are equally absurd" (S. Jerome). The idea of the latter part of the verse is, that no one shall grow strong since his life is passed in iniquity.

Verse 13. - For the seller shall not return, etc. At first the thought seems only to add to the sorrow of the seller. He is told that he, at least, shall not return to his old estate. Even though they should be alive at the year of jubilee, their exile had to last its appointed time, Ezekiel's forty (Ezekiel 4:6) and Jeremiah's seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11). This, however, did not exclude the return of their children (Jeremiah 32:44), and in the mean time all private sorrow would fall into the background as compared with the great public woe of the destruction of the holy city. The vision is touching, etc. The noun is used as a synonym for prophecy, as elsewhere (Isaiah 1:1; Nahum 1:1; Habakkuk 2:1). It may be noted that it is specially characteristic of Ezekiel (seven times) and Daniel (eleven times). For the Authorized Version read with the Revised Version, none shall return, or better (with the Vulgate and Keil), the vision touching the whole multitude shall not return, i.e. shall go straight onward to do its work (comp. Isaiah 55:11). So taken, there is a kind of play upon the iterated word: "The seller shall not turn his footsteps back, neither shall the prophecy." Vestigia nulla retrorsum shall be true of both. I take the other words, with the Revised Version, no man in the iniquity of his life shall strengthen himself, noting the fact that the word for "strengthen" is that which enters into Ezekiel's name. It is as though he said, "God is the only true source of strength to thee, as thy very name bears witness."

7:1-15 The abruptness of this prophecy, and the many repetitions, show that the prophet was deeply affected by the prospect of these calamities. Such will the destruction of sinners be; for none can avoid it. Oh that the wickedness of the wicked might end before it bring them to an end! Trouble is to the impenitent only an evil, it hardens their hearts, and stirs up their corruptions; but there are those to whom it is sanctified by the grace of God, and made a means of much good. The day of real trouble is near, not a mere echo or rumour of troubles. Whatever are the fruits of God's judgments, our sin is the root of them. These judgments shall be universal. And God will be glorified in all. Now is the day of the Lord's patience and mercy, but the time of the sinner's trouble is at hand.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.