Ezekiel 7:13 - Exposition

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."