Ezekiel 7:12-13

7:12 The time has come; the day has struck! The customer should not rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for divine wrath ¹  comes against their whole crowd. 7:13 The customer will no longer pay the seller ²  while both parties are alive, for the vision against their whole crowd ³  will not be revoked. Each person, for his iniquity, ⁴  will fail to preserve his life.

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¹ tn Heb “wrath.” Context clarifies that God’s wrath is in view.

² tc The translation follows the LXX for the first line of the verse, although the LXX has lost the second line due to homoioteleuton (similar endings of the clauses). The MT reads “The seller will not return to the sale.” This Hebrew reading has been construed as a reference to land redemption, the temporary sale of the use of property, with property rights returned to the seller in the year of Jubilee. But the context has no other indicator that land redemption is in view. If correct, the LXX evidence suggests that one of the cases of “the customer” has been replaced by “the seller” in the MT, perhaps due to hoimoioarcton (similar beginnings of the words).

³ tn The Hebrew word refers to the din or noise made by a crowd, and by extension may refer to the crowd itself.

⁴ tn Or “in their punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and in v. 16; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 18:17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”