The time is come, the day draweth near
According to the Targum, the time of the recompence of iniquities, and the day of punishment of sins; of the sins of the Jews, by the Chaldean army, which no doubt is true; but it seems chiefly to refer to what follows: and the sense is, the time was coming on, in which let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn;
it is usual for the buyer of houses or lands to rejoice, because an addition is made to his estate, and especially when he has made, as he thinks, a good purchase; and the seller, he mourns because he is obliged to part with his estate to pay his debts, and so is reduced in his circumstances; but now the time was coming when the one would have no occasion to rejoice, nor the other to mourn; not the buyer rejoice, because, being carried captive, he cannot enjoy his possessions; nor the seller mourn, because, if he had not sold his house or field, he must have left it: for wrath [is] upon all the multitude thereof;
upon the whole body of the Jewish nation, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, buyer and seller; those that are in good circumstances, and those that are in bad ones; so that hereby they were all upon a level, in the same case and condition.