3 And he said unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole land: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off according to it on this side; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off according to it on that side.
and have fallen away, crucifying for themselves [as they do] the Son of God, and making a show of [him]. For ground which drinks the rain which comes often upon it, and produces useful herbs for those for whose sakes also it is tilled, partakes of blessing from God; but bringing forth thorns and briars, it is found worthless and nigh to a curse, whose end [is] to be burned.
For as many as are on the principle of works of law are under curse. For it is written, Cursed is every one who does not continue in all things which [are] written in the book of the law to do them; but that by law no one is justified with God [is] evident, because The just shall live on the principle of faith; but the law is not on the principle of faith; but, He that shall have done these things shall live by them. Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, (for it is written, Cursed [is] every one hanged upon a tree,)
Already indeed then it is altogether a fault in you that ye have suits between yourselves. Why do ye not rather suffer wrong? why are ye not rather defrauded? But *ye* do wrong, and defraud, and this [your] brethren. Do ye not know that unrighteous [persons] shall not inherit [the] kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who make women of themselves, nor who abuse themselves with men,
And he took of the king's seed, and made a covenant with him, and brought him under an oath, and he took away the mighty of the land; that the kingdom might be abased, that it might not lift itself up, that it might keep his covenant in order to stand. But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? shall he break the covenant, and yet escape? [As] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, verily in the place of the king that made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him, in the midst of Babylon, shall he die.
Cursed be the man that maketh a graven or molten image, an abomination to Jehovah, a work of the craftsman's hand, and putteth it up secretly! And all the people shall answer and say, Amen. Cursed be he that slighteth his father or his mother! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife; for he uncovereth his father's skirt! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbour secretly! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that taketh reward to smite mortally [shedding] innocent blood! And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that confirmeth not the words of this law to do them! And all the people shall say, Amen.
But it shall come to pass if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to take heed to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, the offspring of thy kine, and the increase of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be in thy coming in, and cursed shalt thou be in thy going out. Jehovah will send upon thee cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all the business of thy hand which thou doest, until thou be destroyed and until thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. Jehovah will make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. Jehovah will smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with burning ague, and with drought, and with blight, and with mildew, and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. And thy heavens which are over thy head shall be brass, and the earth which is under thee, iron. Jehovah will give as the rain of thy land powder and dust; from the heavens shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed. Jehovah will give thee up smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out against them one way, and by seven ways shalt thou flee before them; and thou shalt be driven hither and thither into all the kingdoms of the earth. And thy carcase shall be meat unto all the fowl of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no man to scare them away. Jehovah will smite thee with the ulcers of Egypt, and with boils, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. Jehovah will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled continually, and there shall be none to save. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not eat of it. Thine ox shall be slaughtered before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof; thine ass shall be snatched away from before thy face, and shall not return to thee; thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to recover them. Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and languish for them all the day long; and there shall be no power in thy hand [to help it]. The fruit of thy ground and all thy labour, shall a people that thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed continually. And thou shalt be mad through the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. Jehovah will smite thee in the knees and in the legs with evil ulcers, whereof thou canst not be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head. Jehovah will bring thee, and thy king whom thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation that neither thou nor thy fathers have known, and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples whither Jehovah shall lead thee. Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather little in; for the locust shall devour it. Thou shalt plant and till vineyards, but shalt drink no wine, nor gather [the fruit]; for the worms shall eat it. Olive-trees shalt thou have throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil; for thine olive-tree shall cast its fruit. Sons and daughters shalt thou beget, but thou shalt not have them [to be with thee]; for they shall go into captivity. All thy trees and the fruit of thy ground shall the locust possess. The sojourner that is in thy midst shall rise above thee higher and higher, and thou shalt sink down lower and lower. He shall lend to thee, but thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. And all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, until thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee. And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not Jehovah thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, thou shalt serve thine enemies whom Jehovah will send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of everything; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. Jehovah will bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, like as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue thou understandest not; a nation of fierce countenance, which regardeth not the person of the old, nor is kind to the young; and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy ground, until thou be destroyed; for he shall not leave thee corn, new wine, or oil, offspring of thy kine, or increase of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and strong walls wherein thou trustedst come down, throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates in all thy land, which Jehovah thy God hath given thee. And in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee, thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters whom Jehovah thy God hath given thee. The eye of the man in thy midst that is tender and very luxurious shall be evil towards his brother, and the wife of his bosom, and the residue of his children which he hath left; so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children that he eateth, because he hath nothing left him in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. The eye of the tender and luxurious woman in thy midst who would not attempt to set the sole of her foot upon the ground from luxuriousness and from tenderness, shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and her son, and her daughter, because of her afterbirth which hath come out between her feet, and her children whom she shall bear; for she shall secretly eat them for want of everything in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. If thou wilt not take heed to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear this glorious and fearful name, JEHOVAH THY GOD; then Jehovah will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, great and persistent plagues and evil and persistent sicknesses; and he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt which thou art afraid of, and they shall cleave unto thee. Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, them will Jehovah bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed. And ye shall be left a small company, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou hast not hearkened to the voice of Jehovah thy God. And it shall come to pass, that as Jehovah rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so Jehovah will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whereunto thou goest to possess it. And Jehovah will scatter thee among all peoples, from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; and thou shalt there serve other gods, whom thou hast not known, neither thou nor thy fathers, wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou have no rest, neither shall the sole of thy foot have a resting-place, and Jehovah shall give thee there a trembling heart, languishing of the eyes, and pining of the soul. And thy life shall hang in suspense before thee; and thou shalt be in terror day and night and shalt be afraid of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would that it were even! and in the evening thou shalt say, Would that it were morning! through the fright of thy heart wherewith thou shalt be in terror, and through the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. And Jehovah will bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I said unto thee, Thou shalt see it again no more; and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and there shall be no man to buy [you].
and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to sweep away the drunken with the thirsty. Jehovah will not pardon him, but the anger of Jehovah and his jealousy will then smoke against that man, and all the curse shall be upon him that is written in this book; and Jehovah will blot out his name from under the heavens; and Jehovah will separate him for mischief out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law. And the generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its sicknesses wherewith Jehovah hath visited it, [that] the whole ground thereof is brimstone and salt, [and] burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, and no grass groweth in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger and in his fury: even all nations shall say, Why has Jehovah done thus to this land? whence the heat of this great anger? And men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah the God of their fathers, which he had made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; and they went and served other gods, and bowed down to them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not assigned to them. And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book; and Jehovah rooted them out of their land in anger, and in fury, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as [it appears] this day.
And he loved cursing; so let it come unto him. And he delighted not in blessing; and let it be far from him. And he clothed himself with cursing like his vestment; so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones; Let it be unto him as a garment with which he covereth himself, and for a girdle wherewith he is constantly girded. Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from Jehovah, and of them that speak evil against my soul.
and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of Jehovah your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which ye have not known. And it shall come to pass, when Jehovah thy God hath brought thee into the land whither thou enterest in to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.
Will a man rob God? But ye rob me. And ye say, Wherein do we rob thee? [In] tithes and heave-offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse; and me ye rob, [even] this whole nation. Bring the whole tithe into the treasure-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I open not to you the windows of the heavens, and pour you out a blessing, till there be no place for it.
Again, ye have heard that it has been said to the ancients, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt render to the Lord what thou hast sworn. But *I* say unto you, Do not swear at all; neither by the heaven, because it is [the] throne of God; nor by the earth, because it is [the] footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, because it is [the] city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your word be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; but what is more than these is from evil.
Woe to you, blind guides, who say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Fools and blind, for which is greater, the gold, or the temple which sanctifies the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it is a debtor. [Fools and] blind ones, for which is greater, the gift, or the altar which sanctifies the gift? He therefore that swears by the altar swears by it and by all things that are upon it. And he that swears by the temple swears by it and by him that dwells in it. And he that swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him that sits upon it.
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Commentary on Zechariah 5 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Sixth Vision: The Flying Roll, and the Woman in the Ephah - Zechariah 5:1-11
These two figures are so closely connected, that they are to be taken as one vision. The circumstance, that a pause is introduced between the first and second view, in which both the ecstatic elevation and the interpreting angel leave the prophet, so that it is stated in Zechariah 5:5 that “the angel came forth,” furnishes no sufficient reason for the assumption that there were two different visions. For the figure of the ephah with the woman sitting in it is also divided into two views, since the prophet first of all sees the woman and receives the explanation (Zechariah 5:5-8), and the further development of the vision is then introduced in Zechariah 5:9 with a fresh introductory formula, “And I lifted up my eyes, and saw.” And just as this introductory formula, through which new and different visions are introduced in Zechariah 2:1 and Zechariah 2:5, by no means warrants us in dividing what is seen here into two different visions; so there is nothing in the introduction in Zechariah 5:5 to compel us to separate the vision of the flying roll (Zechariah 5:1-4) from the following vision of the ephah, since there is no such difference in the actual contents of the two as to warrant such a separation. They neither stand in such a relation to one another, as that the first sets forth the extermination of sinners out of the holy land, and the second the extermination of sin itself, as Maurer supposes; nor does the one treat of the fate of the sinners and the other of the full measure of the sin; but the vision of the flying roll prepares the way for, and introduces, what is carried out in the vision of the ephah (Zechariah 5:5-11), and the connection between the two is indicated formally by the fact that the suffix in עינם in Zechariah 5:6 refers back to Zechariah 5:3 and Zechariah 5:4.
Zechariah 5:1. “And I lifted up my eyes again, and saw, and behold a flying roll. Zechariah 5:2. And he said to me, What seest thou? And I said, I see a flying roll; its length twenty cubits, and its breadth ten cubits. Zechariah 5:3. And he said to me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the whole land: for every one that stealeth will be cleansed away from this side, according to it; and every one that sweareth will be cleansed away from that side, according to it. Zechariah 5:4. I have caused it to go forth, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts, and it will come into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth by my name for deceit: and it will pass the night in the midst of his house, and consume both its beams and its stones.” The person calling the prophet's attention to the vision, and interpreting it, is the angelus interpres . This is not specially mentioned here, as being obvious from what goes before. The roll (book-scroll, m e gillâh = m e gillath sēpher , Ezekiel 2:9) is seen flying over the earth unrolled, so that its length and breadth can be seen. The statement as to its size is not to be regarded as “an approximative estimate,” so that the roll would be simply described as of considerable size (Koehler), but is unquestionably significant. It corresponds both to the size of the porch of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:3), and also to the dimensions of the holy place in the tabernacle, which was twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad. Hengstenberg, Hofmann, and Umbreit, following the example of Kimchi, assume that the reference is to the porch of the temple, and suppose that the roll has the same dimensions as this porch, to indicate that the judgment is “a consequence of the theocracy” or was to issue from the sanctuary of Israel, where the people assembled before the Lord. But the porch of the temple was neither a symbol of the theocracy, nor the place where the people assembled before the Lord, but a mere architectural ornament, which had no significance whatever in relation to the worship. The people assembled before the Lord in the court, to have reconciliation made for them with God by sacrifice; or they entered the holy place in the person of their sanctified mediators, the priests, as cleansed from sin, there to appear before God and engage in His spotless worship. The dimensions of the roll are taken from the holy place of the tabernacle, just as in the previous vision the candlestick was the mosaic candlestick of the tabernacle. Through the similarity of the dimensions of the roll to those of the holy place in the tabernacle, there is no intention to indicate that the curse proceeds from the holy place of the tabernacle or of the temple; for the roll would have issued from the sanctuary, if it had been intended to indicate this. Moreover, the curse or judgment does indeed begin at the house of God, but it does not issue or come from the house of God. Kliefoth has pointed to the true meaning in the following explanation which he gives: “The fact that the writing, which brings the curse upon all the sinners of the earth, has the same dimensions as the tabernacle, signifies that the measure will be meted out according to the measure of the holy place;” and again, “the measure by which this curse upon sinners will be meted out, will be the measure of the holy place.” With this measure would all sinners be measured, that they might be cut off from the congregation of the Lord, which appeared before God in the holy place.
The flight of the roll symbolized the going forth of the curse over the whole land. כּל־הארץ is rendered by Hofmann, Neumann, and Kliefoth “the whole earth,” because “it evidently signifies the whole earth in v. Zechariah 4:10, Zechariah 4:14, and Zechariah 6:5” (Kliefoth). But these passages, in which the Lord of the whole earth is spoken of, do not prove anything in relation to our vision, in which כּל־הארץ is unmistakeably limited to the land of Canaan (Judah) by the antithesis in Zechariah 5:11, “the land of Shinar.” If the sinners who are smitten by the curse proceeding over כּל־הארץ are to be carried into the land of Sinar , the former must be a definite land, and not the earth as the sum of all lands. It cannot be argued in opposition to this, that the sin of the land in which the true house of God and the true priesthood were, was wiped away by expiation, whereas the sin of the whole world would be brought into the land of judgment, when its measure was concluded by God; for this antithesis is foreign not only to this vision, but to the Scriptures universally. The Scriptures know nothing of any distribution or punishment of sins according to different lands, but simply according to the character of the sinners, viz., whether they are penitent or hardened. At the same time, the fact that כּל־הארץ denotes the whole of the land of Israel, by no means proves that our vision either treats of the “carrying away of Israel into exile,” which had already occurred (Ros.), or “sets before them a fresh carrying away into exile, and one still in the future” (Hengstenberg), or that on the coming of the millennial kingdom the sin and the sinners will be exterminated from the whole of the holy land, and the sin thrown back upon the rest of the earth, which is still under the power of the world (Hofmann). The vision certainly refers to the remote future of the kingdom of God; and therefore “the whole land” cannot be restricted to the extent and boundaries of Judaea or Palestine, but reaches as far as the spiritual Israel or church of Christ is spread over the earth; but there is no allusion in our vision to the millennial kingdom, and its establishment within the limits of the earthly Canaan. The curse falls upon all thieves and false swearers. הנּשׁבּע in Zechariah 5:3 is defined more precisely in Zechariah 5:4, as swearing in the name of Jehovah for deceit, and therefore refers to perjury in the broadest sense of the word, or to all abuse of the name of God for false, deceitful swearing. Thieves are mentioned for the sake of individualizing, as sinners against the second table of the decalogue; false swearers, as sinners against the first table. The repetition of מזּה כּמוה points to this; for mizzeh , repeated in correlative clauses, signifies hinc et illinc , hence and thence, i.e., on one side and the other (Exodus 17:12; Numbers 22:24; Ezekiel 47:7), and can only refer here to the fact that the roll was written upon on both sides, so that it is to be taken in close connection with כּמוה : “on this side ... and on that, according to it” (the roll), i.e., according to the curse written upon this side and that side of the roll. We have therefore to picture the roll to ourselves as having the curse against the thieves written upon the one side, and that against the perjurers upon the other. The supposition that mizzeh refers to כּל־הארץ is precluded most decidedly, by the fact that mizzeh does not mean “thence,” i.e., from the whole land, but when used adverbially of any place, invariably signifies “hence,” and refers to the place where the speaker himself is standing. Moreover, the double use of mizzeh is at variance with any allusion to hâ'ârets , as well as the fact that if it belonged to the verb, it would stand after כּמוה , whether before or after the verb. Niqqâh , the niphal , signifies here to be cleaned out, like καθαρίζεσωαι in Mark 7:19 (cf. 1 Kings 14:10; Deuteronomy 17:12). This is explained in Zechariah 5:4 thus: Jehovah causes the curse to go forth and enter into the house of the thief and perjurer, so that it will pass the night there, i.e., stay there ( lâneh third pers. perf. of lūn , from lânâh , to be blunted, like zûreh in Isaiah 59:5, and other verbal formations); it will not remain idle, however, but work therein, destroying both the house and sinners therein, so that beams and stones will be consumed (cf. 1 Kings 18:38). The suffix in כּלּתּוּ (for כּלּתהוּ , cf. Ges. §75, Anm. 19) refers to the house, of course including the inhabitants. The following nouns introduced with ואת are in explanatory apposition: both its beams and its stones. The roll therefore symbolizes the curse which will fall upon sinners throughout the whole land, consuming them with their houses, and thus sweeping them out of the nation of God.
To this there is appended in Zechariah 5:5-11 a new view, which exhibits the further fate of the sinners who have been separated from the congregation of the saints. Zechariah 5:5. “And the angel that talked with me went forth, and said to me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, what is this that goeth out there? Zechariah 5:6. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah going out. And He said, This is their aspect in all the land. Zechariah 5:7. And behold a disk of lead was lifted up, and there was a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah. Zechariah 5:8. And he said, This is wickedness; and he cast it into the midst of the ephah, and cast the leaden weight upon its mouth.” With the disappearing of the previous vision, the angelus interpres had also vanished from the eyes of the prophet. After a short pause he comes out again, calls the prophet's attention to a new figure which emerges out of the cloud, and so comes within the range of vision ( היּוצאת הזּאת ), and informs him with regard to it: “This is the ephah which goeth out.” יצא , to go out, in other words, to come to view. The ephah was the greatest measure of capacity which really existed among the Hebrews for dry goods, and was about the size of a cubic foot; for the chōmer , which contained ten ephahs, appears to have had only an ideal existence, viz., for the purpose of calculation. The meaning of this figure is indicated generally in the words זאת עינם כב , the meaning of which depends upon the interpretation to be given to עינם . The suffix of this word can only refer to the sinners mentioned before, viz., the thieves and perjurers; for it is contrary to the Hebrew usage to suppose that the words refer to the expression appended, בּכל־הארץ , in the sense of “all those who are in the whole land” (Koehler). Consequently עין does not mean the eye, but adspectus , appearance, or shape, as in Leviticus 13:55; Ezekiel 1:4.; and the words have this meaning: The ephah (bushel) is the shape, i.e., represents the figure displayed by the sinners in all the land, after the roll of the curse has gone forth over the land, i.e., it shows into what condition they have come through that anathema (Kliefoth). The point of comparison between the ephah and the state into which sinners have come in consequence of the curse, does not consist in the fact that the ephah is carried away, and the sinners likewise (Maurer), nor in the fact that the sin now reaches its full measure (Hofm., Hengstenberg); for “the carrying away of the sinners does not come into consideration yet, and there is nothing at all here about the sin becoming full.” It is true that, according to what follows, sin sits in the ephah as a woman, but there is nothing to indicate that the ephah is completely filled by it, so that there is no further room in it; and this thought would be generally out of keeping here. The point of comparison is rather to be found in the explanation given by Kliefoth: “Just as in a bushel the separate grains are all collected together, so will the individual sinners over the whole earth be brought into a heap, when the curse of the end goes forth over the whole earth.” We have no hesitation in appropriating this explanation, although we have not rendered הארץ “the earth,” inasmuch as at the final fulfilment of the vision the holy land will extend over all the earth. Immediately afterwards the prophet is shown still more clearly what is in the ephah. A covering of lead ( kikkâr , a circle, a rounding or a circular plate) rises up, or is lifted up, and then he sees a woman sitting in the ephah ( 'achath does not stand for the indefinite article, but is a numeral, the sinners brought into a heap appearing as a unity, i.e., as one living personality, instead of forming an atomistic heap of individuals). This woman, who had not come into the ephah now for the first time, but was already sitting there, and was only seen now that the lid was raised, is described by the angel as mirsha‛ath , ungodliness, as being wickedness embodied, just as in 2 Chronicles 24:7 this name is given to godless Jezebel. Thereupon he throws her into the ephah, out of which she had risen up, and shuts it with the leaden lid, to carry her away, as the following vision shows, out of the holy land.
Zechariah 5:9. “And I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold there came forth two women, and wind in their wings, and they had wings like a stork's wings; and they carried the ephah between earth and heaven. Zechariah 5:10. And I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither are these taking the ephah? Zechariah 5:11. And he said to me, To build it a dwelling in the land of Shinar: and it will be placed and set up there upon its stand.” The meaning of this new scene may easily be discovered. The ephah with the woman in it is carried away between earth and heaven, i.e., through the air. Women carry it because there is a woman inside; and two women, because two persons are required to carry so large and heavy a measure, that they may lay hold of it on both sides ( תּשּׂנה with the א dropped; cf. Ges. §74, Anm. 4). These women have wings, because it passes through the air; and a stork's wings, because these birds have broad pinions, and not because the stork is a bird of passage or an unclean bird. The wings are filled with wind, that they may be able to carry their burden with greater velocity through the air. The women denote the instruments or powers employed by God to carry away the sinners out of His congregation, without any special allusion to this or the other historical nation. This is all that we have to seek for in these features, which only serve to give distinctness to the picture. But the statement in Zechariah 5:11 is significant: “to build it a house in the land of Shinar.” The pronoun לה with the suffix softened instead of לּהּ , as in Exodus 9:18; Leviticus 13:4 (cf. Ewald, §247, d ), refers grammatically to האיפה ; but so far as the sense is concerned, it refers to the woman sitting in the ephah, since a house is not built for a measure, but only for men to dwell in. This also applies to the feminine form הנּתחה , and to the suffix in מכנתהּ . The building of a house indicates that the woman is to dwell there permanently, as is still more clearly expressed in the second hemistich. הוּכן refers to בּית , and is not to be taken hypothetically, in the sense of “as soon as the house shall be restored,” but is a perfect with Vav consec. ; and hūkhan , the hophal of kūn , is not to be taken in the sense of restoring, but, in correspondence with m e khunâh , in the sense of establishing or building on firm foundations. M e khunâh : the firmly established house. In this the woman of sin is brought to rest. The land in which the woman of sin carried away out of the holy land is permanently to dwell, is the land of Shinar . This name is not to be identified with Babel , so as to support the conclusion that it refers to a fresh removal of the people of Israel into exile; but according to Genesis 10:10 and Genesis 11:2, Shinar is the land in which Nimrod founded the first empire, and where the human race built the tower of Babel which was to reach to the sky. The name is not to be taken geographically here as an epithet applied to Mesopotamia, but is a notional or real definition, which affirms that the ungodliness carried away out of the sphere of the people of God will have its permanent settlement in the sphere of the imperial power that is hostile to God. The double vision of this chapter, therefore, shows the separation of the wicked from the congregation of the Lord, and their banishment into and concentration within the ungodly kingdom of the world. This distinction and separation commenced with the coming of the Messiah, and runs through all the ages of the spread and development of the Christian church, until at the time of the end they will come more and more into outward manifestation; and the evil, having been sifted out by the judicial power of God and His Spirit, will form itself into a Babel of the last days, as Ezekiel 38 and 39 clearly show, and attempt a last struggle with the kingdom of God, in which it will be overcome and destroyed by the last judgment.