Deeper Commentary

Zechariah Chapter 5

Zechariah 5:1 Then again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, a flying scroll- The previous visions have spoken of how the rebuilding work faced opposition from the adversaries ["satan"] of both apostate Jews amongst the exiles, and from the local Gentiles. We know that in practice, those 'satans' derailed the envisaged and possible restoration of the Kingdom at that time. This vision now deals with this in more detail.

Zechariah 5:2 He said to me, What do you see? I answered, I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits, and its breadth ten cubits- Zechariah's vision of the flying scroll indicates the extent of Judah's weakness. The size and proportion of it was unreal for a scroll- "twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide" is about 10 meters by 5 meters. This disproportion was obviously to draw attention to something- and we find that the size of the temple porch / entrance in Solomon's temple was exactly of this size (1 Kings 6:3). This was where God's word was read from. And yet the scroll is described as entering into "the house of the thief" (Zech. 5:4). Nehemiah records how the poor returnees were abused and effectively thieved from by the wealthy. And the Lord Jesus lamented how God's house had become "a den of thieves". But there's another reference to this 20 x 10 cubits size. The cherubim over the ark were ten cubits high and their wings were 5 cubits long, and one wing pointed back, whilst the other pointed forward, to touch the wing of the other cherub. Thus each cherub occupied a space 10 cubits high and 10 cubits across; and the two cherubim over the ark thus occupied a space 20 cubits long and 10 cubits wide- exactly the size of the flying scroll. The fact the scroll 'flies' invites us to make another connection with the cherubim, flying / hovering as it were over the ark. Yet this shekinah glory is changed in the vision into a curse. This is how very displeased God was with what was being done by those who returned- His presence and glory were no longer there, only a curse upon them. Effectively, the returnees had turned God's temple into a parody of the Babylonian temples; see on :6,8,9.

 

Zechariah 5:3 Then he said to me, This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land- The Angelic eyes of God had been going over the "whole land" preparing it for the great potential, of God's Kingdom being reestablished in Judah. But over the whole land there was sin. What had been declared a holy land through the imputation of righteousness by God's grace (see on Zech. 2:12) was in fact very sinful.

For everyone who steals shall be cut off according to it on the one side; and everyone who swears falsely shall be cut off according to it on the other side- The scroll was written on both sides, just as the tables of the covenant were (Ex. 32:15). The two of the ten commandments mentioned here as being broken were the third and eighth; which according to Jewish tradition were written on different sides of the tables. The idea would be that Judah had broken covenant relationship with Yahweh by disobeying the most basic of the ten commandments. They were stealing and searing falsely just as they had done before the captivity (s.w. Jer. 7:9; Hos. 4:2). There were 'false swearers' amongst the returned exiles (s.w. Mal. 3:5). False swearing may not simply refer to perjury; it is defined in Jer. 5:2 and often as meaning to swear both by Yahweh and by other gods, thereby making their oath by Yahweh a false oath.

Zechariah 5:4 I will cause it to go out, says Yahweh of Armies, and it will enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him who swears falsely by My name; and it will remain in the midst of his house- Nehemiah records how the poor returnees were abused and effectively thieved from by the wealthy; and Zech. 8:17 later alludes to this. And the Lord Jesus lamented how God's house had become "a den of thieves". The houses of the Jews were as corrupt as the house of God they had rebuilt, although it was not according to the principles and pattern commanded them in Ez. 40-48; those prophecies often command that the previous temple abuses were not to be repeated in the new house of God. But they were. 

And will destroy it with its timber and its stones- This is the fate of a house which had been dwelt in by lepers (Lev. 14:45). The house of Judah had previously been condemned as a leprous house, and now they had returned to the land they were no better. For all God's enthusiastic grace to forgive them, as described previously in Zechariah.

Zechariah 5:5 Then the angel who talked with me came forward, and said to me, Lift up now your eyes, and see what is this that is appearing- The command to lift up the prophetic eyes and see is a repeat of what Ezekiel was told, when he was invited to lift up his eyes and see the apostacy of Judah within the temple (Ez. 8:5,16). Zechariah would have perceived the similarity. He was being given an insight into how sinful were the returned exiles.

Zechariah 5:6 I said, What is it? He said, This is the ephah basket that is appearing- See on :2. The ephah measure was representative of the measure of their sin. And they had changed the weights of the ephah to deceive their brethren.  The winged pseudo-cherubim of :9 carry this "ephah" back to Babylon. The Sumerian word for one of the Babylonian ziggurats, a shrine to a goddess, was e'pa, the same Hebrew word as translated "epha" (C.L. & E.M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8, The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 2004) p. 296). The foreign woman in the vision wishes to return to Babylon and build a house / temple there. The terrible picture that will appear is that the apostate Jews who had returned ostensibly to rebuild Yahweh's temple in Zion were really the spiritual "daughter of Babylon" and would return to Babylon to build an idol temple there.

He said moreover, This is their appearance in all the land- "Appearance" translates the word for "eye". The Angelic eyes of God ran to and fro in the land (Zech. 4:10). And this is what they saw all over- sinful Jews.

Zechariah 5:7 (And behold, a talent of lead was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah basket- They had changed the weights of the ephah to deceive their brethren (Am. 8:5). This apparently minor sin was seen by God as being as heavy as lead. Judah, the woman, had been weighed by God in judgment and found wanting. This was why all the great potential prophecies of earlier visions would not in fact come true at that time.

Zechariah 5:8 He said, This is Wickedness!- The woman is simply called "wickedness". Judah had previously been characterized as a wicked woman who was punished with captivity in Babylon, and now she is still unreformed (Is. 1:21; Jer. 2:20; Ez. 23:1-49 and throughout Hosea 1-3). Is there not here a hint that the essence of Judah's failure was in their marriage to foreign women, perhaps even their own wives were from Babylon and wanted to return there. Marriage to Gentiles is stressed in Ezra 10 and Neh. 13:23-27 as the epitome of Judah's sin. Even the four sons of Joshua the High Priest had married Gentiles (Ezra 10:18). The Hebrew word translated "wickedness" is harisha- an anagram of 'Asherah'. She is presented as a goddess- in that the foreign women are always associated with the idols they served. We know that the first temple was destroyed because of the Asherah entering the temple (2 Kings 23:4-7; 1 Kings 15:13). And it seems Judah never learnt that lesson. Zech. 13:2 is clear that there was idol worship throughout the land amongst the returned exiles.

And he threw her down into the midst of the ephah basket; and he put the weight of lead on its mouth- It was as if the due weight had been reached, and now it was closed and being sent back to Babylon. Judah, the woman, was entrapped in her own sins. This is the same idea as the previous inhabitants of Canaan reaching a certain level of sin after which they were to be thrown out of the land (Gen. 15:16).

Zechariah 5:9 Then lifted I up my eyes, and saw, and behold, there were two women, and the wind was in their wings. Now they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah basket between earth and the sky- The two female winged creatures who remove the ephah to Babylon are surely parodies of the Angel cherubim; see on :2. Note how the Angel 'comes forth' (Zech. 5:5), and then the winged women are here described as 'going forth' with the same Hebrew word. The glory of God was simply not there, whereas Ez. 48:20 and often in Zechariah it was predicted that it would be, if they built and operated the temple according to the commands of Ez. 40-48. Who was it who caused the apostate Jews to be thrown out of their land and removed to Babylon? Perhaps the two women propelled by the wind / spirit were the prophets Haggai and Zechariah who were now denouncing them and pronouncing this judgment upon them. Perhaps we are to understand the 'chasing away' of the apostate Jews by Nehemiah as  meaning they were chased off back to Babylon (Neh. 13:28).

Zechariah 5:10 Then I said to the angel who talked with me, Where are these carrying the ephah basket to?- If it were not for Zechariah's questions, his desire to understand, we would not have the explanations. The prophets, like the Angels, desired to look into the words they spoke, there was implied an intellectual process of struggle to understand (1 Pet. 1:12). We are seekers of God; we will never understand all, and the desire to understand is itself built into our spiritual experience.

Zechariah 5:11 He said to me, To build her a house in the land of Shinar. When it is prepared, she will be set there in her own place- "Shinar" is the title used for Babylon here because of the connections with building Babel, a building condemned by God. It could be that this prophecy concerning the wickedness in the land of Judah somehow returning to Babylon and there building a temple is a reference to how Zerubbabel was to re-direct his energies into building a corrupted house for himself on his return to Babylon, a pseudo-temple. He was personally criticized for building a ceiled house for himself in Judah rather than focusing upon rebuilding God's house (Hag. 1:3,4). So it seems the apostate Jews returned to Babylon and built a temple there to their gods. It was built in Babylon upon her own “base”, the same word used in Ezra 3:3 about the altar being established upon its own “base” in Zion.

Nelson’s Bible Dictionary comments: “For some mysterious reason, Zerubbabel is not mentioned in connection with the Temple dedication. Neither is he mentioned after this time”. The reason seems to be that he returned to Babylon. R.K. Harrison in the Zondervan Encyclopedia mentions that “a 6th century AD Jewish chronicle preserved the tradition that Zerubbabel returned to Babylonia after 515 BC and succeeded his father Shealtiel as the prince of the exiled remnant there”. He chose to be a prince in Babylon’s Kingdom, the kingdoms of men, rather than in the Kingdom of God. And so many have followed his decision in the centuries since, thus frustrating what could have been for them and many others within their influence. Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, 11.3) records that “Zorobabel, who had been made governor of the Jews that had been in captivity, came to Darius from Jerusalem, for there had been an old friendship between him and the king”. He was friendly with the King of Babylon, and chose to follow where this lead rather than friendship with the Almighty. Compare this with how the ‘friendliness’ of a boss or worldly friend has lead so many into promotions or situations where they walk away from doing the work which God intended for them. And such huge potential was and is thereby wasted.