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Zec_5:5-11
A. The Prophet sees an Ephah going forth (Zec_5:5-6). B. A Woman thrust down in it and shut in (Zec_5:7-8). C. The Ephah carried away to Shinar (Zec_5:9-11).
Zec_5:6. What is it? The Prophet sees some vague form rising, as it were, out of mist, but is a not able to distinguish what it is. To his question he receives the reply that this is the ephah, i, e., the one which is to constitute the main feature of the vision. The ephah was one of the most familiar of dry measures among the Hebrews Its capacity cannot now be exactly determined; according to Josephus it contained something more than eight gallons and a half; according to the Rabbinists, a little less than four gallons and a half. Nothing in the interpretation depends upon its exact measurement. The latter part of the verse is difficult. òֵéðָí is rendered by the LXX., Peshito, and Arabic, as if it were pointed òֲåֹðָí (their sin). and these have been followed by Hitzig, Burger, and Fürst (in Lex.). But for such a reading there is only one MS. authority, and besides, as Pressel says, in that case the ephah would be called unrighteousness in Zec_5:6, and the woman in it would receive that name in Zec_5:8. we must, therefore, accept the traditional pointing, and render their eye, but in what sense? Many from Luther down say that it means appearance, or as in E.V. “resemblance” i. e., the people are like the sin-containing ephah (Rosenmuller, Maurer, Bunsen, Keil). But this is an unusual sense of the world, and besides gives a frigid sentiment. It is better to take the term as designating the object to which men’s eyes were directed (Umbreit, Hengstenberg, Köhler, Pressel). The dwellers in all the land were looking to the ephah as a measure to be filled with sin. Their success and its unhappy results are set forth in what follows.
b. Its Contents (Zec_5:7-8) Zec_5:7. A round piece of lead. The symbol is still further developed, and the prophet sees now a circular mass of metal lifted up over the ephah. ëִëַּø is often rendered talent elsewhere in cases where its meaning as such is determined by a following noun, but here it is better to adhere to the literal sense. This is. Now for the first time it appears that the ephah has an occupant. Hence the form of the expression “This is,” equivalent to, See, there is a woman, etc. àçú is probably used merely for the indefinite article (1Ki_20:13); but if it is to be pressed as=one woman, it will then indicate that the sinners, although many in number, are considered as one living personality.
Zec_5:8. This is wickedness. On the meaning attached to this phrase turns the entire bearing of the vision. Many (Calvin, Köhler, Pressel, Baum garten, Henderson), take it as=wickedness in itself, abstracted from its perpetrators, and this, they say, is confined, sealed up, and transported far off, so as to leave the land where it once dwelt pure; and thus the vision is one of promise. But this view is opposed by the tenor of the preceding vision which all admit to be closely allied to this one, as well as by its own intrinsic improbability, although Hengstenberg speaks far too strongly when he says “It is only concrete sin that admits of being carried away. The transportation of sin apart from sinful individuals, is nonsense.” How would that learned man have reconciled with his statement such language as that of the Psalmist (Psa_103:12), “Far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us!” But on this hypothesis it is difficult to conceive of any reason why Shinar rather than any other place should be mentioned as the place of deportation (Zec_5:11). It is better therefore to take the other view (Marck., Hengstenberg, Keil), which regards the woman as a personification of the ungodly Jewish nation. A somewhat similar usage is found in 2Ch_24:7, where (in Hebrew) Athaliah is called “the wickedness.” Consequently, the subsequent acts of the angel, in casting the woman down into the measure and then closing the same with the heavy solid lid, simply indicate the full provision made for the due punishment of the sinners thus carefully secured.
c. Its Removal (Zec_5:9-11).
Zec_5:9. Two women came forth, etc. The removal of the ephah with its contents is described. This is done by two women,—women because it was a woman they were carrying away, and two, because the burden was too heavy for one to bear. They are furnished with wings, because the movement is to be through the air. The wings are specified as being those of a stork, not because the stork is a bird of passage (Umbreit, Baumgarten, etc.), for the movement here is not periodical; nor because it flies fast (Maurer), for other birds fly faster; nor because it was an unclean bird (Köhler); nor because it was a pia avis (Neumann), which does not suit the object; but simply because it had broad pinions, and such were required to sustain so heavy a mass as the ephah with its leaden lid. The wind was in these wings to increase their velocity. The women have been supposed to represent Israel and Judah, or Ezra and Nehemiah, or the two last kings of Judah, or the two captivities, or Titus and Hadrian; but there is no need of strictly defining them, since they belong to the mere drapery of the symbol, and stand only as representatives of the powers employed by God to carry away the sinners of his people.
Zec_5:11. To build.… Shinar. In reply to the Prophet’s question he is told that the abject of the two women is to prepare a permanent habitation for her, i. e., the woman in the ephah. Shinar is an old historic name (Gen_10:10), afterwards applied poetically to Babylon (Isa_11:11; Dan_1:2). Its occurrence here led Rosenmüller to suppose that the entire vision referred to the past, and not to the future, which is simply impossible. There is no difficulty in explaining it by a reference to the usage of the Prophets, to represent future events by images drawn from the past, and at the same time transfer to the former the names which belong to the latter. This verse then simply foretells the punishment of wickedness by another exile,—like that to Babylon, and therefore called by its name, but far more prolonged. This latter feature is expressed by the building of the house, but intensified by the final clause—“established and settled on its own base.” According to Keil, Shinar is not here a geographical epithet, but taken as an ideal designation of the sphere of ungodliness, and the symbol accordingly expresses the truth that the wicked will be removed out of the congregation of the Lord and permanently settled within the ungodly kingdom of this world. This distinction and separation will run on through the ages, and at last be completed in the general judgment. Henderson maintains that the woman in the ephah represented idolatry which was carried away by the two women, i. e., Assyria and Babylonia, to Chaldæa, where it was to commingle with its native elements and never be reimported into Canaan; in support of which he cites the fact that for two thousand years the Jews have never once lapsed into idolatry. But idolatry did not at this time exist in Judea, and therefore could not be removed out of it; and if it was taken to Babylon, it certainly did not remain there, for the Mohammedan occupants of that region are not idolaters. It agrees better with the original force of the word, with the connection, and with the preceding vision, to take the term as denoting the entire wickedness of the people of all kinds, or rather the people as such embodied wickedness. As thus understood, the vision was fulfilled centuries afterward, when the Jews as a whole, having rejected with scorn their Messiah, were given over to the stroke of vengeance. After a most desperate struggle, they were crushed by the Roman Emperors, and scattered to the four winds of heaven. And so they remain, shut up in the ephah, the tremendous weight of their own obstinacy forbidding the prospect of release. The corresponding passage to this one in the second part is couched in different terms (Zec_11:15-16). After the rejection of the good shepherd and the breaking of his staves of office, the wretched flock is given over to a foolish or wicked shepherd who does what he ought not to do, and fails to do what he ought, and so the poor sheep suffer in every way. But wholly different as the imagery is in the two passages, there is a remarkable sameness in the underlying idea.
Our Lord indicated this very plainly throughout his personal ministry. The remarkable Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) begins with a soothing strain of beatitudes pronounced upon the lowly, and meek, and sorrowful, etc., but very soon corrects any false impressions as to the object of the Messiah by setting forth the perpetuity of the law and his purpose to confirm and establish rather than abrogate its authority. While, therefore, he sweeps away the wretched evasions and glosses accumulated by men’s perverse ingenuity, he reaffirms all its particulars as the unchangeable statute of his kingdom,—both as regards precept and penalty. His ends are gained, and his grace is manifested, not by erasing the sanctions of Law, but by meeting and discharging them. He soothes conscience not by enervating or deluding it, but by satisfying its anxious cravings. The mawkish sentimentalism which denies hell, and refuses to hear of endless retributions, finds no precedent in his words or course.
2. But what was needful for Israel after the exile is equally needful in all ages of the Church. The moral law requires to be continually set forth in its sanction as well as in its precept, and it is an emasculated theology which dispenses with either. The Gospel loses its meaning if there be no such thing as Rectoral Justice. Calvary presupposes Sinai, just as ransom presupposes bondage. What need is there of forgiveness, if there is nothing to forgive? Hence the visions of Satan overthrown and of the luminous golden candelabrum have for their background this wide-spread roll of curses. God will visit for sin, for all sin, whether committed against himself directly or against his creatures. The two tables of the law stand on the same basis, and no man dare pick and choose to which he will render obedience. The anathemas of Scripture are not a mere brutum fulmen, but a solid and terrible reality. The lightning of heaven is not more certain and irresistible. Where the curse once enters, it takes up its abode and consumes all. The standing historical illustration of this truth is seen in that gloomy and death-like sea which is all that now remains of a region once bright with verdant plains and full of populous cities.
3. The strokes of punitive wrath do not fall capriciously or at random. There is ample reason in every case, so that one may always say, This [the ephah] is their object in all the land. Men go on ceaselessly adding sin to sin, and because judgment is not suddenly executed, think that there is impunity; whereas they are only filling the measure. God waits. There is an appointed time with Him, and He will not anticipate. He announced a general principle when he told Abraham that his seed could not take possession of the land of promise, “for the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.” The wicked are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. When the end comes, the symbolism of Zechariah is realized. Sinners are shut up with their sins in the measure, the weight of a talent shuts down the lid, and then they are carried where the retribution begins and does not end. Just like that deportation to the figurative Shinar. Its solitary example among the nations testifies of a permanent retribution.
Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,
How shall ye flee away and be at rest?
The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind their country,— Israel but the grave.
Wordsworth: None who enter the porch of the visible Church may flatter themselves that they can escape God’s wrath and malediction, if they commit any of the sins condemned by the comprehensive commination of this Flying Roll, which may be compared to a net coextensive with the world and drawn throughout the whole from side to side.
Footnotes:
Zec_5:6.— òֵéðָí , lit., eye, here that to which the eye is directed=aim. The Genevan version gives sight. See Exeg. and Grit.
Zec_5:7.— ëִּëַּø . Margin of E. V. gives weighty piece, but the word denotes shape rather than size or weight. It Is another word that is rendered weight in the next verse.
Zec_5:7.— àַçַú . This seems to be one of the cases in which the first numeral is employed as an indefinite article, as Exo_29:3.
Zec_5:8.— àֶáֶê =stone, here lead-weight, just as in Zec_4:10 it is used with äַáִּìéìֹ to mean tin-weight or plummet.
Zec_5:9.— In úִּùֶּׂðָä the quiescent à is dropped (Green, H. G., § 164, 2).
Zec_5:11.— The grammatical subject of the suffix in ìָä is of course the ephah, but logically it must refer to the woman it contains, as a house is not built for a measure. The marginal Masoretic note calls for a Raphe to mark the absence of a dagesh in the ä , but it is not found in the text.
Zec_5:11.— çåּëָï according to its gender is to be construed with áַéִúּ , and äֻëִּéçָä with àֵéôָä or the woman inclosed in it.