Zechariah 5

Then I turned and looked up, and I saw a scroll flying through the air.

1Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll.

NoteA scroll was the ordinary form of a book: a long sheet of leather or papyrus rolled onto rods and unrolled to be read. Legal documents, contracts and written verdicts took this form too, so a scroll could stand for an official written sentence, not just a story. This one is unrolled, which is why its length and width can be seen and why it can have writing on both faces (verse 3).

2He asked me, "What do you see?" I answered, "I see a flying scroll. It is twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide."

2And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.

NoteA cubit was about eighteen inches, roughly the length of a forearm from elbow to fingertips. The scroll is therefore about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide, the size of a large room, not of a document anyone could hold.

3Then he said to me, "This is the curse that is going out over the whole land. According to what is written on one side of the scroll, every thief will be swept away. According to the other side, everyone who swears falsely will be swept away.

3Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.

Note"Curse" here does not mean bad language. It means a formal sentence of punishment, of the kind written into ancient treaties and law codes: a clause naming what happens to anyone who breaks the agreement. Likewise "swears falsely" means breaking an oath sworn in a legal or business setting, perjury, not obscene speech. The Hebrew word behind "the whole land" can mean either the land of Judah in particular or the whole earth, and translators divide over which is meant. The verb rendered "swept away" or "cut off" is also disputed: it can mean purged away, or (with the opposite force) let off unpunished.

4The LORD of Armies says, "I am sending this curse out. It will go into the house of the thief, and into the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name. It will stay inside that house and destroy it, timbers, stones, and all."

4I will bring it forth, saith the LORD of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.

Note"The LORD of hosts" or "of Armies" translates a title of Israel's God; "hosts" is an old English word for armies. Where the King James prints LORD in capitals, the Hebrew has the personal name of God rather than the ordinary word for a master. To swear "by my name" was to call God as witness that what you said was true, so a false oath dragged God's name into a lie.

5Then the angel who was talking with me came forward and said, "Look up now, and see what this is that is coming out."

5Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth.

6I asked, "What is it?" He said, "This is a measuring basket going out." And he added, "This is what they look like in all the land."

6And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth.

NoteAn ephah was a dry measure of about five to six gallons, roughly a bushel, the standard container for grain in the marketplace. It was the largest measure in everyday commercial use, which is why a basket of that size is the natural image for buying and selling; it was also far too small to hold a person, which is part of what makes the vision strange. Because the ephah was the merchant's measure, and because rigged measures were a stock example of fraud, the container itself carries a suggestion of dishonest trade.

7Then a round cover made of lead was lifted up, and there was a woman sitting inside the basket.

7And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.

NoteA talent was a unit of weight, roughly seventy-five pounds. The lead disc is therefore a lid heavy enough that whatever is inside the basket cannot push it off.

8He said, "This is Wickedness." He pushed her back down into the basket and shoved the heavy lead cover over its opening.

8And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.

NoteThe Hebrew word for "wickedness" is grammatically feminine, which is why wickedness appears in the vision as a woman; the figure is a personification of the thing, not a statement about women. Verse 6, in the King James, reads "this is their resemblance", the Hebrew there is uncertain, and other ancient versions read a word differing by one letter meaning "their guilt," which is why modern translations differ at that point.

9Then I looked up and saw two women coming out, with the wind in their wings. Their wings were like a stork's wings. They lifted the basket up between the earth and the sky.

9Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven.

NoteThe stork is a large migratory bird with a wide wingspan that flies long distances, including out of Israel toward Mesopotamia. It was also listed among the birds Israelites were forbidden to eat, so the wings carrying the basket belong to a creature classed as unclean.

10So I asked the angel who was talking with me, "Where are they taking the basket?"

10Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah?

11He answered, "To the land of Shinar, to build a house for it there. When the house is ready, the basket will be set down there on its own stand."

11And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.

NoteShinar is the old name for southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia, the region of Babylon, where earlier scripture places the tower of Babel. For Zechariah's first hearers, who had recently returned from exile there, it named the place they had just come home from. The word translated "house" is the ordinary Hebrew word for a dwelling, but it is also the standard word for a temple, a god's house. "Its own base" or "pedestal" is the term for the fixed stand on which a statue or cult object was mounted inside a shrine) the language of installing an image for worship.