Zechariah 5:10

The exhortation to ask rain is in Zechariah 10:1 to which encouragement is given from its being of the Lord, from his willingness to grant it, and from the fruitfulness occasioned by it. The vanity of idols, and idolaters, who can not give it, is exposed; and the distress and confusion they were thrown into is observed, Zechariah 10:2. The anger of the Lord against the principal of them is declared; and his gracious visitation of the people of the Jews, whom he will honour and glorify, is taken notice of, Zechariah 10:3 from whom the Messiah sprung, than which a greater glory can not be enjoyed, Zechariah 10:4 and then follow various promises, relating to them; as of victory over their enemies, through the presence of the Lord with them, Zechariah 10:5 of strength and salvation to them, as owing to his free grace and mercy, Zechariah 10:6 of inward spiritual joy in them and theirs, Zechariah 10:7 of their effectual calling and spiritual increase, in consequence of redeeming grace, Zechariah 10:8 of their having a name and a place in Gospel churches, where they will remember the Lord, and live with their children, being converted, Zechariah 10:9 which conversion of theirs is represented in terms alluding to their deliverance from Egypt and Babylon, Zechariah 10:10 and the chapter is concluded with a promise of spiritual strength, so that they shall continue in their profession of faith in Christ, and persevere therein to the end, Zechariah 10:12. Ver. 1.

5:5-11 In this vision the prophet sees an ephah, something in the shape of a corn measure. This betokened the Jewish nation. They are filling the measure of their iniquity; and when it is full, they shall be delivered into the hands of those to whom God sold them for their sins. The woman sitting in the midst of the ephah represents the sinful church and nation of the Jews, in their latter and corrupt age. Guilt is upon the sinner as a weight of lead, to sink him to the lowest hell. This seems to mean the condemnation of the Jews, after they filled the measure of their iniquities by crucifying Christ and rejecting his gospel. Zechariah sees the ephah, with the woman thus pressed in it, carried away to some far country. This intimates that the Jews should be hurried out of their own land, and forced to dwell in far countries, as they had been in Babylon. There the ephah shall be firmly placed, and their sufferings shall continue far longer than in their late captivity. Blindness is happened unto Israel, and they are settled upon their own unbelief. Let sinners fear to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath; for the more they multiply crimes, the faster the measure fills.

Then said I to the angel that talked with me;.... This the prophet said after he had seen the "ephah" come forth; the woman, wickedness, cast into it, and the talent of lead upon her; and the two women lifting up the ephah between heaven and earth: Whither do these bear the ephah? he neither asks what the ephah signified, nor who were the women that bore it, but only whither they bore it.

9. The agents to carry away the "woman" are, consistently with the image, "women." God makes the wicked themselves the agents of punishing and removing wickedness. "Two" are employed, as one is not enough to carry such a load [Maurer]. Or, the Assyrians and Babylonians, who carried away idolatry in the persons, respectively, of Israel and Judah [Henderson]. As two "anointed ones" (Zec 4:14) stand by the Lord as His ministers, so two winged women execute His purpose here in removing the embodiment of "wickedness": answering to the "mystery of iniquity" (the Septuagint here in Zechariah uses the same words as Paul and "the man of sin," whom the Lord shall destroy with the spirit of His mouth and the brightness of His coming, 2Th 2:3, 7, 8). Their "wings" express velocity. The "stork" has long and wide wings, for which reason it is specified; also it is a migratory bird. The "wind" helps the rapid motion of the wings. The being "lifted up between heaven and earth" implies open execution of the judgment before the eyes of all. As the "woman" here is removed to Babylon as her own dwelling, so the woman in the Apocalypse of St. John is Babylon (Re 17:3-5).

There came out two women - It may be that there may be no symbol herein, but that he names women because it was a woman who was so carried; yet their wings were the wings of an unclean bird, strong, powerful, borne by a force not their own; with their will, since they flew; beyond their will, since the wind was in their wings; rapidly, inexorably, irresistibly, they flew and bore the Ephah between heaven and earth. No earthly power could reach or rescue it. God would not. It may be that evil spirits are symbolized, as being like to this personified human wickedness, such as snatch away the souls of the damned, who, by serving them, have become as they.

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 mekhunâh, in the sense of establishing or building on firm foundations. Mekhunâh: 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.

3 . And I lifted up my eyes ] in the vision: cf. Daniel 10:5 ; Genesis 31:10 ; Zechariah 1:18 ; Zechariah 2:1 ; Zechariah 5:1 ; Zechariah 5:9 ; Zechariah 6:1 . a ram standing before the stream, and it had two horns; and the two horns were high , &c.] The ram is an emblem of power and dominion: cf. Ezekiel 39:18 . The symbolism of the figure is explained in Daniel 8:20 : the ram, as a whole, represents the combined power of the Medes and Persians; but the strength of the animal lying in its horns, these are taken as representing more particularly the two powers separately, that of Persia, as being the stronger, and arising after that of Media, being represented by the higher horn, which came up last. On the distinction between the two empires, see the notes on Daniel 2:39 and Daniel 5:31 .

5–10 (not in Kings). The Prosperity of Uzziah 5 . Zechariah ] Nothing is known (apart from this passage) of this Zechariah. He is hardly to be identified with the author of Zechariah 12-14, though there is an allusion to Uzziah’s reign in Zechariah 14:5 . who had understanding ] R.V. mg., “who gave instruction”; Heb. mçbîn , a word applied to a leader of song ( 1 Chronicles 15:22 , “skilful”; ib. 1 Chronicles 25:7 , “conning”; Ch 25:8, “teacher”). in the visions of God ] Read, in the fear of God (so LXX., Targ. Pesh.), making a slight correction of the Heb. text.