Zechariah 5
New English Translation
Vision Six: The Flying Scroll
5 Then I turned to look, and there was a flying scroll! 2 Someone asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, “I see a flying scroll 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.”[a] 3 The speaker went on to say, “This is a curse[b] traveling across the whole earth. For example, according to the curse whoever steals[c] will be removed from the community; or on the other hand (according to the curse) whoever swears falsely will suffer the same fate.” 4 “I will send it out,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and it will enter the house of the thief and of the person who swears falsely in my name. It will land in the middle of his house and destroy both timber and stones.”
Vision Seven: The Ephah
5 After this the angelic messenger[d] who had been speaking to me went out and said, “Look, see what is leaving.” 6 I asked, “What is it?” And he replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain[e] that is moving away from here.” Moreover, he said, “This is their ‘eye’[f] throughout all the earth.” 7 Then a round lead cover was raised up, revealing a woman sitting inside the basket. 8 He then said, “This woman represents wickedness,” and he pushed her down into the basket and placed the lead cover on top. 9 Then I looked again and saw two women[g] going forth with the wind in their wings (they had wings like those of a stork), and they lifted up the basket between the earth and the sky. 10 I asked the messenger who was speaking to me, “Where are they taking the basket?” 11 He replied, “To build a temple[h] for her in the land of Babylonia.[i] When it is finished, she will be placed there in her own residence.”
Footnotes
- Zechariah 5:2 tn Heb “20 cubits…10 cubits” (so NAB, NRSV). These dimensions (“30 feet long and 15 feet wide”) can hardly be referring to the scroll when unrolled since that would be all out of proportion to the normal ratio, in which the scroll would be 10 to 15 times as long as it was wide. More likely, the scroll is 15 feet thick when rolled, a hyperbole expressing the enormous amount and the profound significance of the information it contains.
- Zechariah 5:3 tn The Hebrew word translated “curse” (אָלָה, ʾalah) alludes to the covenant sanctions that attend the violation of God’s covenant with Israel (cf. Deut 29:12, 14, 20-21).
- Zechariah 5:3 sn Stealing and swearing falsely (mentioned later in this verse) are sins against mankind and God respectively and are thus violations of the two major parts of the Ten Commandments. These two stipulations (commandments 8 and 3) represent the whole law.
- Zechariah 5:5 tn See the note on the expression “angelic messenger” in 1:9.
- Zechariah 5:6 tn Heb “[This is] the ephah.” An ephah was a liquid or solid measure of about a bushel (five gallons or just under twenty liters). By metonymy it refers here to a measuring container (probably a basket) of that quantity.
- Zechariah 5:6 tc The LXX and Syriac read עֲוֹנָם (ʿavonam, “their iniquity,” so NRSV; NIV similar) for the MT עֵינָם (ʿenam, “their eye”), a reading that is consistent with the identification of the woman in v. 8 as wickedness, but one that is unnecessary. In 4:10 the “eye” represented divine omniscience and power; here it represents the demonic counterfeit.
- Zechariah 5:9 sn Here two women appear as the agents of the Lord because the whole scene is feminine in nature. The Hebrew word for “wickedness” in v. 8 (רִשְׁעָה, rishʿah) is grammatically feminine, so feminine imagery is appropriate throughout.
- Zechariah 5:11 tn Heb “house” (so NIV, NRSV, CEV).
- Zechariah 5:11 sn The land of Babylonia (Heb “the land of Shinar”) is another name for Sumer and Akkad, where Babylon was located (Gen 10:10). Babylon throughout the Bible symbolizes the focus of anti-God sentiment and activity (Gen 11:4; 14:1; Isa 13-14; 47:1-3; Jer 50-51; Rev 14:8; 17:1, 5, 18; 18:21).
Zechariah 5
Evangelical Heritage Version
The Sixth Vision: A Flying Scroll
5 Again I lifted up my eyes and looked. I saw a flying scroll!
2 He asked me, “What do you see?”
I said, “I see a flying scroll! It is thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide.”[a]
3 Then he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of the whole earth: On the basis of the curse, everyone who steals will be expelled in one direction, and everyone who swears falsely will be expelled in the other direction.[b] 4 I will send it out, declares the Lord of Armies, and it will go to the house of the thief and to the house of the one who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in his house and consume it, both wood and stone.”
The Seventh Vision: A Woman in a Basket
5 Then the angel who was speaking with me came forward and said to me, “Lift up your eyes, now, and see what is going out.”
6 So I asked, “What is it?”
He replied, “This is the basket[c] that is going out.”
He also said, “This is their guilt[d] in all the earth.”
7 As I watched, the lead cover was lifted, and I saw that there was a woman sitting inside the basket.
8 He said, “This is Wickedness.” Then he pushed her down inside the basket, and he pushed the lead weight onto its opening.
9 Then I lifted up my eyes and looked again. There were two women coming toward me! The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork. They lifted up the basket between the earth and the heavens.
10 So I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the basket?”
11 He told me, “To build a house for it in the land of Shinar.[e] When it is ready, it will be set there on its foundation.”
Footnotes
- Zechariah 5:2 Twenty cubits by ten cubits
- Zechariah 5:3 Another interpretation is that this verse refers to writing on two sides of the scroll, rather than to two directions.
- Zechariah 5:6 Hebrew ephah, here and in verses 7-11
- Zechariah 5:6 The translation follows Greek and Syriac manuscripts and one Hebrew manuscript. Other Hebrew manuscripts read their eyes. In Hebrew script the words eye and guilt look very much alike.
- Zechariah 5:11 That is, Babylon
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