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Zechariah 5
New English Translation
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
New International Version
Zechariah 5
New International Version
The Flying Scroll
5 I looked again, and there before me was a flying scroll.(A)
2 He asked me, “What do you see?”(B)
I answered, “I see a flying scroll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.[a]”
3 And he said to me, “This is the curse(C) that is going out over the whole land; for according to what it says on one side, every thief(D) will be banished, and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely(E) will be banished. 4 The Lord Almighty declares, ‘I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely(F) by my name. It will remain in that house and destroy it completely, both its timbers and its stones.(G)’”
The Woman in a Basket
5 Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, “Look up and see what is appearing.”
6 I asked, “What is it?”
He replied, “It is a basket.(H)” And he added, “This is the iniquity[b] of the people throughout the land.”
7 Then the cover of lead was raised, and there in the basket sat a woman! 8 He said, “This is wickedness,” and he pushed her back into the basket and pushed its lead cover down on it.(I)
9 Then I looked up—and there before me were two women, with the wind in their wings! They had wings like those of a stork,(J) and they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth.
10 “Where are they taking the basket?” I asked the angel who was speaking to me.
11 He replied, “To the country of Babylonia[c](K) to build a house(L) for it. When the house is ready, the basket will be set there in its place.”(M)
Footnotes
- Zechariah 5:2 That is, about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide or about 9 meters long and 4.5 meters wide
- Zechariah 5:6 Or appearance
- Zechariah 5:11 Hebrew Shinar
New English Translation (NET)
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