Zechariah 5:1-4
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.”
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- 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 5:1-4
English Standard Version
A Vision of a Flying Scroll
5 Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying (A)scroll! 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying (B)scroll. Its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.”[a] 3 Then he said to me, “This is (C)the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who (D)steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who (E)swears falsely[b] shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. 4 I will send it out, declares the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of (F)him who swears falsely by my name. And (G)it shall remain in his house and (H)consume it, both timber and stones.”
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- Zechariah 5:2 A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters
- Zechariah 5:3 Hebrew lacks falsely (supplied from verse 4)
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The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
