And 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.
In the first four verses a flying scroll swept judgment across the land. Now the angel guiding Zechariah steps forward again and tells him to look up at something else. What is this measuring basket, why does it "go out," and what does it show about the nation's condition?
The chapter holds two visions, and they are not the same. One writer sets them side by side:
Finally, the "roll of the book" reveals to us the spiritual condition of man, his responsibility toward God, and the judgments that flow from this. The rolls in Jeremiah 36, in Ezekiel 2:9-10, and in the passage we are looking at now have this character. The two visions of Zechariah 5 show us the curse pronounced by God, first over the moral condition of the nation (v. 1-4), and next over its religious condition (v. 5-11).
So the angel calls for a fresh look. The first vision judged how the nation behaved. This one exposes its religion.
The vision does not simply add another sin to the list. It follows sin home:
But then comes the second part of this chapter. We have had the double curse. But a picture is added to it which shows that God traced the iniquity back to its source. This is a very important principle in God's judgment… The ephah was a well-known Hebrew measure for grain, almost equal to an English bushel.
The angel's phrase comes back again and again in this chapter. It describes evil in motion, not evil standing still:
This may explain why the phrase "goes forth" comes so often in this chapter. It points not only to movement, but also, given the subject of the visions, to progress in or the development of evil. The beginnings, the seeds, were visible in the days of Zechariah. The apostle John speaks of many antichrists who have already appeared, and he looks on them as sure forerunners of the antichrist. In the same way the vision takes up these seeds as early signs of the full evil it goes on to describe. Scripture does not reveal the exact meaning of the ephah, beyond the fact that it was a measure the Jews used. But in line with what has been said about progress, its "going forth" would seem to point to the spread of evil through the land. And the fact that it was a known measure may mean that, however violent and powerful the evil, God in His government would hold it within certain limits; or that there were fixed bounds beyond which the patience of God would not go.
An ephah was an ordinary container for grain, the tool of everyday buying and selling. One writer reads it as a picture of trade gone wrong:
The angel now draws Zechariah's attention to another vision, asking what he sees that "goes forth" (v. 5). The ephah was a standard of measurement, and the vessel of that size took the same name. It stands for the principle of trade and commerce, which should be honest (Ezek. 45:10), but in Israel greed corrupted it (Amos 8:5), as we know it does everywhere today.
Commentators differ on how far to press that reading. Another writer rejects any use of the picture outside its own setting:
The prophet is prophesying about the Jews and Jerusalem, and the temple, and Zerubbabel, and the lampstand, and the two olive trees. Then he turns and sees the contrast to all this in the judgment of the wicked. It would be hard to tell what this has to do with England's trade… I have no doubt it applies to the immorality of the Jews, and the hypocritical outward form.
Verse 5 opens a scene that ends far from Jerusalem. The angel is about to show the prophet evil hidden under a respectable cover, then carried back to where it started:
This is a picture of wickedness — lawlessness. It is hidden — the woman inside the ephah — and it is carried to the land of Shinar, its base, where it began its course… This wickedness is hidden here in an ephah, or, as in Matthew 13, in "three measures of flour" — hidden, I would say, under a religious profession, whether that of Israel's religion or of the name of Christendom. But at the end, as at the beginning, it is really Babylon, "the land of Shinar," as we see again in Revelation 17.
Some details resist us, and that is worth admitting honestly:
To understand this vision we must, in all simplicity, surrender ourselves to the direct instruction of God's Word. It is possible that our lack of spiritual insight may hinder us to understand all details of it. If so, let us remember that, when something remains dark to us, the problem lies with us. God has given these things for our learning and not to make things difficult for us through enigmas.
- Look — the angel's call opens the second of two linked visions. The first judges the nation's moral condition; this one judges its religion.
- Moving — "goes forth" is the chapter's key phrase. It shows evil developing: the seeds were visible then, the full growth still lies ahead.
- Measured — the ephah was an everyday grain measure. It pictures trade corrupted by greed, and a measure has fixed limits: God bounds the evil He allows.
- Traced — God does not judge only the act. He follows the iniquity back to its source, and the vision ends in Shinar, the home of Babylon.
- Hidden — the wickedness sits covered inside an ordinary container, hidden under a religious profession. Hiding does not save it; it ends where it belongs, in Babylon.
And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah that goeth forth. And he said, This is their resemblance in all the land.
Zechariah sees a plain household object: a measuring basket moving across the land. His question gets an answer that turns an everyday item of trade into a picture of a nation's guilt — and raises two more: why a measure, and how far "in all the land" reaches.
The ephah was nothing exotic. It was the standard container everyone in Israel used. One writer gives its size and then weighs the wording. The ESV reads "their iniquity" here; older versions read "their resemblance":
The ephah was a well-known Hebrew dry or corn measure, nearly equal to an English bushel. "This is their eye" in all the land. Some take this as the intent of a heart set on evil. Others draw from it the sense of sight, and so appearance or resemblance… Another reading of the word gives their iniquity. The Septuagint, Arabic and Syriac seem to have read it that way, and quite a few modern scholars prefer it.
So the phrase can be read either as what the people look like, or as the guilt itself. Either way the ephah is not incidental — it is the biggest of the dry measures, and that matters for the picture:
The ephah generally represents the largest measure of contents, for the cor or homer, with its larger content, is nothing but a tenfold ephah.
A measuring vessel belongs to buying and selling. Scripture demands honest measures, and Israel had a record of cheating with them. One commentator ties the symbol to that:
The ephah was a standard of measurement, and the vessel of that size took the same name. It stands for the principle of trade and commerce, which should be honest (Ezek. 45:10), but in Israel was commonly perverted by greed (Amos 8:5), as we know it is everywhere today. Are things to remain this way? No! God had decreed that the ephah will go forth because "this is their resemblance throughout the earth."
Others read the same symbol forward into the last days, when trade reaches its peak and its judgment together:
An ephah — which is a Jewish measure standing here for commerce. The eyes of all the land (or earth) are upon it. Commerce is very prominent in Revelation, tied to the full measure of wickedness, the climax of ungodliness. Revelation 18 mentions merchants who have grown rich on her many luxuries. Then those merchants weep, because no one buys their goods any more.
Commentators differ: some stress commerce and greed, others the wickedness the measure hides.
The verse does not show a basket standing still. One writer explains what "going out" — "goes forth" in older versions — points to:
This may explain the phrase used so often in this chapter — "goes forth." It points not only to movement, but also, given what the visions are about, to the progress or development of evil. The beginnings, the seeds, could be seen in the days of Zechariah. The apostle John says that many antichrists have already appeared, and he treats them as sure forerunners of the antichrist. In the same way, the vision takes up these seeds as early signs of the full evil it goes on to describe.
The evil spreads, but a measure also has a fixed size. The same writer draws both out of the picture:
The ephah's "going forth" seems to point to the spread of evil throughout the land of Judea. And the fact that it was a known measure may mean that God's government keeps the evil within set limits, however violent and powerful it is; or that there are fixed bounds which the patience of God will not pass. Our Lord says to the Jews, for example, "Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers."
The wickedness in this vision is not on display. It is shut inside a container:
This is a picture of wickedness — lawlessness. It is hidden: the woman sits inside the ephah. It is carried to the land of Shinar, its base, where it began its course… This "wickedness" is hidden here in an "ephah," or, as in Matthew 13, in "three measures of meal." It is hidden, I may say, under a profession — either the religion of Israel or the name of Christendom. But at the end, as at the beginning, it is really Babylon, "the land of Shinar," as we see again in Revelation 17.
A measure fills up. That is the point of the image:
So the woman in the ephah portrays the independence of man toward God. She had filled up the measure, and so the judgment on her was final.
Yet the vision ends with removal, not only punishment:
Israel's land will share in the deliverance from the presence of sin when Christ appears. The vision of the ephah in Zechariah 5:6-11 seems to teach this.
- Measure — the ephah was Israel's everyday trade measure. God takes the most common object of business and makes it the emblem of a nation's guilt.
- Moving — "going out" means more than movement. It means growth: the small beginnings in Zechariah's day are seeds of the full evil to come.
- Filling — a measure exists to be filled. The people's sin piles up until the measure is full, and then comes a judgment that cannot be reversed.
- Hidden — the evil sits out of sight inside the measure, covered by a religious profession.
- Removed — the vision that exposes the evil also promises its exit. It goes back to Babylon, and Israel's land shares in deliverance from sin's presence when Christ appears.
And behold, there was lifted up a round plate of lead; and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.
In Zechariah's seventh vision, a container moves into view. When the heavy lid comes off, a woman is sitting inside. The verse hangs on three things: what an ephah measured, what the lead was for, and who the woman is.
The vision borrows an object from ordinary life. Some translations call it a basket; its Hebrew name is the ephah.
The ephah was a well-known Hebrew dry or corn measure, equal to nearly an English bushel.
A measure is the tool of buying and selling. So some read the vision as aimed at dishonest trade.
The ephah was a standard of measurement, and the vessel of that size took the same name. It stands for the principle of trade and commerce. Trade should be honest (Ezekiel 45:10), but in Israel greed commonly twisted it (Amos 8:5), as we know it does everywhere today.
Nothing is visible until the lead cover moves. The act of lifting is what turns a plain container into a revelation.
An ephah — a measure in common use at that day — is seen by the prophet, and when a talent of lead, apparently a heavy lid, was lifted up, a woman was seen sitting in the middle of the ephah. The prophet was told, "This is wickedness."
There is a figure added here which shows that God traced the sin to its source, and this is a very important principle in God's judgment... The meaning of the sign, I take it, is that idolatrous wickedness is here seen caught and shut up by the leaden weight, and then carried off quickly to the mother source of idols — the land of Shinar — so that it might be set there in the home that suits it. Why should it pollute the land of the LORD?
She has settled into the ephah, and she is given a name. One writer explains what that name describes — a disposition, not a list of crimes.
In the middle of that ephah sat a woman, that is to say, she had established herself there. Then the angel cast her into the ephah, as a picture of judgment. He closed the ephah with a lead lid to show that the judgment had been sealed beyond recall. This woman was called Wickedness, in the sense of unrighteousness. She had a nature that did not submit itself to a higher will, but acted according to its own will. She felt herself totally independent from God, and acknowledged no law but her own (1 John 3:4).
Her posture matters too. In Scripture a woman often pictures something larger than one person.
In Scripture a woman is a well-known symbol for a system. Sometimes she stands for a nation, such as the daughter of Zion or the daughter of Babylon. Sometimes, as in Revelation, she stands for a religious organization... Because she sits in the middle of a Jewish measure, we can see that the woman of our chapter is organized wickedness among the Jews of the last days. This then is wickedness — an organized system of idolatry. Her "sitting" (compare Revelation 17:3, 9, 15) shows her supremacy over the Jewish nation, that Judaism is the seat of her throne and government.
Verse 7 and verse 8 are not two moments in sequence. The sitting is the result of an action told afterwards.
This is explained in verse 8: "This," said the angel, speaking of the woman, "is wickedness. And he cast it [that is, the woman] into the middle of the ephah." So the end of verse 7 gives the result of the action at the beginning of verse 8. It is the angel who casts the woman (wickedness) into the middle of the ephah, and the prophet sees her sitting there as a result.
Commentators differ here. Darby rules out one reading of the lead — that something had been holding a restrained evil down all along:
The lead was not lifted up to show the woman to the prophet. That is, this was not an evil long held back by something that had been keeping it down all along. It was then shut up to carry it elsewhere, to set it on its own base. It might have had a fair name before; but now it was to be built at Shinar on its own base, not to go on in the land.
Rossier sees the lid as a sealed sentence. Grant sees what wealth does to the one who chases it:
She is personified as "Wickedness" and thrust down in the middle of the ephah. A lead lid weighing a talent (well over 100 pounds, or 45 kg) is put over the opening of the ephah. This shows what riches often do. They become a terrible weight that traps the victim with no hope of escape.
The container conceals. That concealment is itself part of the message.
It is hidden — the woman in the ephah... This "wickedness" is hidden, as here in an "ephah," or, as in Matthew 13, in "three measures of meal" — hidden, I may say, under an outward show of religion.
- Measure. The ephah was an everyday grain container, close to a bushel. Honest trade used it, so it pictures trade gone wrong.
- Hidden. The evil sits out of sight inside a familiar object, covered by an outward show of religion.
- Named. The figure inside is not a person but a principle. It is a will that submits to no higher will and accepts no law but its own.
- Seated. A woman in Scripture pictures a system, and sitting pictures rule: organized wickedness enthroned, not just present.
- Weighted. The lead seals the sentence and shows how riches trap their victim. Darby denies it was ever holding a restrained evil down; the ephah moves, and evil ends on its own base.
And he said, This is Wickedness and he cast her into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.
In Zechariah's seventh night vision, an angel names the woman sitting in a large basket, shoves her back down inside, and slams a heavy lead lid over the opening. What does the basket stand for, why does evil appear as a woman, and what does the lid mean?
The angel acts first and explains second. One writer follows the whole sequence, and defines the name by the nature behind it.
The angel cast her into the ephah, as a picture of judgment. He closed the ephah with a lead lid to show that the judgment was sealed and could not be reversed. This woman was called Wickedness, in the sense of unrighteousness. She had a nature that did not submit itself to a higher will, but acted according to its own will. She felt herself completely independent of God, and acknowledged no law but her own (1 John 3:4).
Another writer traces the same word into the Septuagint — the old Greek translation of the Old Testament — and on into the New Testament:
The Septuagint translates the Hebrew word for wickedness as "anomia." The Holy Spirit uses the same word in 2 Thessalonians 2:8: "then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of His mouth." The woman in the ephah personifies wickedness. She has surrounded herself with the ephah and sits in the middle of it.
Dennett first sorts out the order of events in verses 7 and 8. Then he explains what a woman pictures in prophecy.
The end of verse 7 gives the result of the action at the start of verse 8. It is the angel who casts the woman into the ephah, and the prophet sees her sitting there as a result... A woman is a well-known symbol in Scripture for a system. Sometimes she stands for a nation — the daughter of Zion, or the daughter of Babylon. Sometimes, as in Revelation, she stands for a religious organisation.
The basket in the verse is an ephah, a measure used in everyday trade. Grant reads the vision as God's verdict on greed, and takes the lid as part of that picture.
She is pictured as "Wickedness" and thrust down into the middle of the ephah. A lead lid weighing a talent — well over 100 pounds, or 45 kg — is put over the opening. This shows what riches usually do. They become a terrible weight that traps the victim with no hope of escape.
Commentators differ. Kelly traces the evil to Israel's idolatry instead, and rejects the commercial reading outright:
This seems to confirm that the evil is the idolatry of the Jew, which came from Babylon and is sent back there. I am far from believing that the vision is God's sentence on modern commerce, carried on stork's wings from the east to the west. That seems to me the most baseless and far-fetched of all the interpretations. Still, I do not deny the corrupting influence of commercial principles and their effects.
The heaviest detail in the verse is the lid, and it divides readers. One line takes it as restraint — evil held down for a time by something outside itself.
We judge that the casting of the weight of lead on the mouth of the ephah points to the immense energy of the wickedness held inside it. Some severe repression is applied, perhaps through government rather than directly, to stop the evil spreading and developing further. Yet, as the rest of the vision shows, the wickedness could not be held down. It flowed out in its true form and character.
Darby reads the lid the other way. For him it is not a restraint waiting to be lifted:
The lead was not lifted up to show the woman to the prophet. It was not an evil long restrained by something that had been keeping it down all along. The lid was put on the mouth of the ephah, and the ephah was carried to the land of Shinar. It was shut up so that it could be carried elsewhere, and set on its own base.
Rossier, quoted earlier, takes a third line: the lid seals a judgment that cannot be reversed.
The vision does not show wickedness destroyed on the spot. It shows evil shut in, lifted, and carried back to where it started.
This is a picture of wickedness — lawlessness. It is hidden — the woman in the ephah — and it is carried to the land of Shinar, its base, where it began its course... Here this "wickedness" hides in an "ephah". In Matthew 13 it hides in "three measures of flour". Either way it hides under a profession — the religion of Israel, or the name of Christendom.
- Named. God does not leave the evil vague. The angel points at the woman and calls her Wickedness — a will that recognises no law above its own.
- Housed. A woman in prophecy stands for a system, national or religious, so this is organised evil, not one person's sin.
- Measured. The ephah is a measure used in trade. Writers differ over what it means. Grant sees greed for money; Kelly sees Israel's idolatry.
- Sealed. Dennett reads the lead lid as a restraint that holds evil down for a time. Darby and Rossier read it as a judgment shut and settled.
- Deported. Wickedness ends up on its own base at Shinar. Evil that hides under a religious cover is carried back to where it began.