Zechariah 5 - Introduction

By the flying roll, is shewed the curse of thieves and false swearers: The prophet sees a woman sitting in an ephah, which two other women carry into the land of Shinar.

Before Christ 519.

THE visions represented in this chapter are of a very different kind from the preceding ones. Hitherto all has been consoling, and meant to cheer the hearts of the Jewish people, by holding forth to them prospects of approaching prosperity. But lest they should grow presumptuous and careless of their conduct, it was thought proper to warn them of the conditions on which their happiness would depend; and to let them see, that however God was at present disposed to shew them favour, his judgments would assuredly fall upon them with still greater weight than before, if they should again provoke him by repeated wickedness. Accordingly in the first of these visions, which was the sixth in succession, the prophet is shewn an immense roll of a book, like that which Ezekiel describes, chap. Zechariah 2:9 filled with curses, and in the act of flying, to denote the celerity and speed, as well as the certainty, with which the thief and false swearer, who might other wise flatter themselves with hopes of impunity, would be visited to their utter destruction. The next vision presents the appearance of an ephah, or measure, in which fate a woman representing a nation, whose wickedness was arrived at such a height as required an immediate check. Accordingly a heavy cover is cast upon her, and she is carried into exile in a distant land, there to abide the full time allotted for her punishment.