The flying scroll
5
📚Then I turned, and lifted up my eyes, and looked, and saw a flying scroll.5:1 The meaning of this sixth vision is clearer than that of some of the others. It declares that God’s curse comes on sin and emphasizes two sins in particular, sins which must have been common in Judah.⚜
2 📚And he said to me, “What do you see?” And I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits, and its breadth ten cubits”.
3 📚Then he said to me, “This is the curse 📖 that goes out over the face of the whole earth: according to one side of it, everyone who steals will be banished; and according to the other side of it, everyone who commits perjury 📖 will be banished 📖. 4 📚‘I will send it out’, says the LORD of hosts, ‘and it will enter the house of the thief, and the house of the one who swears falsely by my name, and it will remain inside his house, and consume it along with its wood and its stones 📖.’ ”
5:4 There will be no possibility of escape for any unrepentant sinner or anything he has. All that belongs to such people is defiled and will perish with them.⚜
The woman sitting in a basket
5 📚Then the angel who talked with me went out, and said to me, “Now raise your eyes, and see what this is that is going out”.
5:5 This is the seventh vision Zechariah saw. Some of its details are very difficult to interpret.⚜
6 📚And I said, “What is it?” And he said, “This is an ephah 📖 that is going out”. He also said, “This is their appearance throughout the earth 📖”.
7 📚And then a slab of lead was raised, and this woman was sitting in the middle of the ephah. 8 📚And he said, “This is wickedness”. And he shoved her into the middle of the ephah, and pushed the lead weight over its mouth.
9 📚Then I raised my eyes, looked and saw two women coming with the wind in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork. And they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens.
10 Then I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they carrying the ephah?”
11 📚And he said to me, “To build a house for it in the land of Shinar 📖. When it is prepared, it will be placed there on its own base”.
5:6-11 This verse suggests that the full measure of the sins of the people of Israel is known to God, and that He will remove all of it from the land (compare vs 3,4; Zech 3:9). God will again choose Jerusalem and inherit Judah as His portion and live there (Zech 2:11-12). Then wickedness will have no more place in His land. It will be holy in fact as well as in name.⚜