Hitherto we have seen visions of peace only, and all the words we have
heard have been good words and comfortable words. But the pillar of
cloud and fire has a black and dark side towards the Egyptians, as well
as a bright and pleasant side towards Israel; so have Zechariah's
visions; for God's prophets are not only his ambassadors, to treat of
peace with the sons of peace, but heralds, to proclaim war against
those that delight in war, and persist in their rebellion. In this
chapter we have two visions, by which "the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." God
will do great and kind things for his people, which the faithful sons
of Zion shall rejoice in; but "let the sinners in Zion be afraid;" for,
I. God will reckon severely with those particular persons among them
that are wicked and profane, and that hated to be reformed in these
times of reformation; while God is showing kindness to the body of the
nation, and loading that with his blessings, they and their families
shall, notwithstanding that, lie under the curse, which the prophet
sees in a flying roll,
Zechariah 5:1-4.
II. If the body of the nation hereafter degenerate, and wickedness
prevail among them, it shall be carried off and hurried away with a
swift destruction, under the pressing weight of divine wrath,
represented by a talent of lead upon the mouth of an ephah, carried
upon the wing I know not where,
Zechariah 5:5-11.
The Vision of the Flying Roll.
B. C. 520.
1 Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and
behold a flying roll.
2 And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a
flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the
breadth thereof ten cubits.
3 Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth
over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth
shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one
that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.
4 I will bring it forth, saith the LORD of hosts, and it shall
enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that
sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of
his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the
stones thereof.
We do not find that the prophet now needed to be awakened, as he did
Zechariah 4:1.
Being awakened then, he kept wakeful after; nay, now he needs not be so
much as called to look about him, for of his own accord he turns and
lifts up his eyes. This good men sometimes get by their
infirmities, they make them the more careful and circumspect
afterwards. Now observe,
I. What it was that the prophet saw; he looked up into the air, and
behold a flying roll. A vast large scroll of parchment which had
been rolled up, and is therefore called a roll, was now unrolled
and expanded; this roll was flying upon the wings of the wind, carried
swiftly through the air in open view, as an eagle that shoots down upon
her prey; it was a roll, like Ezekiel's that was written
within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and woe,
Ezekiel 2:9,10.
As the command of the law is in writing, for certainty and perpetuity,
so is the curse of the law; it writes bitter things
against the sinner. "What I have written I have written and what is
written remains." The angel, to engage the prophet's attention, and to
raise in him a desire to have it explained, asks him what he
sees? And he gives him this account of it: I see a flying
roll, and as near as he can guess by his eye it is twenty cubits
long (that is, ten yards) and ten cubits broad, that is,
five yards. The scriptures of the Old Testament and the New are
rolls, in which God has written to us the great things of his
law and gospel. Christ is the Master of the rolls. They are large
rolls, have much in them. They are flying rolls; the angel that
had the everlasting gospel to preach flew in the midst of
heaven,
Revelation 14:6.
God's word runs very swiftly,
Psalms 147:15.
Those that would be let into the meaning of these rolls must first tell
what they see, must go as far as they can themselves. "What is
written in the law? how readest thou? Tell me that, and then thou
shalt be made to understand what thou readest."
II. How it was expounded to him,
Zechariah 5:3,4.
This flying roll is a curse; it contains a declaration of the
righteous wrath of God against those sinners especially who by swearing
affront God's majesty or by stealing invade their neighbour's property.
Let every Israelite rejoice in the blessings of his country with
trembling; for if he swear, if he steal, if he live in any course of
sin, he shall see them with his eyes, but shall not have the comfort of
them, for against him the curse has gone forth. If I be wicked, woe
to me for all this. Now observe here,
1. The extent of this curse; the prophet sees it flying, but which way
does it steer its course? It goes forth over the face of the whole
earth, not only of the land of Israel, but the whole world;
for those that have sinned against the law written in their
hearts only shall by that law be judged, though they have not the
book of the law. Note, All mankind are liable to the judgment of God;
and, wherever sinners are, any where upon the face of the whole earth,
the curse of God can and will find them out and seize them. Oh that we
could with an eye of faith see the flying roll of God's curse hanging
over the guilty world as a thick cloud, not only keeping off the
sun-beams of God's favour from them, but big with thunders, lightnings,
and storms, ready to destroy them! How welcome then would the tidings
of a Saviour be, who came to redeem us from the curse of the law
by being himself made a curse for us, and, like the prophet,
eating this roll! The vast length and breadth of this roll
intimate what a multitude of curses sinners lie exposed to. God will
make their plagues wonderful, if they turn not.
2. The criminals against whom particularly this curse is levelled. The
world is full of sin in great variety: so was the Jewish church at this
time. But two sorts of sinners are here specified as the objects of
this curse:--
(1.) Thieves; it is for every one that steals, that by fraud or
force takes that which is not his own, especially that robs God and
converts to his own use what was devoted to God and his honour, which
was a sin much complained of among the Jews at this time,
Malachi 3:8,Ne+13:10.
Sacrilege is, without doubt, the worst kind of thievery. He also that
robs his father or mother, and saith, It is no transgression
(Proverbs 28:24),
let him know that against him this curse is directed, for it is against
every one that steals. The letter of the eighth commandment has
no penalty annexed to it; but the curse here is a sanction to that
command.
(2.) Swearers. Sinners of the former class offend against the second
table, these against the first; for the curse meets those that break
either table. He that swears rashly and profanely shall not be held
guiltless, much less he that swears falsely
(Zechariah 5:4);
he imprecates the curse upon himself by his perjury, and so shall his
doom be; God will say Amen to his imprecation, and turn it upon
his own head. He has appealed to God's judgment, which is always
according to truth, for the confirming of a lie, and to that judgment
he shall go which he has so impiously affronted.
3. The enforcing of this curse, and the equity of it: I will bring
it forth, saith the Lord of hosts,
Zechariah 5:4.
He that pronounces the sentence will take care to see it executed. His
bringing it forth denotes,
(1.) His giving it commission. It is a righteous curse, for he is a
righteous God that warrants it.
(2.) His giving it the setting on. He brings it forth with power, and
orders what execution it shall do; and who can put by or resist the
curse which a God of almighty power brings forth?
4. The effect of this curse; it is very dreadful,
(1.) Upon the sinner himself: Every one that steals shall be cut
off, not corrected, but destroyed, cut off from the land of the
living. The curse of God is a cutting thing, a killing thing. He shall
be cut off as on this side (cut off from this place, that is,
from Jerusalem), and so he that swears from this side (it is the
same word), from this place. God will not spare the sinners he finds
among his own people, nor shall the holy city be a protection to the
unholy. Or they shall be cut off from hence, that is, from the
face of the whole earth, over which the curse flies. Or he that steals
shall be cut off on this side, and he that swears on that
side; they shall all be cut off, one as well as another, and both
according to the curse, for the judgments of God's hand are exactly
agreeable with the judgments of his mouth.
(2.) Upon his family: It shall enter into the house of the thief and
of him that swears. God's curse comes with a warrant to break open
doors, and cannot be kept out by bars or locks. There where the sinner
is most secure, and thinks himself out of danger,--there where he
promises himself refreshment by food and sleep,--there, in his own
house, shall the curse of God seize him; nay, it shall fall not upon
him only, but upon all about him for his sake. Cursed shall be his
basket and his store, and cursed the fruit of his body,
Deuteronomy 28:17,18.
The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked,
Proverbs 3:33.
It shall not only beset his house, or he at the door, but it shall
remain in the midst of his house, and diffuse its malignant
influences to all the parts of it. It shall dwell in his tabernacle
because it is none of his,
Job 18:15.
It shall dwell where he dwells, and be his constant companion at bed
and board, to make both miserable to him. Having got possession, it
shall keep it, and, unless he repent and reform, there is no way to
throw it out or cut off the entail of it. Nay, it shall so remain in it
as to consume it with the timber thereof, and the stones
thereof, which, though ever so strong, though the timber be heart
of oak and the stones hewn out of the rocks of adamant, yet they shall
not be able to stand before the curse of God. We heard the stone and
the timber complaining of the owner's extortion and oppression, and
groaning under the burden of them,
Habakkuk 2:11.
Now here we have them delivered from that bondage of corruption.
While they were in their strength and beauty they supported, sorely
against their will, the sinner's pride and security; but, when they are
consumed, their ruins will, to their satisfaction, be standing
monuments of God's justice and lasting witnesses of the sinner's
injustice. Note, Sin is the ruin of houses and families, especially the
sins of injury and perjury. Who knows the power of God's anger,
and the operations of his curse? Even timber and stones have been
consumed by them; let us therefore stand in awe and not sin.
The Vision of the Ephah.
B. C. 520.
5 Then 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.
6 And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah
that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance
through all the earth.
7 And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this
is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.
8 And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the
midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth
thereof.
9 Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there
came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they
had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah
between the earth and the heaven.
10 Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do
these bear the ephah?
11 And he said unto me, To build it a house in the land of
Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own
base.
The foregoing vision was very plain and easy, but in this are things
dark and hard to be understood; and some think that the scope of
it is to foretel the final destruction of the Jewish church and nation
and the dispersion of the Jews, when, by crucifying Christ and
persecuting his gospel, they should have filled up the measure of their
iniquities; therefore it is industriously set out in obscure figures
and expressions, "lest the plain denunciation of the second overthrow
of temple and state might discourage them too much from going forward
in the present restoration of both." So Mr. Pemble.
The prophet was contemplating the power and terror of the curse which
consumes the houses of thieves and swearers, when he was told to turn
and he should see greater desolations than these made by the curse of
God for the sin of man: Lift up thy eyes now, and see what is
here,
Zechariah 5:5.
What is this that goeth forth? Whether over the face of the
whole earth, as the flying roll
(Zechariah 5:3),
or only over Jerusalem, is not certain. But, it seems, the prophet now,
through either the distance or the dimness of his sight, could not well
tell what it was, but asked, What is it?
Zechariah 5:6.
And the angel tells him both what it is and what it means.
I. He sees an ephah, a measure wherewith they measured corn; it
contained ten omers
(Exodus 16:36)
and was the tenth part of a homer
(Ezekiel 45:11);
it is put for any measure used in commerce,
Deuteronomy 25:14.
And this is their resemblance, the resemblance of the Jewish
nation over all the earth, wherever they are now dispersed, or
at least it will be so when their ruin draws near. They are filling up
the measure of their iniquity, which God has set them; and when it is
full, as the ephah of corn, they shall be delivered into the hands of
those to whom God has sold them for their sins; they are meted
to destruction, as an ephah of corn measured to the market or to the
mill. And some think that the mentioning of an ephah, which is used in
buying and selling, intimates that fraud, and deceit, and extortion in
commerce, were sins abounding much among them, as that people are known
to be notoriously guilty of them at this day. This is a proper
representation of them through all the earth. There is a measure
set them, and they are filling it up apace. See
Matthew 23:32,1Th+2:16.
II. He sees a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah,
representing the sinful church and nation of the Jews in their latter
and degenerate age, when the faithful city became a harlot. He
that weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance measures
nations and churches as in an ephah; so exact is he in his judicial
dealings with them. God's people are called the corn of his
floor,
Isaiah 21:10.
And here he puts this corn into the bushel, in order to his parting
with it. The angel says of the woman in the ephah, This is
wickedness; it is a wicked nation, else God would not have rejected
it thus; it is as wicked as wickedness itself, it is abominably
wicked. How has the gold become dim! Israel was holiness to the
Lord
(Jeremiah 2:3);
but now this is wickedness, and wickedness is nowhere so
scandalous, so odious, and, in many instances, so outrageous, as when
it is found among professors of religion.
III. He sees the woman thrust down into the ephah, and a talent,
or large weight, of lead, cast upon the mouth of it, by
which she is secured, and made a close prisoner in the ephah,
and utterly disabled to get out of it. This is designed to show that
the wrath of God against impenitent sinners is,
1. Unavoidable, and what they cannot escape; they are bound over to it,
concluded under sin, and shut up under the curse, as this woman in the
ephah; he would fain flee out of his hand
(Job 27:22),
but he cannot.
2. It is insupportable, and what they cannot bear up under. Guilt is
upon the sinner as a talent of lead, to sink him to the lowest hell.
When Christ said of the things of Jerusalem's peace, Now they are
hidden from thy eyes, that threw a talent of lead upon them.
IV. He sees the ephah, with the woman thus pressed to death in it,
carried away into some far country.
1. The instruments employed to do it were two women, who had
wings like those of a stork, large and strong, and, to
make them fly the more swiftly, they had the wind in their
wings, denoting the great violence and expedition with which the
Romans destroyed the Jewish nation. God has not only winged messengers
in heaven, but he can, when he pleases, give wings to those also whom
he employs in this lower world; and, when he does so, he forwards them
with the wind in their wings; his providence carries them on with a
favourable gale.
2. They bore it up in the air, denoting the terrors which pursued the
wicked Jews, and their being a public example of God's vengeance to the
world. They lifted it up between the earth and the heaven, as
unworthy of either and abandoned by both; for the Jews, when this was
fulfilled, pleased not God and were contrary to all men,
1 Thessalonians 2:15.
This is wickedness, and this comes of it; heaven thrust out
wicked angels, and earth spewed out wicked Canaanites.
3. When the prophet enquired whither they carried their prisoner whom
they had now in execution
(Zechariah 5:10)
he was told that they designed to build it a house in the land of
Shinar. This intimates that the punishment of the Jews should be a
final dispersion; they should be hurried out of their own country,
as the chaff which the wind drives away, and should be forced to
dwell in far countries, particularly in the country of Babylon, whither
many of the scattered Jews went after the destruction of their country
by the Romans, as they did also to other countries, especially in the
Levant parts, not to sojourn, as in their former captivity, for seventy
years, but to be nailed down for perpetuity. There the ephah
shall be established, and set upon her own base. This intimates,
(1.) That their calamity shall continue from generation to generation,
and that they shall be so dispersed that they shall never unite or
incorporate again; they shall settle in a perpetual unsettlement, and
Cain's doom shall be theirs, to dwell in the land of shaking.
(2.) That their iniquity shall continue too, and their hearts shall be
hardened in it. Blindness has happened unto Israel, and
they are settled upon the lees of their own unbelief; their wickedness
is established upon its own basis. God has given them a
spirit of slumber
(Romans 11:8),
lest at any time they should convert, and be healed.
Matthew Henry "Verse by Verse Commentary for 'Zechariah' Matthew Henry Bible Commentary".
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