Zechariah 5:5

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.