Reflections on Zechariah 5

 Zechariah 05  (Contemporary English Version)

1. When I looked the next time, I saw a flying scroll,
2. and the angel asked, "What do you see?" "A flying scroll," I answered. "About thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide."
3. Then he told me: This scroll puts a curse on everyone in the land who steals or tells lies. The writing on one side tells about the destruction of those who steal, while the writing on the other side tells about the destruction of those who lie.
4. The LORD All-Powerful has said, "I am sending this scroll into the house of everyone who is a robber or tells lies in my name, and it will remain there until every piece of wood and stone in that house crumbles."
5. Now the angel who was there to explain the visions came over and said, "Look up and tell me what you see coming."
6. "I don't know what it is," was my reply. "It's a big basket," he said. "And it shows what everyone in the land has in mind."
7. The lead cover of the basket was opened, and in the basket was a woman.
8. "This woman represents evil," the angel explained. Then he threw her back into the basket and slammed the heavy cover down tight.
9. Right after this I saw two women coming through the sky like storks with wings outstretched in the wind. Suddenly they lifted the basket into the air,
10. and I asked the angel, "Where are they taking the basket?"
11. "To Babylonia," he answered, "where they will build a house for the basket and set it down inside."

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Zechariah's sixth and seventh visions are recorded in chapter 5. The sixth was of a flying scroll which aimed judgment at those who were thieves and those who swore false witness using the Lord's name. It is of interest that one sin is against man and the other against God. In Matthew 22:38-40, Jesus said that, "All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets are based on these two commandments," which are to love the Lord and to love others. This suggests the possibility that the judgment aimed at thieves and those who swear falsely was addressing not just those two sins but that they were representative of the whole law. The vision declared a curse on the houses of thieves and those who swear falsely, bringing destruction on them.

Verses 5-11 reveal the seventh vision which was of a basket used to measure grain. The basked had a lead cover which, when lifted, revealed a woman in the basket. The woman was wickedness personified. Having revealed the woman in the basket, she was shoved back down and the cover returned to the basket. Then two other women, who had wings, came and lifted the basket, carrying it away to Babylon where a shrine was built for it and it was placed on a pedestal.

Unfair business practices had become so prevalent in Israel that dishonest gain of riches had become a god they worshiped. The basket represented the dishonest measuring tools they used in business to gain their dishonest profits. The basket, along with the wickedness it contained, were removed from Israel and taken to Babylon which was the base of such practices and where they were enshrined as a god.