टीका वर्तमान में केवल अंग्रेज़ी में उपलब्ध है। हिन्दी अनुवाद प्रगति पर है।
Zechariah 5 — The Curse That Goeth Forth
Two visions of sin judged and removed. First, a flying roll, twenty cubits by ten — the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: every one that stealeth shall be cut off on this side, every one that sweareth on that side. It shall enter the house of the thief and of the false swearer, and consume it with the timber and stones thereof. Second, an ephah going forth — a woman sitting in the midst of it, and he said, This is wickedness; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof. Two women with wings like a stork lift the ephah between earth and heaven, to build it an house in the land of Shinar — wickedness carried back to Babylon, established and set there upon her own base.
“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.”
— Zechariah 5:3
- v.1-4 The flying roll — the curse against theft and false swearing
- v.5-8 The woman in the ephah — wickedness sealed
- v.9-11 Wickedness carried to Shinar
Theft and false swearing — one sin against neighbor, one against God: the two tables of the law represented by a specimen from each. The roll is written on both sides, like the tables at Sinai; no commandment lacks its sanction.
After the grace of chapters 3-4 (garments changed, Spirit supplied), the same covenant community is reminded: cleansing does not retire holiness. The restored land cannot harbor what the curse hunts.
The curse is a houseguest that never leaves: it enters, remains, and consumes — timber and stones. Sin shelters in private walls, and judgment follows it past every threshold. There are no off-the-record rooms.
Dishonest gain builds infected houses. What theft and perjury bring home, they bring home with the curse attached — Proverbs' wages of treasure gotten by a lying tongue.
Wickedness personified — a woman in a commercial measure, the ephah: sin at home in the marketplace, measured, contained, and finally sealed under a talent of lead. Evil is real, embodied, and restrainable by God at will.
The lead on the mouth declares who governs evil's limits. Wickedness does not roam by right but by permission, and the hand that sealed the ephah can seal an abyss (Revelation 20:1-3).
Shinar — Babel's plain, Babylon's land: wickedness deported to its native soil and given a house, a temple, her own base. The land of promise is cleansed by evil's relocation to the city of man, where it awaits final judgment.
Revelation completes the geography: the woman, Babylon the great, enthroned for a season and then fallen in one hour (Revelation 17-18). Zechariah's ephah is the first freight on that route; God consolidates evil in order to condemn it at once.
The flying roll reads both ledgers — your dealings with men (stealing in all its respectable forms) and your words before God (His name attached to anything false). Ask what the roll would find resident in your house: gains, claims, or comforts the curse could consume with the timber and stones. The grace that re-clothed Joshua (ch. 3) is the same holiness that flies this scroll — cleansing and curse never bless the same hidden sin.
The curse that goes forth over the whole earth found its resting place at the cross: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). And the sealed ephah previews His final victory — evil contained, removed, and judged, until the holy land has no resident wickedness and the holy city no night.
Twenty by ten cubits — the dimensions of the tabernacle's holy place and of Solomon's porch: the curse is sanctuary-sized. Judgment proceeds from the same holiness that worship approaches; the measuring standard of the holy place flies out over the land.
A flying roll: the written word in motion, unrolled and airborne, finding addresses on its own. Scripture's sanctions are not archived; they travel.