KERUX: A JOURNAL

OF

BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL PREACHING

Editor: James T. Dennison, Jr.

Assistant Editors: Richard A. Riesen and David L. Roth

KERUX is a publication of Kerux, Inc. and appears three times each year (May, September, December). Editorial offices are located at 1131 Whispering Highlands Dr., Escondido, CA 92027-4961. Correspondence should be directed to the editor at this address. Subscription rates for one year are: $15.00 (U.S. and Canada); $20.00 (Elsewhere). All remittances should be made payable in U. S. Funds. KERUX is: abstracted in Old Testament Abstracts, Washingon, DC and Religious and Theological Abstracts, Myerstown, PA; indexed in Religion Index One, Evanston, IL and the Elenchus of Biblica, Rome, Italy.

Introduction

We conclude, by the grace of God, our tenth year of publication. Special thanks are owed to those who have served on the editorial board during the decade: Steve Baugh, Jack Smith, Dick Riesen and David Roth.

This issue contains a complete index to all the contents of the past ten years. Compiled by David Roth, it will provide ready access to the material we have published.

Introduction. Structural Issues: According to the pattern of the introductory formulae (cf. 1:7-8; 2:1; 2:5; 3:1; 4:1-2; 5:1; 6:1) there are seven visions in Zech. 1:7-6:8, not eight, for Zechariah 5 is not to be divided into two visions but regarded as a unit, the sixth vision. The two triads of visions bracketing the central hinge vision (Zechariah 3) all include the phrase, "I saw and behold," but that is absent from Zech. 5:5, where many commentators would begin a separate vision. The phrase we find instead at v. 5 is like one which marks the middle, not beginning, of a vision at Zech. 2:7 [Eng. 2:3].¹

The unity of the two parts of Zechariah 5 is also indicated by certain interdependencies of grammar and terminology. Thus, the suffix in "their appearance" (v. 6) has as its antecedent the thieves and perjurers of v. 3. And the phrase "in all the land" (v. 6) resumes "all the land" in v. 3. Most compelling, however, are the clear thematic interrelationships of the two parts of the chapter and the remarkable intermeshing of their symbolism. The sixth vision

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* This study of Zechariah 5 continues the series on Zechariah's night visions begun in Kerux 5:2 (September, 1990).

1 For further details see my "The Structure of the Book of Zechariah," JETS 34:2 (1991), p. 186.

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portrays the judgment curse of exile, distinguishing its two distinct stages: destruction of the victims' holdings in their homeland (vv. 1-4) and deportation with relocation in a foreign land (vv. 5-11). Details of the interlocking imagery of the two parts will emerge in the exegesis below.

Within the chiastic arrangement of the two triads of visions the second (2:1-4 [Eng. 1:18-21]) and sixth (5:1-11) correspond. Each is composed of two parts. Also, as the range of the night visions moves from the world in the first and seventh visions towards Zion and the holy of holies in the central three (the third through the fifth), the focus comes to the theocratic land in the second and sixth. Moreover, each of these deals with the removal of unholy elements from the holy land through instruments of divine judgment.

When the parallelism is traced between the visions and the likewise concentrically structured burdens of Zech. 9:1-14:21, the sixth vision and Zech. 13:2-9 correspond. Their common message "is judgment within the covenant realm, referred to in both as 'all the land' (5:3, 6; 13:8). Apostates are cut off from their place in the holy land (5:4, 9-11; 13:8). Associated with this removal is the motif of uncleanness, the unclean stork (5:9) and the unclean spirit (13:2). Prominent in the indictment is swearing or speaking lies in the name of the Lord (5:4; 13:3)."²

A. The Flying Scroll. 1. Covenant Curse: By identifying the scroll Zechariah saw as a "curse" (Zech. 5:3), the angel tells us it is a covenant document, the Lord's treaty given through Moses. Ratified by the vassal's oath of submission, such suzerainty covenants threatened dire curses in case of perfidy. Hence the terms "oath" and "curse" became synonyms for "covenant."³ A standard section of the treaties was the sanctions, which (in their classic form) included blessings but were heavily weighted on the curse side

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² Op. cit., p. 192.

3 Cf., e.g., Deut. 29:11 (Eng. 12); 2 Chr. 34:24, 30; Ezek. 16:8; 17:13; Dan. 9:4, 11.

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(see Deut. 28:1-68; 29:16-28; cf. 27:11-26; Lev. 26:3-39).⁴ It is the execution of this curse sanction of the old covenant that is portrayed in Zechariah 5.

The expression in Zech. 5:3, "on this side . . . on the other side," is possibly a specific allusion to the covenant tablets of Sinai, since it is used in Exod. 32:15 to describe those stone tablets as inscribed on both sides.⁵ But the idea might also be that the curse strikes here and there, that is, everywhere throughout "the whole land" (cf. Deut. 28:16-19).

When calling upon Israel to swear their covenant loyalty Moses forewarned: "It shall come to pass, if you do not obey Yahweh your God, . . . that all these curses will come upon you . . . They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed" (Deut. 28:15, 45). Ultimate among the threatened curses would be the siege and destruction of their dwellings in the holy land and banishment to an alien land. "Yahweh will bring a nation against you from afar . . . swooping down like an eagle" (Deut. 28:49). "They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls come down throughout all your land" (Deut. 28:52). "You will be plucked off the land . . . and Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples" (Deut. 28:63-4). By Zechariah's day such an exile judgment had befallen Israel and Judah alike, and now those recently restored from that Babylonian captivity are warned by Zechariah that again in the future such a curse would descend on the covenant community. The houses of the covenant breakers in the promised land would be consumed (Zech. 5:1-4) and they would themselves be removed to the land of Shinar (Zech. 5:5-11).

"'I will cause it [the curse scroll] to go forth,' declares Yahweh of hosts" (Zech. 5:4). In international vassal-treaty relationships the gods invoked as witnesses had the role of visiting the curse sanctions on the offending vassal. But Yahweh, covenant Lord of Israel, is also the God of Israel's oath. He would, therefore, himself be the one who would bring the fierce foreign na-

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⁴ In connection with the covenant of Suppiluliuma and Kurtiwaza there is a separate tablet devoted to sanctions, with a listing of the gods who are to enforce them. See ANET, p. 205.

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tion against his disobedient people, as Moses warned (Deut. 28:49). When his anger was kindled against them for forsaking his covenant, it was he who would bring on them all the curses written in his treaty (Deut. 29:25-28).

2. Twenty by Ten Cubits: The dimensions of the curse-scroll were those of the forecourt of the temple (1 Kgs. 6:3), a precinct associated with judicial process (1 Kgs. 8:31-2). They were also the dimensions of a kindred holy space, the area spanned by the cherubim figures in the holy of holies, the golden setting of the brilliant gem of theophanic Glory. For each cherub was ten cubits high and each outstretched wing of the two cherubim was five cubits (their inside wings touching in the middle above the ark and their two outside wings extending to the walls on either side) for a total width of twenty cubits (1 Kgs. 6:23-7).⁶

The flying scroll's dimensions thus direct us to the site from which it issued forth, to the ark in the holy of holies, where the Mosaic treaty texts were kept under the feet of their Author and Administrator, the Lord of the covenant. This documentary witness to the oath-ratified covenant, deposited in the ark, was the reality behind the visionary flying scroll. Judgment would be administered according to the standards stipulated in these covenant documents for life in holy fellowship with the Lord God in his kingdom of love and glory. The King of Glory, enthroned above the ark of the covenant scroll, would maintain the sanctity of his holy house and land according to the covenant's stipulations, cleansing them of all that failed to satisfy its demands, punishing all such according to its sanctions. "According to it . . . according to it" (Zech. 5:3), they must be cut off.

To carry out this anathema mission of the flying scroll, the Lord sends forth the heavenly agents of judgment, the angels symbolized by the winged cherubim figures flanking the ark of the scroll in the holy of holies. These celestial beings, the guardians of God's holy Presence and the tree of life from the beginning, wielders of the flaming sword at the entrance of Eden, would

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⁶ It has been observed that the two to one proportion of the scroll's dimensions match the ratio between the width of a column and the height of biblical scrolls at Qumran. Even if this was regular practice centuries earlier, it would probably be due to practical considerations and would have only coincidental relevance for Zechariah's scroll.

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bring the curse-scroll winging over the land, cutting off with their fiery sword all that profaned God's holy land and temple.

Adoption of the dimensions of the area occupied by the cherubim as the measurements of the flying scroll indicates that it represents the angelic executors of judgment as well as the covenant document, the standard of judgment. The fact that the scroll was flying recalls the exile curse of Deut. 28:49, which foretells the coming of the agents of Yahweh's judgment "as the eagle flies. " And, of course, the agents of the deportation of the woman in the ephah in the second part of Zechariah's sixth vision also fly. Moreover, as seen by Zechariah the flying scroll was perhaps actually winged, like the women carrying the ephah (Zech. 5:9). Such wing appendages would suggest the figures of the cherubim more immediately and graphically than the scroll's dimensions. Further, the impressionistic image conveyed by the scroll, a large sheet of parchment or leather sailing through the sky, would be that of a cloud.⁷ Here was a judgment cloud moving over the land, the winged cloud identified with the cherubim, the cloud-chariot on which the divine warrior-judge advances over the earth (Pss. 18:10-16 [Eng. 9-15]; 104:3).

Now this cherub-winged chariot cloud is one and the same as the theophanic cloud of Glory, the divine Presence revealed in the holy of holies above the ark. In the configuration of symbols there in the holy of holies all the elements of the Zecharian scroll image come together: the ark of the covenant was the provenance of the flying scroll and the ark was the footstool of the enthroned King of Glory, guarded by the overshadowing wings of the cherubim. Scroll and cherubim betoken the presence of the Lord of hosts. Hence the flying scroll not merely symbolizes the standard of the covenant judgment and its angelic agents, it also represents a parousia of the covenant God and Judge himself. It images an anathema advent of the Lord of hosts riding through the heavens in the midst of his vehicular angel agents.

B. Thieves and Perjurers. From the nature of the flying scroll as an administrative instrument of Yahweh's treaty with Israel it is evident that its sphere of judgment is the covenant nation rather than the kingdoms of the

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⁷ In Isa. 60:8 clouds are spoken of as flying.

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world. Other details confirm this. The term ha'arets, though it can mean "earth," in Zech. 5:3 must mean "land" (i.e., Canaan), for in the sequel the guilty who are detected in all this "land" (v. 6) are removed to another land, "the land of Shinar" (v. 11). Also, one of the offenses mentioned, namely, swearing falsely by the name of Yahweh (vv. 3, 4), implies that the offenders have been avowed subjects of Yahweh within the sphere of his covenant domain.

The particular sins specified as the ground of the curse judgment, perjury and theft, comprise transgression of the first and great commandment and the second, like unto it. Dishonoring God's name by perjury violates the requirement to love him supremely and stealing from one's neighbor is failure to love him as oneself. The selection of theft to individualize sins against neighbors may be due to the connection of sins of embezzlement with swearing oaths of clearance in theocratic judicial process (cf. Lev. 5:20-26 [Eng. 6:1-7]). When the false swearing of an oath of innocence is added to robbery, trespass of the eighth commandment becomes a direct offense against Yahweh too (Lev. 5:21 [Eng. 6:2]).⁸ Haters of God and man, godless and lawless, breakers of the covenant, apostates—against such was the scroll curse aimed.

A distinctive feature of the Zechariah 5 portrayal of the offenses that come under judgment is their association with the market place. All the details of the vision, the standards of measurement and weight (cubits, ephah, talent), the theft perpetrated through false balances and aggravated by lying oaths, all this symbolism conducts us into the world of commerce, its business and its sins. What characterizes the apostates targeted by the covenant curse is a mercantile idolatry. They repudiate Yahweh, King of Glory, prostituting themselves to the love of the glory of the world, to the worship of Mammon. Tolerated within the covenant ranks they would change the holy community into something indistinguishable from the world. They would turn Jerusalem into Babylon. Therefore, the King of Zion sends the curse scroll over the whole face of the land to excise them.

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⁸ The oath of innocence procedure took place in the temple forecourt area (cf. 1 Kgs. 8:31), which, as noted above, had the twenty by ten cubits dimensions of the flying scroll—a further interlocking of the details of the sixth vision.

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C. Demolition of the Houses of Mammon. Zech. 5:3-4 describes the first stage of exile: siege and destruction. The verb naqah in v. 3 is rendered by some "acquit" rather than "cut off." "Acquit" is the usual meaning of the Piel and if the Niphal form in v. 3 reflects that, the guilty are viewed as having resorted to the oath of clearance procedure (cf. 1 Kgs. 8:31), swearing falsely in God's name to get themselves acquitted. The point would be that in the eyes of the heavenly Judge, who does not hold those guiltless who swear covenant oaths falsely (Exod. 20:7; 34:7), their false oaths have compounded not cleared their sins, and they will not escape his vengeance. However, the Niphal of naqah may mean "be made desolate, empty" (cf. Isa. 3:26). Also attested is a corresponding meaning of the Piel, "to clear away, purge" (cf. Joel 4:19, 21 [Eng. 3:9, 21]; Deut. 19:10, 13; 21:9; 32:43; Isa. 26:21). And it is more natural to understand v.3b as referring to the desolation effected by the curse God sends forth—specifically mentioned just before (v. 3a) and after (v. 4)—than to the clearance resulting from an oath of innocence that had only supposedly been sworn.⁹

This cutting off takes the form of the demolition of the apostates' houses (Zech. 5:4). When threatening Israel with the exile curse, Moses mentioned the leveling of walls associated with siege (Deut. 28:52). Concerning the disobedient he also said they would build houses but not live in them (Deut. 28:30). The extra-biblical treaty-curse repertoire also included overturning of the victim's house (cf. the eighth century Aramaic Sefire treaty I, C. 21-23). In Zechariah's nearer background are the threats of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:5; 3:29) and Darius (Ezra 6:11) that the houses of any defying their edicts would be laid in ruins.

Entering the houses of the thieves and perjurers, the curse consumes (kalah; cf. Deut. 28:21) them. Destruction by fire is probably meant. In a similar context in Ezekiel, God declares: "I have poured out my indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath" (Ezek. 22:31). The covenant breakers will discover that the fiery doom of the curse can

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⁹ Conceivably the choice of naqah involves a play on its two meanings, which we might paraphrase in English: "Though they cleared themselves, God cleared them out."

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not be averted. The arrogant Jehoiakim tried. He took the scroll on which God's prophet had transcribed the covenantal curses, cut it in pieces, and cast them into the fire until all the scroll was incinerated (Jer. 36:1-26). But he was not done with it. The curse-scroll rose from the ashes, rewritten, with many like curses added to it (Jer. 36:27-32). And, applying the lex talionis, it flew over the land, incinerating the houses of all who despised its warning, people and king alike (cf. Jer. 39:8).

This fire-curse has a supernatural intensity for it has been sent forth (Zech. 5:4a) by the One of whom Isaiah wrote: "And the Light of Israel will be for a fire and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his [i.e., the Assyrian foe's] thorns and his briers in one day" (Isa. 10:17). In the ordeal at Carmel this Holy Light demonstrated that he was God indeed by sending a fire that devoured not only the burnt offering and the wood but the stones of the altar as well—a miraculous melt-down (1 Kgs. 18:38). The miracle of judgment is repeated in Zech. 5:4; the fiery curse consumes the houses "with their timbers and stones." The demolition is total. The apostates are completely despoiled of the heritage they forfeited as false sons of the covenant. "Surely you make them fall into ruin . . . they become a desolation in a moment" (Ps. 73:18-19).

While the combination of wood and stones in Zech. 5:4 underscores the completeness of the destruction, another nuance is suggested by its use in the treaty sanctions that inform the curse-scroll image. Twice Moses describes idols as wood and stone, the idols of the nations encountered by Israel at their national beginnings (Deut. 29:17) and the gods of the nation that would eventually take Israel into captivity, the gods of wood and stone that the accursed covenant breakers would themselves worship there in exile (Deut. 28:36). In Zechariah 5, where the idolizing of material wealth is the peculiar evil of the offenders, their houses sum up their idolized acquisitions, and the wood and stone represent those houses. Already in Yahweh's land they were worshipping gods of wood and stone. Their houses were temples of Mammon. Continuing this theme, the second part of the sixth vision repeats the curse-threat of Deut. 28:36 as it pictures the apostates removed to Shinar and established as an idol-cultus there.

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D. Reversal of the Tenth Plague. The scroll judgment of Zechariah 5 bears a striking resemblance to the tenth plague on Egypt.¹⁰ In each episode God launches the attack (Exod. 11:1; Zech. 5:4a), an aerial assault in both cases. The curse-scroll flies over the whole land and enters houses to inflict destruction; the angel destroyer passed over all the land of Egypt (Exod. 11:6; 12:12) and entered the houses of the Egyptians to smite the households with death (cf. Exod. 12:23). The tenth plague took place during the night, and the description of the scroll-curse as "passing the night" (literally) in the doomed houses possibly echoes that. The Glory-Presence is the reality represented by the winged scroll, and God was present in that same theophanic form in the paschal event (cf. Exod. 13:21).

There was, however, one great difference between the two episodes and that difference constitutes the tragedy of Israel symbolized by the flying scroll. Whereas in the night of the tenth plague the Lord had protectively hovered over" the Israelite houses, guarding their blood-marked doorways against the entrance of the destroyer, it is precisely Israelite houses that he targets for the devastating penetration of the scroll-curse. He no longer affords them covert under the shadow of his wings. He regards the apostate Israelites and treats them as he did the hardened pharaoh and Egyptians of old.¹²

Zechariah 5 warns those restored from the Babylonian exile of a future recurrence of national cutting off. Israel would again forfeit, this time beyond recovery, their national election to the heritage of the typological kingdom offered in the blessing sanctions of the old covenant. In that respect, they would be disowned and suffer dispossession and dispersion as the vengeance of the covenant Lord, a coming of the wrath of God upon them to the uttermost (cf. 1 Thess. 2:16). This fate foretold in Zechariah 5 overtook the old order in 70 A. D., the doom Jesus announced in language recalling Zechariah 5: "Your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. 23:38).

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¹⁰ Evils threatened in the Deuteronomic sanctions are identified as the afflictions of Egypt (Deut. 28:27, 60).

11 For the translation of pasach in Exodus 12 as "hover over," not "pass over," see my "The Feast of Cover-Over." JETS 37:4 (1994) 497-510.

12 We shall find that the exodus history continues to provide a counterpoint to the sixth vision in Zech. 5:5-11.

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Clearly pointing to the fall of old covenant Israel as the (at least) initial fulfillment of the flying scroll judgment is the interpretive recasting of the sixth vision in Zech. 13:2-9, the parallel to Zechariah 5 in the matching chiastic structures of the two parts of the book. There again we read of a judgment affecting "all the land" (v. 8), and again of a cutting off: "two parts therein shall be cut off and perish" (v. 8). And connected with this judgment is the prophecy of the messianic shepherd's rejection and the scattering of his followers (v. 7; cf. Matt. 26:31-2; Mark 14:27). The cutting off befalls the generation that knew not the hour of its messianic visitation. In its leadership and as a whole it was a generation of thieves and perjurers. They turned the house of God into a den of thieves (Jer. 7:11; Matt 21:13) and bore false witness against the Son of God. Refused and cast out by them, the vindicated, exalted Messiah-Prince sent the Roman legions as his army to destroy their temple-city, pouring out on their abominable apostasy the desolations foretold in covenant sanctions and prophetic visions (Deut. 9:26-7).

Siege and its devastation are followed by the deportation of the conquered to the land of their captors. The Deuteronomic treaty sanctions foretold a day when it would be said of Israel that "because they forsook the covenant . . . the anger of Yahweh was kindled against this land to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book; and Yahweh rooted them out of their land . . . and cast them into another land" (Deut. 29:25-28; cf. 28:63). Zech. 5:5-11 portrays a final carrying away of Israel into exile as the transporting of a woman, Wickedness, in an ephah-container borne by two stork-winged women to the land of Shinar. The first part of the sixth vision had pictured the destruction of the apostates' idolized houses in Canaan; this second part concludes with the construction of an idol-house for them in Babylon. Like the curse-scroll in the first part, the ephah in the second is seen in flight and here too the passage through the air indicates that the judgment issues from heaven, from the throne of the Lord of heaven and earth. The wind was in the wings of the two women (v. 9), the propulsive power for their aerial journey, and the winds are ministers of God sent forth to do his bidding (cf. Ps. 104:4; Zech. 6:5).

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A. The Flying Ephah. 1. Ephah and Talent: Continuing the motif of standard measures (cf. the cubits, v. 2), measures of volume and weight are now introduced into the vision. Zechariah sees a container, described only as to its capacity as an ephah (v. 6, estimated at about two-thirds of a bushel). It probably looked like a vessel customarily used for holding grain. Covering its round opening was a lid, which is denoted as a circular talent (v. 7, estimated at some 75 pounds). It is also referred to as a "stone" (v. 8), Hebrew 'eben, which can mean "weight." The material of this talent-weight was lead.

These standardized weights and measures represent God's holy standards of covenant life, also symbolized by the twenty-by-ten-cubit flying scroll. A point of interest here, significant for the unity of Zechariah 5, is that the emblem of the flying scroll (or the related winged solar disk) has been found on the handles of jars (like the ephah container) stamped with the royal seal (apparently identifying the containers as royal standards). The two standards of Zech. 5:6-8, the ephah and the talent-weight, are mentioned together in laws concerning just weights and measures (Lev. 19:36; Deut. 25:15) and in passages where false ephahs and balances are condemned as "an abomination to Yahweh" (Prov. 20:10; Mic. 6:10-11). Such abuse of ephah and talent, sins of market place traffic, is thievery and perjury (falsification of the standards and vain exploitation of the name of God). Evidenced again is the interrelation of the two parts of the sixth vision.

It was because of the sins associated with the ephah and talent that the apostates were under the curse of the covenant. That idea is conveyed in the symbolism of Zech. 5:5ff. by having the talent-covered ephah function as God's instrument of judgment, carrying off the guilty into exile (cf. Prov. 13:6). The woman "Wickedness," symbol of the accursed deportees, is confined within the ephah (visionary symbolism is not concerned with such incongruity of scale). The lead-talent is brought into the picture as part of a dramatic introduction of the woman. After identifying the ephah (Zech. 5:5, 6a), the angel prepares Zechariah for the emerging of the woman with the announcement: "This is their appearance in all the land" (v. 6b).¹³ To reveal the woman sitting within, the lead cover of the ephah had to be momentarily lifted, and afterwards it was slammed down again. The role of the lead-talent

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¹³ For further analysis of this, see below.

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was to ensure that the captive within could not escape; it made the ephah a prison. The heaviness of lead would suit it to that function, but there may be more to it than that. A parallel to this imagery is found in Hittite incantations, in which demons and various evils are dealt with by putting them in bronze cauldrons with lead lids so that they cannot come out and by setting the cauldrons in the depths of the sea or netherworld.¹⁴ Such a background would add dark overtones to Zechariah's symbolism, suggestive of the satanic character of the wickedness placed under the divine anathema.

2. The Winged Women: In the apparition of the two stork-winged women who lift the ephah into the air¹⁵ and fly it away to Shinar we have an unholy counterpart to the theophany of the Glory between the cherubim above the ark. This variation on the motif of the winged scroll (and solar disk) is another item in the remarkable symbolic linkage of the two parts of Zechariah 5.¹⁶ Specification of the wings as those of a stork might be due simply to the suitability of the strong wings of the stork for this assignment, but in this unholy configuration the stork's unclean status must be relevant (cf. Lev. 11:19; Deut. 14:18). Unclean agents are used by the Judge of Israel to remove the defilement from his holy land to unclean Babylon, habitation of demons and a hold of every unclean spirit and unclean bird (Rev. 18:2). His use of these evil beings as instruments of his wrath against the apostates here is like his employing of the ungodly Assyrians and Babylonians to take rebellious Israel into exile.

The choice of female figures to depict the unclean agents might be by attraction to the symbolism of the woman "Wickedness." Or, as with the lead weight, there is possibly an adaptation of a legendary concept. Quite similar are the harpies of Homeric epic, winged female beings, spirits of wind and

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¹⁴ See Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., "Hittite Tarpis and Hebrew Teraphim," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27:1 (1968) 61-68.

15 The phrase "between the earth and the heaven" possibly contains an allusion to the role of heaven and earth as witnesses to the covenant oath-curse (Deut. 30:19; 31:28; Isa. 1:2).

16 The circular shape of the lead cover adds to the similarity to the round solar disk symbol.

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storm who snatch people and carry them away.¹⁷ Here again the symbolic details would be conjuring up the demonic dimension of the drama.

B. The Woman Wickedness. "This is their appearance in all the land" (v. 6b). "This" in v. 6b does not refer back to the ephah (v. 6a) but forward to the woman (v.7b). "Behold" (hinneh) in v.7a begins the fulfillment of the expectation created by the special call to attention in v. 6b,¹⁸ and "this is a woman" (v. 7b) identifies what v.6b was pointing to. Then the final "this" in v. 8a introduces the interpretation of the figure of the woman referred to in vv. 6b, 7.

"Appearance" in v. 6b is Hebrew 'ayin, "eye,"¹⁹ in the sense of what the eye sees, as when it is said God does not look on the outward appearance ('ayin) but on the heart (l Sam. 16:7; cf. Exod. 10:5; Lev. 13:55; Num. 22:5). The antecedent of the plural suffix in "their appearance"—extremely puzzling to those who suppose a separate vision begins at v. 5—is the thieves and perjurers of vv. 3, 4.²⁰ In the first part of the vision they are referred to as individuals and identified by their particular infractions of the covenant stipulations. Here the guilty are gathered into a collective symbol: "this is their appearance," this woman Wickedness pictures what they are in the eyes of God as he judicially scans "all the land" (cf. Zech. 4:10).

The idolatrous, spiritually adulterous nature of the objects of God's anathema is intimated by the symbolic figure of the woman. Israel, unfaithful to her marriage covenant with Yahweh, is often portrayed as a harlot, an unfaithful woman who forsakes the Lord God and commits whoredom with her idol-lovers (e.g. Hosea 1-3; Jer. 2; 3; Ezek. 16; 23). As taken up into the symbolic fabric of the Book of Revelation, the woman of Zechariah 5 is the great harlot, unfaithful to the Lamb and prostituting herself to the Beast and the world.

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¹⁷ Also from classic mythological sources, Pandora's box has been compared with the ephah. Cf. note 14 above.

18 For a similar "this is (zo't) . . . behold (hinneh)" sequence, cf. Amos 4:12-13.

19 Following LXX and Syriac, many read 'awon, "iniquity."

20 The extent of their appearance, "in all the land" (v. 6b), corresponds to the range of the flying curse against the thieves and perjurers, "over all the land" (v. 3).

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The woman's name, "Wickedness" (Heb. rish'ah),²¹ also connotes harlotry, the harlotry of apostasy from the covenant Lord. In tracing the evidence for this we include the use of related terms like resha', "wickedness;" the adjective rasha', "wicked;" and the denominative verb rasha', "be wicked, act wickedly." The dominant use of the verb (especially in exilic and postexilic texts) is with reference to Israel's breaking of the covenant in spite of God's faithfulness in keeping it (1 Kgs. 8:47; 2 Chr. 6:37; Dan. 9:5, 15; 11:32; 12:10; Neh. 9:33), the wickedness of departing from God (2 Sam. 22:22; Ps. 18:22). The adjective is used as the antonym of "righteous" in statements about the contrasting conduct and the diametrically opposite final destinies of the covenant faithful and unfaithful, "him that serves God and him that serves him not" (Mal. 3:18; Ps. 1:5, 6; Prov. 3:33; 14:11). At times the imagery of harlotry is explicitly applied to the way of the wicked. Psalm 106, referring to the Israelite covenant breakers as "the wicked" (v.18), charges them with playing the harlot (v. 39). Similarly Psalm 73, wrestling with the perplexing prosperity of "the wicked" (vv. 3, 12), identifies their conduct as playing the harlot from God (v. 27b).

Noteworthy in the usage of these terms are points of contact with distinctive features in Zechariah 5. As in the case of the sins of the thieves and perjurers in Zech. 5:1-4, the reprobated behavior of "the wicked" is an idolatry of Mammon (Pss. 37:21; 73:12; Prov. 10:2), involving the use of lying ephah and false weights (Mic. 6:10, 11). The scroll's curse on the houses is paralleled in Prov. 3:33, "The curse of Yahweh is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the abode of the righteous," and in Prov. 14:11, "The house of the wicked shall be overthrown, but the tent of the upright shall flourish" (cf. Prov. 10:2). In the same vein are Ps. 73:19, which says of the ultimate fate of the wealthy wicked, "How are they become desolate in a moment, utterly swept away by terrors," and Mal. 3:19 [Eng. 4:1], which warns that "all who work wickedness (rish 'ah) shall be stubble, and the day that is coming shall burn them up, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch." And then there is the extraordinary parallel in 2 Chr. 24:7. Reporting how the sons of the notorious Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and (likely) of Jezebel, had (at her instigation, cf. 2 Chr. 22:3) taken what was dedicated to the Lord's house and

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²¹ Note the assonance of 'ishshak (woman) and rish'ah (wickedness).

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used it for the Baalim, it refers to the queen herself as "the wickedness" (hammirsha 'at). Surely this embodiment of wickedness in the apostate Athaliah is the historical model behind Zechariah's image of wickedness personified as the woman in the ephah.²²

C. Construction of the Shinar Shrine. Shinar, the exile destination of the captive woman, Wickedness (Zech. 5:11), was the site of postdiluvian humanity's ancient challenge against the Lord of Har-Magedon (Gen. 11:2; cf. 10:10; 14:1, 9),²³ The Babel project stands in Scripture as the representative attempt of an idolatrous world in revolt to exalt itself to heaven by its own strength for its own glory. It was a repudiation of the redemptive grace of God that had been manifested in his ark-covenant with Noah (Gen. 6:18) and it serves in the Genesis record as a foil for the immediately following narrative of the covenant of promise given to Abraham (Genesis 12ff.) Babel in the land of Shinar is the great apostasy. In the final days of Judah and its monarchy Nebuchadnezzar revived the ancient apostate ideology there in Babylon, the world city. It was to the land of Shinar that he carried the captives of Judah, along with the vessels of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, which he placed in the house of his god there (Dan. 1:2). That is the pattern reproduced in the visionary deportation of the woman in the ephah to the land of Shinar. For the harlot Wickedness to be reestablished in this Shinar location is to be absorbed back into the apostate, idol-worshipping world (cf. Deut. 28:36) from which Israel had been separated by national election and redemption.

Construction of a house for the apostates in Shinar at the close of the vision (v. 11) balances the destruction of their houses in Canaan in the first part of the vision. The houses destroyed by the curse-scroll had been virtual temples of Mammon, and in the account of the house prepared for the ephah in Shinar the Hebrew bayit is evidently used in the sense of "house of a god, temple." The god to be enshrined here is the same—Mammon, the idolized

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²² In Zech. 5:11 the ephah containing the woman is treated like an idol (see below). This might suggest that Zechariah's woman symbol was influenced by the fertility goddess Astarte, the Babylonian Ishtar. Queen of Heaven, whose worship in Judah and Jerusalem prompted God's fiery wrath (Jer. 7:16-20).

23 On this, see my "Messianic Avenger," Kerux 7:1 (1992) 24-27.

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treasures of this world represented by the ephah with the talent cover. Indicative of the cultic character of this house is the setting of the ephah on its "base" (mekunah). Such bases were features of temples in the historical background of Zechariah's visions. There were the bases from Solomon's temple that Nebuchadnezzar carried off (2 Kgs. 25:13-16; Jer. 52:17-20; 27:19-22; cf. 1 Kgs. 7:27ff.) and the base on which the altar was set in the restored temple (Ezra 3:1-3). Possibly the word ephah contains a hint that the house where it gets installed on its base is a temple, for a pun may be intended on the names of ziggurats in which the first element was E (Sumerian, "house"), and one of which (at Lagash) was E.pa, "summit house."²⁴

Curiously, no mention is made of the woman apart from the ephah at the destination in Shinar. Zech. 5:11 answers a question about the ephah (v. 10) and, therefore, the ephah is to be taken as the direct antecedent of the feminine pronouns in v. 11. Yet the woman held captive in the ephah would be implicitly included in the question (v. 10) and the answer (v. 11). Since nothing is said about the woman being released from the ephah she must share in the disposition made of it. Now the enshrinement of the ephah-god is an act of enthronement.²⁵ Agreeably, the verb used for depositing the ephah in Zech. 5:11 is nuach, from which derives menuchah, "resting place, rest," a term that denotes Yahweh's royal sabbatical session (1 Chr. 28:2; Ps. 132:7, 8, 13, 14; Isa. 66:1; cf. Exod. 20:11, where the verb nuach itself is used for God's Sabbath enthronement).²⁶ If then the woman shares in the treatment received by the ephah, she too would be enthroned at the prepared place. She would "sit a queen" (cf. Rev. 18:7) over the great city Babylon.

D. Reversal of the Exodus. Comparison with Israel's experience under Moses once again proves instructive. What we found in comparing the flying

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²⁴ The ziggurat motif is found in the parallel second vision, on which see note 23.

25 In the Babylon setting, the preparation of a house for deity recalls the account in Enuma Elish of the construction at that site of Esagila for royal Marduk.

26 Isa. 66:1 is an especially close parallel to Zech. 5:11, for it too combines with the resting-place terminology the idea of building a house as a place of enthronement.

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scroll with the tenth plague episode, namely, formal similarity in the phenomena but with totally opposite effect on the Israelites, we find again in comparing the flying ephah with the exodus deliverance. The image of the soaring stork-winged women carrying the ephah recalls the eagles' wings on which the Lord bore the Israelites on their way out of Egypt, through the sea and wilderness. Like the flying scroll, the flying women with the ephah bring to mind the cherubim-winged chariot-cloud of the Lord.²⁷ But whereas the flying scroll represented the divine Presence, the flying escort of the apostate Israelites in Zechariah 5, though used by God as his agent of judgment, is a demonic impostor. It is an anti-Glory Spirit. It does not shepherd a flock to the promised inheritance in Canaan (cf. Ps. 78:52-55) but marches a captive band far off to unholy Babylon, away from the true sanctuary on Zion's mount of assembly to a shrine belonging to the pseudo-Har-Magedon ziggurat tradition of Shinar.

Envisaged as the final objective of the exodus redemption was the preparing of a dwelling for the Glory-Presence enthroned between the cherubim above the ark containing the covenant revelation, the ark with golden "mercy-seat" cover bespeaking atonement. A satanic antithesis of this looms at the end of the Zechariah 5 deportation: the preparation of a house for the enshrinement of the idol-ephah, the ephah with lead cover bespeaking alienation and confining within the personified revolt against the covenant.

Exile-repudiation, a complete reversal of the exodus-redemption—that is the fate of the accursed apostates. How this plays out in history is not disclosed in Zechariah's sixth vision. Zechariah 5:11 hints at a future for the woman Wickedness enthroned in the Shinar shrine. Another chapter in the story of the harlot Babylon is adumbrated here, something beyond the end of the old era in the 70 A.D. destruction of the temple, a mystery that unfolds in the apocalyptic visions of the new covenant.

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²⁷ One thinks too of the similar yet dissimilar experience of Elijah. The ephah's aerial escort with the wind in their wings mimics the prophet's rapture by whirlwind in the chariot of fire (2 Kgs. 2:1, 11). But the destinations are polar opposites: Elijah translated to heaven and the ephah transported to a station on the way to hell.

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The Speaking Priest

Luke 1:67

(Scripture Reading: Malachi 3:1-5; Luke 1:57-80)

John W. Mahaffy

God broke his 400 year silence by sending Gabriel to Zechariah with good news. But when the priest's faith staggered, he was struck silent until the birth of his son. As his speech was restored, the first words from his mouth were faith-filled praises.

Believe because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Believe the good news! Gabriel's news had been overwhelming to Zechariah, and he was struck mute until the birth of his son, John.

The punishment worked faith in Zechariah. Picture his frustration at the inability to speak. Imagine the embarrassment of living in a small Judean town and trying to explain (in writing and through gestures) to concerned and nosy neighbors that the reason you are unable to speak is that your faith was not great enough to accept the message of an angel that you and your aged wife were about to become parents! But during the nine months, Zechariah's faith grew. Every time he tried to speak and couldn't, he was reminded that at least one thing the angel had said was coming true. He came to believe, not only what became progressively obvious, that he and his wife were becoming parents, but also that this child would indeed be the fore-runner for the Messiah.

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God calls you to believe the good news that in his Son he is involved in your lives. He comes to deal with your deepest problem—the sin that separates you from a holy God. Remember that the trials in your life can be used to help nurture your trust in your God. Despite appearances, God has not abandoned you or this world in which you live.

But this faith is not self-initiated. Believe through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Luke emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit. Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks. The Spirit has been emphasized throughout the birth narratives: John will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, v. 15; Gabriel tells Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, v. 35; Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit as she greets Mary, v. 41; and (by implication) it is the Spirit-filled character of her yet unborn child that makes him leap for joy, v. 44. The words that Zechariah uses in his song of praise are taken from the Spirit-inspired Old Testament (see 2 Peter 1:21).

Note the role of the Spirit in the Luke-Acts volumes. These fillings in the birth narratives have an Old Testament character, where the Spirit does work, sometimes spectacularly, but still far less fully than in the New Testament. However, Jesus at his baptism will be filled with the Spirit for his calling of being the Messiah, Luke 3:22. And, when that work is completed, Volume 2 will open with another baptism of the Spirit—this time coming upon the church, so that it (and you, as part of it) can carry on the work that Jesus began to do (Acts 1:1-8). The work of the Messiah and the work of the Spirit are never contrasted. They never compete. Rather, they complement each other and cooperate in the closest possible way.

It had been the quiet working of the Spirit in the heart of Zechariah that had led him from doubt to trust. The same Spirit draws you to the Savior. You cannot respond appropriately to God's presence in your own wisdom and strength. The response of natural man to God's work is silence, unless it is words of rejection and rebellion. But God has poured out his Spirit. That Spirit does draw you to the Savior. As you give thanks for the birth of the Christ, rejoice also in the gift of the Spirit, who enables you to recognize him, to trust in him.

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Recognition involves obedience. Zechariah not only began to believe, he obeyed by naming his son "John," as the angel had commanded. The trust the Spirit works in your heart will be expressed in your life, or it is not genuine faith.

As that Spirit works, praise your God. Respond to God's message.

Mary's song in Luke 1 is a psalm or hymn. Zechariah's words are also poetic, but they are more in the nature of a prophecy. God not only acts, he also provides the interpretation of his activity, showing us what it means. (That pattern is repeated in the birth narratives, just as it characterizes the entire Scriptures.)

This song is a genuine composition by Zechariah. It reflects his being steeped in the Old Testament prophecies. Though some have claimed that this is a hymn of the church placed here in the mouth of Zechariah, note that this song has an Old Testament character. Salvation is described in terms of deliverance from enemies, vv. 71, 74, rather than the more explicit language of salvation from sin you would expect from an early Christian reflecting on the completed work of Christ.

At the heart of the song is the message that God has been faithful to his covenant promises. He is coming to be with his people, and this child is going to prepare the way for God. Luke includes this song in his Gospel because of the light it sheds on John's work, and ultimately Christ's. He wants Theophilus and you to understand. As you celebrate the season, respond verbally to what God has done. Confess your faith in Christ. Sing God's praises. Communicate the good news to neighbors and friends. Perhaps some are more open at this time of year.

As you respond, praise God for his salvation.

Zechariah's song is the Benedictus. He blesses God for his saving work. He draws from the rich songs of praise and prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament. Among the passages cited are Psalms 106:10, 45-46, 48; 119:9; Genesis 17:7; 22:16-17; Malachi 3:1; 4:2; Isaiah 9:2; 58:8; 60:1-2, though we do not have time today to examine those references in detail. Zechariah does grasp the fact that the covenant God had made with Abraham and had re-

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newed with David is now coming to fulfillment. The darkness of sin and ignorance of God is about to be pushed back by the dawning of the Lord's presence. This elderly priest has a sense of the unity of God's revelation in the Scriptures (a unity that Jesus would convey to his disciples after his resurrection, Luke 24:44, 45). His song is full of an awesome joy that all this is falling together. The son he holds in his arms is the herald, the messenger of the covenant, who prepares for the very presence of God!

Zechariah recognizes that he is seeing God bring his covenant promises and blessings to fulfillment. Yes, Zechariah had been familiar with these passages before. Now he knows they are being fulfilled.

Respond to God's presence by praising him. Your assembling as God's people to sound his praises is precisely what you should be doing as you reflect on God's great work in his Son. That response also involves repentance. The "preparing the way" of v. 76 is explained in v. 77 as the people gaining the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. That message will be elaborated as John commands the crowds to repent, Luke 3:3. The Spirit's instruction to you today is a similar command to turn to God in repentance and faith.

As a priest in Israel, Zechariah had a special calling to speak to the people for God and to God for the people. That task was interrupted by his silence, but, by faith and through the power of the Holy Spirit, was resumed in a more eloquent and meaningful way. Your knowledge of God's saving work is even richer than Zechariah's essentially Old Testament perspective. As you, the people of God, experience the power of the Spirit, as you trust the one who has become life-giving Spirit, can you respond with less than a voice of praise and a life of obedience?

Trinity Presbyterian Church of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Newberg, Oregon

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