NOTES for Zec 5:1-11

In chapters 5 and 6, the prophet Zechariah's visions reveal another aspect of the Messiah's coming: the Day of the Lord will be a day of destruction for every evil, a day of judgement upon human sin. Frightening and hard to understand, these images of a scroll bearing a curse over the face of the whole earth and a measure filled with wickedness signify the impossibility of evil and sin existing in Christ's coming Kingdom.

Judging by the prophet's words, the scroll is a word of righteousness that eradicates theft and deceit, destroying violence founded on lies. It signifies the revelation of God's Truth, in whose light no falsehood can exist. It is very important that the prophet places this vision first after the words about the appearance of the Messiah, King and Priest. To ‘ordinary’ people, who often use lies as a means of achieving their ends, this Word of Truth sounds first of all like a word of rebuke, fatal to anyone who builds their life on plunder and deceit. But another aspect also matters to the prophet: like a bitter medicine, it heals the world of the domination of human falsehood that poisons it. In the New Testament, the cleansing from lies foreseen by the prophet corresponds to the Lord Jesus Christ's words, ‘And this is the judgement: light has come into the world’ (Jn 3:19).

The ephah, an ancient dry measure, is filled with wickedness personified by a woman. This measure is set up in Babylonia—Shinar is one form of the ancient name of the land of Sumer—and Jerusalem is freed from this wickedness. A whole series of biblical images is connected with this vision, itself closely linked to the realities of life in the prophet's time. Judging by what he reports, this image should first of all be related to the harlot of Babylon in chapters 17–18 of Revelation. A symbol of wickedness, she towers over tribes and nations as Babylonian ziggurats towered over them. Undoubtedly this image of the harlot personifies paganism, especially its most repulsive manifestations.

Paganism, the worship of the creature, and sexual immorality are closely linked throughout the Bible. The latter almost always appears as a symbol, almost a synonym, of the former. Most likely this connection is rooted in the cult of the Great Goddess of fertility, widespread throughout the biblical East and often taking the form of the most unbridled debauchery. This cult had long aroused horror and revulsion among the Israelites and was regarded as the most extreme form of spiritual and moral degradation. Now the prophet sees the harlot personifying this pagan cult being removed from Jerusalem to Babylon: paganism, a great temptation to believers for centuries, disappears. Purified, the land of Israel gains the right to be called the Holy Land, and it is Zechariah who first uses this term. This liberation of the land from pagan temptation is also connected with the Messiah's coming enthronement; all nations will come to His Temple to glorify the one true God.