NOTES for Zec 5:1-11

In the fifth and sixth chapters, the visions of the prophet Zechariah reveal another aspect of the coming of the Messiah: the day of the Lord will be a day of destruction for all evil, a day of judgment for human sin. Frightening and incomprehensible, these images of a scroll containing a curse over the face of the whole earth, and a measure filled with wickedness, signify the impossibility for evil and sin to exist in the coming Kingdom of Christ.

The scroll, judging by the words of the prophet, is a word of truth that exterminates theft and deceit, destroying violence mixed with lies. This scroll signifies the manifestation of God's Truth, in the light of which no untruth can exist. It is highly important that the prophet places this vision first after the words about the manifestation of the Messiah, the King and the Priest. For "ordinary" people, who often resort to lies as a means of achieving their goals, this Word of Truth sounds primarily as a word of denunciation, destructive to the one who builds his life on plunder and deceit. But for Zechariah, another aspect is also important: like a bitter medicine, it heals the world from the dominion of the untruth of people that poisons it. In the New Testament, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ correspond to the cleansing from lies foreseen by the prophet: "The judgment consists in this, that light has come into the world" (John 3:19).

An ephah, an ancient measure of dry capacity, is filled with wickedness, personified by a certain woman. This measure is established in Babylonia (Shinar is one of the forms of the ancient name of the country of Sumer), and Jerusalem is freed from this wickedness. A whole range of biblical images, closely related to the realities of the prophet's contemporary life, echoes this vision. Judging by what the prophet reports, first of all, this image should be correlated with the harlot of Babylon in chapters 17-18 of Revelation. A symbol of wickedness, she towers over tribes and nations, as the Babylonian ziggurats towered over them. Undoubtedly, this image of the harlot personifies paganism, especially its most abominable manifestations.

Paganism, the worship of creatures, and fornication are closely related things for the entire Bible. The second almost always acts in it as a symbol, almost a synonym for the first. 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. For a long time, this cult evoked a feeling of horror and disgust among the Israelites and was considered an extreme form of spiritual and moral fall.

And so the prophet sees that the harlot personifying this pagan cult is removed from Jerusalem to Babylon: paganism, which had been a huge temptation for believers for centuries, disappears. Cleansed, the land of Israel receives the right to be called the Holy Land, and it is Zechariah who uses this term for the first time. And this liberation of the land from pagan temptation is also connected with the coming enthronement of the Messiah, into Whose Temple all nations will come to glorify the One True God.