Zechariah 5 Commentary
Please choose a passage:
Zechariah 5:1-4
Zechariah sees a flying scroll with curses written on each side. The scroll is the instrument through which the LORD will punish thieves and those who abuse His name by making false oaths.
Zechariah 5:5-11
Zechariah sees a woman in a basket who personifies the wickedness of the land of Judah. He also sees two other women grabbing the basket and flying into the sky like winged storks to transport it to Shinar (Babylon).
Additional Resources
The book of Zechariah begins with a title verse providing information concerning the date, authorship, and source of the revelation. It states that the prophecy occurred in the eighth month of the second year of Darius (vs 1). The biblical material likely dates the prophetic message according to the regnal year of the Persian king because there was no king in Judah during that time. Judah had been conquered by Babylon, which in turn had been taken over by Persia (Daniel 5:30-31).
The term prophet [“nābî” in Hebrew] means “proclaimer” or “forth-teller.” It describes someone who received a call from God to be God’s spokesman. A prophet was God’s emissary. He had a particular calling to see or hear what God was saying, live it out in his life, and proclaim it to the people roundabout. That means the prophet could not speak from his authority and was not free to say what he pleased. Rather, he was to discern what God thought about a given situation, what His attitude was toward the people’s behavior in the past, what He required of them in the present, and how He would act in their favor in the future.
This chapter records the sixth and seventh visions of Zechariah. In the sixth vision, the prophet sees a scroll flying through the sky with curses written on each side. The scroll is a curse signifying that God will judge the wicked ones of Judah to purify the land. In the seventh vision, Zechariah sees a woman, here a symbol of the people’s sin, confined in a basket and transported by two winged women. The action signifies that God will remove the sin of the Judeans and take it to Babylonia. The outline is as follows:
- Zechariah sees a flying scroll with curses written on each side. The scroll is the instrument through which the LORD will punish thieves and those who abuse His name by making false oaths.
- Zechariah sees a woman in a basket who personifies the wickedness of Judah. He also sees two other women grabbing the basket and flying into the sky like winged storks to transport it to Shinar (Babylon). The action means that the LORD will remove the sin of Judah and take it to Babylonia.
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