THE SIXTH VISION: THE WINGED VOLUME
(Chap. v. 1–4).
The religious and political obstacles being now removed from the future of Israel, Zechariah in the next two Visions beholds the land purged of its crime and wickedness. These Visions are very simple, if somewhat after the ponderous fashion of Ezekiel.
The first of them is the Vision of the removal of the curse brought upon the land by its civic criminals, especially thieves and perjurers—the two forms which crime takes in a poor and rude community like the colony of the returned exiles. The prophet tells us he beheld a roll flying. He uses the ordinary Hebrew name for the rolls of skin or parchment upon which writing was set down. But the proportions of its colossal size—twenty cubits by ten—prove that it was not a cylindrical but an oblong shape which he saw. It consisted, therefore, of sheets laid on each other like our books, and as our word “volume,” which originally meant, like his own term, a roll, means now an oblong article, we may use this in our translation. The volume is the record of the crime of the land, and Zechariah sees it flying from the land. But it is also the curse upon this crime, and so again he beholds it entering every thief’s and perjurer’s house and destroying it. Smend gives a possible explanation of this: “It appears that in ancient times curses were written on pieces of paper and sent down the wind into the houses”[859] of those against whom they were directed. But the figure seems rather to be of birds of prey.
And I turned and lifted my eyes and looked, and lo! a volume[860] flying. And he said unto me, What dost thou see? And I said, I see a volume flying, its length twenty cubits and its breadth ten. And he said unto me, This is the curse that is going out upon the face of all the land. For every thief is hereby purged away from hence,[861] and every perjurer is hereby purged away from hence. I have sent it forth—oracle of Jehovah of Hosts—and it shall enter the thief’s house, and the house of him that hath sworn falsely by My name, and it shall roost[862] in the midst of his house and consume it, with its beams and its stones.[863]
THE SEVENTH VISION: THE WOMAN IN THE BARREL
(Chap. v. 5–11).
It is not enough that the curse fly from the land after destroying every criminal. The living principle of sin, the power of temptation, must be covered up and removed. This is the subject of the Seventh Vision.
The prophet sees an ephah, the largest vessel in use among the Jews, of more than seven gallons capacity, and round[864] like a barrel. Presently the leaden top is lifted, and the prophet sees a woman inside. This is Wickedness, feminine because she figures the power of temptation. She is thrust back into the barrel, the leaden lid is pushed down, and the whole carried off by two other female figures, winged like the strong, far-flying stork, into the land of Shin‛ar, “which at that time had the general significance of the counterpart of the Holy Land,”[865] and was the proper home of all that was evil.
And the angel of Jehovah who spake with me came forward[866] and said to me, Lift now thine eyes and see what this is that comes forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is a bushel coming forth. And he said, This is their transgression[867] in all the land.[868] And behold! the round leaden top was lifted up, and lo![869] a woman sitting inside the bushel. And he said, This is the Wickedness, and he thrust her back into the bushel, and thrust the leaden disc upon the mouth of it. And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! two women came forth with the wind in their wings, for they had wings like storks’ wings, and they bore the bushel betwixt earth and heaven. And I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither do they carry the bushel? And he said to me, To build it a house in the land of Shin‛ar, that it may be fixed and brought to rest there on a place of its own.[870]
We must not allow this curious imagery to hide from us its very spiritual teaching. If Zechariah is weighted in these Visions by the ponderous fashion of Ezekiel, he has also that prophet’s truly moral spirit. He is not contented with the ritual atonement for sin, nor with the legal punishment of crime. The living power of sin must be banished from Israel; and this cannot be done by any efforts of men themselves, but by God’s action only, which is thorough and effectual. If the figures by which this is illustrated appear to us grotesque and heavy, let us remember how they would suit the imagination of the prophet’s own day. Let us lay to heart their eternally valid doctrine, that sin is not a formal curse, nor only expressed in certain social crimes, nor exhausted by the punishment of these, but, as a power of attraction and temptation to all men, it must be banished from the heart, and can be banished only by God.