Zechariah 5:4

"I will cause it to go forth, saith Jehovah of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name; and it shall abide in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof."

"It will enter into the house ... etc." The thought is that there shall be no escape for violators of the Word of God. Not merely the offender, but his very dwelling place shall be consumed. In the community where this writer was reared, there are numerous examples of this very thing having occurred. Some of the most impressive houses in that community, where lived some who seemed not to know God, are today gone; and the oldest citizens of the area dispute even the locations of some of them.

"Him that sweareth falsely by my name ..." This suggests the Ninth Commandment, not the Third, as in Zechariah 5:3; and, for this reason, the "swearing" in both verses is understood by some as "bearing false witness against a neighbor," or as taking an oath to support a falsehood. We believe this viewpoint is wrong; for it turns out that "falsely" is one of those supplied words by which translators are continually improving(?) the Bible.

"The word `falsely,' which is not in the Hebrew text of the O.T. (the original Hebrew text), should certainly be supplied, and probably also `by my name' (Zechariah 5:4). Zechariah singles out one moral and one religious sin as typical of sin generally.[14]"

By changing the prohibition to "swearing falsely" in this verse, however, the result is that both violations are "moral" lapses.

"The house of the thief ... and shall consume it ..." Efforts to make this passage a blessing instead of a curse are seen in such comments as the following:

"The universal function of the scroll is shown in its coming "to the house of the thief" and to the perjurer. It shall remain in their houses and "complete it" (Consume, that is, complete the purging) both of the wood and the stones of the house."[15]

Such interpretations are not acceptable. If the function of the flying roll's entering the house of an evildoer was "to forgive him," cleanse him, and save him, how could the wood and stones of his dwelling have participated in such a blessing? No, the very mention of the timber and stones forbids such a view. Furthermore, it is simply not a fact that "consume" ever meant, or even possibly could mean, "to complete the purging."

As for those fanciful, preposterous interpretations which find millennial promises in this passage, Keil stated that: "There is no allusion in our vision to the millennial kingdom, and its establishment within the limits of the earthly Canaan."[16]