Zechariah 5:5

"Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth."

Here is the introduction of a new vision. As we shall see, this vision is utterly unlike the previous one; and it is impossible to make any kind of satisfactory "pair" out of them. Most of the difficulty in this chapter springs from what is seen here. The only plausible interpretation which we have encountered is based upon the idea of "a pair" of visions in this chapter is that of McFadyen. He said:

"Behind this fantastic picture lies the profoundest moral insight. The prophet sees that the real enemy of a community is Sin, and that it is not sinners, nor even sins only, but Sin itself that must be banished."[17]

This view, of course, would make the woman in the ephah a type of personification of Sin; and we find all kinds of problems with that. Still, we can see merit in the proposition that in the vision of the flying roll God is dealing with explicit sins and sinners, and in the vision of the ephah being carried to Babylon a transfer of sin in the sense of an evil principle being far-removed from God's people. Despite such views, we shall deal with this second vision in Zechariah 5 as independent of the other. As Leupold understood them, "It is scarcely feasible to regard these two visions as two sides of but one vision."[18]