Zechariah 5:6-7

The prophet asked what he saw was, and the angel replied that it was an ephah, a basket that held about a half bushel (or five gallons) of dry (or liquid) material (cf. 1 Samuel 1:24; Ruth 2:17). Some authorities contend that an ephah was slightly more than a bushel. The ephah was the largest dry measure among the Hebrews, and its use here suggests that Israel’s sins had accumulated greatly in Zechariah’s day. [Note: The New Scofield . . ., p. 967.] The angel lifted up the lead cover on top of the basket and revealed a woman sitting inside. A lead cover would be heavier than the customary stone cover and would guarantee that what was inside would not get out. Either the ephah was oversized, like the flying scroll, or the woman was a miniature in Zechariah’s vision. Perhaps God used an ephah in the vision simply because it was a standard container that people used to carry things in, similar to a barrel. Some commentators have seen in the ephah a particular allusion to commercial malpractice, since the ephah was used in commerce, but this may be over exegeting the text.

"The woman, made visible by the lifting of the lead cover, is still, like the evil she represents, mostly hidden from sight." [Note: Baldwin, p. 128.]

The angel further explained that this is what the ephah and its contents would resemble as they went forth in all the earth.

"As in the preceding vision, the earth (ha’arets) designates not merely Palestine, although this is the primary reference, and the removal of godless commercialism is first and foremost from ’the land,’ which will then be in reality ’the Holy Land’ (Zechariah 2:12 [16]); but more broadly the term points to the entire millennial earth." [Note: Unger, p. 94.]