Zechariah 5:10-11

When Zechariah asked the angel where the two flying women were taking the basket, his interpreter responded that they were taking the woman to the land of Shinar (Babylonia, cf. Genesis 10:10; Genesis 11:2; Genesis 14:1; Genesis 14:9).

"Shinar, besides taking the theme of Babylon as antagonist back to the very beginning (Genesis 10:10), creating thereby a kind of ’historical inclusio,’ lends a more trans-historical sense to the message." [Note: Merrill, p. 178. Cf. Revelation 14:8; 17:1, 5, 18; 18:8, 10, 19, 21.]

Leupold took Shinar as representing the world in contrast to the church. [Note: Leupold, p. 108.] These two women with storks’ wings were God’s agents carrying out His will (cf. Psalms 103:11-12; Jeremiah 32:39-40; Ezekiel 36:25). At the appointed time the woman Wickedness would set atop a pedestal as an object of worship, an idol (cf. Revelation 17-18).

"Thus where Judah had been exiled was a fitting place for wickedness to be worshipped, but not in the land where God had placed his name. The idolatry of Babylon must once and for all be separated from the worship of the God of Israel." [Note: David J. Ellis, "Zechariah," in The New Layman’s Bible Commentary, p. 1034.]

"We understand the passage to speak of the heaping up of the full measure of Israel’s sins prior to the time of God’s separation of the wicked from the midst of the righteous remnant of the last days." [Note: Feinberg, God Remembers, p. 89.]

"The two cleansing acts of this chapter are complementary, like the two goats on the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16, of which the first must give its blood as an expiation before the Lord, while the second carries away the guilt of the people, and the impurity springing from it, to the region of the impure desert-demon. The cleansing judgment, despite the terror, is a benefit to the land, which is thus purified and fitted to receive the blessing pictured in the former visions." [Note: C. von Orelli, The Twelve Minor Prophets, p. 335.]