Zechariah 5:8-10

8. The interpreter proceeds to explain the significance of the woman.

This is wickedness The wickedness of the whole land (Zechariah 5:6) is personified in the one woman. As the cover is lifted up she begins to rise, but the angel throws her back and makes escape impossible by replacing the lid upon the mouth, that is, the opening of the ephah.

Weight of lead Literally, the stone of lead; synonymous with “round piece of lead” in Zechariah 5:7.

Zechariah 5:9-10 describe the removal of the ephah from the land.

Then lifted I up mine eyes This phrase introduces not a new vision, but a new phase of the same vision. Looking up from the ephah, he beholds two new figures appearing upon the scene.

Two women These women have no special symbolical significance; they appear only as the agents appointed to remove the ephah. Women are selected rather than men because a woman is in the ephah, two women because one alone could not have carried the burden.

Wings To enable the women to move more quickly, they were supplied with wings. The air would offer fewer obstacles than the land; besides, the wind of heaven might assist creatures flying through the air in their movements.

Like the wings of a stork The stork is introduced not because he is an unclean bird (Leviticus 11:19), but on account of the great size of his wings.

The wind was in their wings That they might proceed with greater swiftness.

Between the earth and the heaven That is, in the air. Thus the women began their journey.

As they move away the prophet inquires where they are going, to which the angel makes answer. 11.

To build it [“her”] a house The pronoun refers primarily to the ephah, but includes the contents, the woman, for houses are built ordinarily for human beings. The building of a house implies that the stay is to be permanent.

In the land of Shinar Babylonia (Genesis 10:10; Genesis 11:2); the home of the long-time enemy of the people of God, the land of exile. Sin, which had brought serious disaster upon Judah, is to be removed to the land of the enemy, there to cause distress and destruction. That the stay is to be permanent is further indicated in the second half of the verse. R.V. is to be preferred: “and when it is prepared, she shall be set there in her own place.”

When it is prepared (R.V.) That is, the house.

She shall be set there (R.V.) The woman (and the ephah).

In her own place (R.V.) In the house erected for her use.