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Zechariah, Prophet of God's remembrance, part 15

In Zechariah 5:4 we read of the “house” occupied by the thief and blasphemer, which the flying scroll had cursed. The curse of the law, of course, refers to divine judgement. (See Deuteronomy 29:27.) This is immediately followed by a vision of the house of lawlessness that is depicted in terms of a woman in an ephah, a basket holding about eight English bushels.

Zechariah 5:5-8 says,

⁵ Then the angel who was speaking with me went out and said to me, “Lift up now your eyes and see what this is going forth.” ⁶ I said, “What is it?” And he said, “This is the ephah going forth [yatsa, “exiting, departing”].” Again he said, “This is their appearance [ayin, “eye, manifestation”] in all the land. ⁷ (and behold, a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting [yasab, “dwelling”] inside the ephah.” ⁸ Then he said, “This is Wickedness [reshaw, iniquity]! And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and cast the lead weight on its opening.

Here the concept of lawlessness is depicted as a woman, not because women are necessarily lawless, but because in Hebrew thought abstractions are often portrayed as a woman. We see this, for example, in Proverbs 2:16 and 5:3, 4. The implication is that this woman is a harlot, and, as we will see shortly, she was carried to the land of Shinar, that is, Babylon. She is, therefore, to be identified with the great harlot of Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17:15 with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication.

This woman of lawlessness is thus linked to the kings (rulers) of the nations who are guilty of fornication with her. Together, these kings of the earth are the “man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,

³ Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.

Hence, whereas Zechariah’s vision reveals the harlot woman, John’s vision is more complete, as we would expect. The harlot suggests a “man of lawlessness” lurking in the background, but John is more explicit about this. Revelation 18:3 says,

³ For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.

The woman (harlot) is said to dwell in the ephah, which is pictured as her house; yet it also says that the angel “threw her down into the middle of the ephah.” An ephah is a dry measure of capacity, usually of grain, suggesting that the harlot’s measure of iniquity had reached its fulness. Recall the law of equal weights, measures and capacity included having “a just ephah” (Leviticus 19:36). One’s capacity to be filled with the Spirit is the positive side of this. The negative side is about the fulness of iniquity. So Genesis 15:16 tells Abraham,

¹⁶ Then in the fourth generation they will return here [to Canaan], for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete [shalem, “complete, full”].

The ephah metaphor, then, applied to the woman in question, suggests an end-time prophecy when the iniquity of the great harlot of Mystery Babylon has reached its full measure. This condition lasts a long time, ending finally at the end of the age, when God sets the nations free from her power and when men may return (i.e., repent) to rebuild the heavenly Jerusalem here on the earth. Revelation 18:4, 5 says,

⁴ I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; ⁵ for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”

There are two ways that God remembers. Under the Old Covenant, God remembers the vow of obedience in Exodus 19:8, and because the people fail to fulfill their vow, God remembers their iniquity. Yet for those under the New Covenant, which is God’s vow to man, He remembers His own vow to those who claim the New Covenant and the righteousness of Christ on our behalf.

In the case above, God remembers the harlot’s iniquities, along with those who “participate in her sins.” But those who adhere to the New Covenant are those who are no longer being judged, for God is not required to remember their failed vows. They have been justified by faith in the promise of God (Romans 4:21, 22).

Those who repent are those who fulfill the prophecies of returning to build Jerusalem. Since the day that Christ mediated the New Covenant by His death and resurrection, it is no longer possible to fulfill the command of God to “return” except to return to God, as Isaiah often says. This is a return to the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly city which is in bondage even today.

The Lead Cover

When the measure of lawlessness has reached full capacity, then the angel will throw her into the ephah and seal her house with a lead disk. Why is it made of lead? Perhaps this is a prophetic way of showing how she must be confined in an atmosphere of nuclear fallout. Those outside of the ephah are thus shielded from it, even as they ought to be shielded from her immorality.

The Mission of the Two Winged Women

Zechariah 5:9-11 says,

⁹ Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and there two women were coming out with wind in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. ¹⁰ I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the ephah?” ¹¹ Then he said to me, “To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.”

This appears to have more than one application and fulfillment. The first application seems to show how God was confining the harlot to Babylon for the purpose of building a figurative temple for her. She will sit “on her own pedestal,” that is, on her throne until her cup of iniquity is full and complete. In other words, this took place long ago, giving men the opportunity to worship the harlot during the long captivity to the four beast nations described in Daniel 7.

Only at the end of this long captivity, when the harlot’s cup of iniquity is full, will God judge her for her sin. In fact, the kings of the earth who had been seduced by her will then turn against her and “will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire” (Revelation 17:16). Why? The answer is given in Revelation 17:17,

¹⁷ For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.

God allows the harlot to seduce the nations until the time of the end. Then God opens their eyes so that the beast nations themselves overthrow the harlot and treat her as Jezebel. Jezebel was eaten by dogs (2 Kings 9:35). Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal (1 Kings 16:31), the priest-king of Sidon in Phoenicia. As a king-priest, Ethbaal was a counterfeit Melchizedek. Jezebel, his daughter, was not burned with fire, but she represented prophetically the harlot of Revelation who is to be judged in that manner, according to the law in Leviticus 21:9,

⁹ Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.

We see, then, that Zechariah’s vision does not give us a complete picture of prophecy. We must also study Revelation 17 and 18 to get a more complete understanding of the woman in the ephah.