Zechariah 4:2

4:2 He asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, ¹  “I see a menorah of pure gold with a receptacle at the top and seven lamps, with fourteen pipes going to the lamps.

Zechariah 5:6

5:6 I asked, “What is it?” And he replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain ²  that is moving away from here.” Moreover, he said, “This is their ‘eye’ ³  throughout all the earth.”

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¹ tc The present translation (along with most other English versions) follows the reading of the Qere and many ancient versions, “I said,” as opposed to the MT Kethib “he said.”

² tn Heb “[This is] the ephah.” An ephah was a liquid or solid measure of about a bushel (five gallons or just under twenty liters). By metonymy it refers here to a measuring container (probably a basket) of that quantity.

³ tc The LXX and Syriac read עֲוֹנָם (’avonam, “their iniquity,” so NRSV; NIV similar) for the MT עֵינָם (’enam, “their eye”), a reading that is consistent with the identification of the woman in v. 8 as wickedness, but one that is unnecessary. In 4:10 the “eye” represented divine omniscience and power; here it represents the demonic counterfeit.