Zechariah 5:6-11
5:6 I asked, “What is it?” And he replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain 1 that is moving away from here.” Moreover, he said, “This is their ‘eye’ 2 throughout all the earth.”
5:7 Then a round lead cover was raised up, revealing a woman sitting inside the basket.
5:8 He then said, “This woman represents wickedness,” and he pushed her down into the basket and placed the lead cover on top.
5:9 Then I looked again and saw two women 3 going forth with the wind in their wings (they had wings like those of a stork) and they lifted up the basket between the earth and the sky.
5:10 I asked the messenger who was speaking to me, “Where are they taking the basket?”
5:11 He replied, “To build a temple 4 for her in the land of Babylonia. 5 When it is finished, she will be placed there in her own residence.”
1 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.
2 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.
3 sn Here two women appear as the agents of the Lord because the whole scene is feminine in nature. The Hebrew word for “wickedness” in v. 8 (רִשְׁעָה) is grammatically feminine, so feminine imagery is appropriate throughout.
4 tn Heb “house” (so NIV, NRSV, CEV).
5 sn The land of Babylonia (Heb “the land of Shinar”) is another name for Sumer and Akkad, where Babylon was located (Gen 10:10). Babylon throughout the Bible symbolizes the focus of anti-God sentiment and activity (Gen 11:4; 14:1; Isa 13–14; 47:1-3; Jer 50–51; Rev 14:8; 17:1, 5, 18; 18:21).