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The Hebrew word hinneh appears frequently in Zechariah’s vision sequence. Almost every time the angelic messenger caught Zechariah’s attention, the messenger introduced the vision with hinneh (1:8; 2:1,5; 4:2; 5:1, 9; 6:1). Hinneh is a common biblical word, occurring over 800 times in the Old Testament.
In English bibles, there are three different translation approaches to hinneh, but no English word perfectly captures the Hebrew word. The King James Version translates hinneh as “behold.” Because “behold” has mostly fallen out of modern English usage, newer translations like the New Living Translation and the International Standard Version swap out “behold” for “look” or “see.” However, “look” and “see” lack the weightiness of the Hebrew command. Hinneh really conveys “look, I am about to show you something important.” No single English word captures that directive completely.
I appreciate modern translations, such as the English Standard Version, which kept “behold” despite their stepping away from archaic language in other ways. The King James “behold” is so familiar that it has become normalized in the minds of Bible readers. My least favorite translation method is to leave hinneh untranslated, as the New International Version does.
Word-for-word translations are not always necessary, but grasping the poetry of the prophets includes maintaining their repetitive nature. The King James Version of Zechariah 5:1 reads, “Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll” (5:1, KJV). The New International Version, trying to cut out the repetition, reads, “I looked again, and there before me was a flying scroll” (5:1, NIV).
Sixth vision
Zechariah’s sixth vision opens with a flying scroll. An anonymous speaker in the vision, possibly the angelic messenger from other visions, was asking Zechariah to identify what he saw. Zechariah told him the dimensions of the flying scroll: 20 cubits by 10 cubits (5:2). A cubit was the standard unit of measurement in Bible times, equal to about 18 inches, the distance from the elbow to the fingertips. In our terms of measurement, the unfurled scroll was 30 by 15 feet (or 10 x 5 meters).
Somehow Zechariah had estimated the dimensions of the scroll while it was in flight. These dimensions may have served as a connection between the scroll and the temple or tabernacle. The porch of Solomon’s Temple also had these dimensions (1 Kings 6:3). The exact dimensions of the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle are hard to discern from Exodus (26:5-18), but some scholars believe this sacred space was also 20 by 10 cubits. If the vision was intentionally correlating the scroll with the temple, the deeper meaning was that God’s written revelation was to be upheld as sacred, just as the temple and tabernacle were.
Another possibility is that Zechariah was simply partial to numbers. In his visions, the numbers may have reflected nothing in particular but were merely part of his literary style. His visions had included four horseman, four horns, seven lamps with seven channels, two trees, four chariots, and two crowns.
The messenger connected the scroll to “the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land” (5:3). Zechariah was correlating with other prophets by calling back to the ceremony of blessings and curses at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. After the Israelites had entered Canaan, they had marked the occasion with a covenant renewal ceremony, reciting the blessings they would gain from obedience and the curses they would incur if they violated the regulations (Deut. 27). The covenant renewal ceremony was a watershed moment in Israel’s history that was retold at every major event as a reminder of their national origin story.
Scrolls from the sixth century BCE only featured writing on one side; scribes didn’t begin to ink both sides until the Roman period. The detail in the text, that the scroll had a message scrawled across each side, adds to the surreal nature of the gargantuan flying scroll. From Zechariah’s standpoint, both messages were legible. On one side was a warning to all thieves. The other side was a warning to citizens who swore falsely in God’s name (5:3). Both the thieves and blasphemers had gone unpunished, but Yahweh would not tolerate their violations any longer. He was sending a curse to purge these sinners from the land.
Two commandments
If a banner-like scroll was flying across the sky to grab the attention of every onlooker, why did it only address two of the 10 commandments? Why did the prophet only read off the third and eighth commandments? Stealing and lying under oath may have been legally linked in the Persian period. As waves of exiles were returning to Judah and reclaiming their ancestral homes and land, it is likely that there were abuses. Were people stealing the property of others, swearing falsely that certain lands and homes were their own? Any justice system would have difficulty in proving ownership after 70 years of exile. If an honor system was faulty because the people lacked integrity, the system of reclaiming ancestral land would collapse.
Another possibility is that stealing represented a violation of man’s relationship with man. Swearing falsely in the name of God represented a violation of man’s relationship with God. Since Mount Sinai, the Jewish people had emphasized the sanctity of God’s name. No one was to invoke God’s name insecurely or even casually when making an oath. Together, these two commandments covered the whole scope of the law. They may have been evoked to serve as a reminder of the broader mandate behind all the covenant regulations: love God and love your neighbor. To start anew, God expected the postexilic nation to abide by the laws safeguarding their relationships with him and with each other.
Yahweh informed Zechariah that he would punish the guilty. Yahweh said he was sending the curse of the flying scroll to “abide in that house and consume it, both timber and stones” (5:4). The scroll was transformed from a messaging tool into a punishing weapon. The punisher didn’t pass over the house in the vision, unlike the Angel of Death had passed over the homes of the Israelites in Egypt. “It” lodged in the home for the night, dismantling every piece of timber and wood until nothing remained.
Using the introduction hinneh, the angelic messenger asked Zechariah to look up and identify the aerial object in the next vision, a flying ephah. The prophet beheld a flying basket “coming out” (5:5), or “going forth” (ESV). An ephah was a common tool of measurement for buying, selling, and storing grain. Ephahs were used in the fields, in storage units, and at the markets, as well as in the temple sanctuary, where they were used to measure offerings. Before the exile, the ephah was equivalent to about five gallons of dry goods. After the exile, the meaning of ephah had changed to mean almost any size basket.
The angelic messenger explained to Zechariah that the basket symbolized the sin of the people (5:6). Lifting the lid to the basket, the angel discovered a woman crouched inside, who was identified as Wickedness. Apparently, the woman had been in the basket the whole time, without the prophet’s knowledge. She must have stood up because the angel thrust her into the basket and sealed it with a weighted lid (5:8). Wickedness was trying to enter the restored community in Judah, but the angel’s job was to keep wickedness out.
Scholars believe a woman was used to personify wickedness because the noun in Hebrew is feminine. Some commentaries take this identification further, connecting the woman to Eve, or to the local goddess Asherah (Ishtar). The angelic mediator’s job was to elucidate all the meaningful aspects of the visions. If the angelic mediator did not identify the woman with anything other than wickedness, readers should not presume to know more than the divine tour guide.
With wickedness shut up in the ephah, two women with stork-like wings appeared with “wind in their wings” (5:9). The Hebrew word for wind, ru’ah, is the same as the word for God’s spirit, so either wind or the spirit of God assisted the wings, which lifted the basket and flew “between earth and sky” (5:9). In prophetic speech, “between earth and sky” was the place where the earthly and spiritual realms touched (Ezek. 8:3).
Shinar
The winged women transported the basket to Shinar, the ancient name for the land of Babylon (5:11). From the earliest of days, the people of Yahweh had equated Babylon or “the land of Shinar” with the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11). Babel was the capital of human arrogance and rebellion against God, but the Bible writers also credited it as the cradle of human civilization.
The Bible had a certain respect for Babylon’s antiquity, evidenced in the story of King Nimrod and his brilliant success in the land of Babylon (Gen. 10:8-12). Despite that, the Bible portrays Babylon as inherently evil from its beginning. The Babylonian Empire’s destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE was a continuation of her rebellion against Yahweh. Exiling the people of Judah to Babylon was the ultimate insult. Their rebellion landed them in the heart of godlessness.
During the exile, the Babylonians’ religious and cultural practices influenced the Judeans. The stories in the book of Daniel all transpired in Babylon’s elite circles, and yet Daniel upheld the covenant even while in exile. Had there been other Jews who could not resist bowing to golden statues or eating unclean foods? We know from Jeremiah that the exiles in Egypt had blatantly worshiped Egyptian goddesses and ridiculed the prophet for trying to correct their ways (Jer. 44). The same thing may have been going on in Babylon’s urban areas. Zechariah’s vision symbolizes the removal of foreign pagan practices from the community. The winged women deposited wickedness on her own pedestal in a shrine built for her in Shinar, returning evil back to its birthplace.
The flying scroll vision and the flying ephah sent the same message. God had promised to restore the people, the temple, and all of Judah, but the community had to do their part in pursuing holiness, shunning wickedness, and keeping the covenant. In vision four, God had reminded them he had forgiven them and that they were not responsible for the sins of their forefathers. However, he cautioned them against repeating past mistakes.
The flying scroll served as the Public Service Announcement to remind the community that the covenant was mutual (Deut. 29:19-20). Obedience secured blessing; disobedience invited a second exile. The woman in the basket served as an example of the punishment for wickedness in the community, which would be banishment. Diligence in eradicating the wicked was necessary to prevent another exile.