Michael Stead ( The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1-8 (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) ) points to a number of intertexual connections between Ezekiel 1-11 and the vision of Zechariah 5:5-11.  He concludes that the vision of Zechariah is an inversion of the Ezekiel’s vision of Yahweh’s departing glory: “Ezekiel 1-11 describes the departure of Yahweh from Jerusalem because of the idolatry (Ezek 8), iniquity (Ezek 4) and wickedness (Ezek 5) of his people, and his departure is attended by... Read more

Zechariah uses the word “lord” or “master” ( adon ) seven times in the first six chapters of his prophecy (1:9, 4:4, 5, 13, 14; 6:4-5).  The word appears in the first, the fifth, and the eighth of Zechariah’s night visions, beginning, middle, end. Five of the seven uses are in Zechariah’s conversations with the interpreting angel, the “angel who was speaking with me.” In two cases, however, the angel uses the word, and in both cases he refers to... Read more

Zechariah’s scroll brings curses to those who “steal” and “swear falsely in My name” (5:3-4).  Those same sins appear together in Leviticus 19, and also, significantly, in Jeremiah 7:9.  There, Jeremiah lists thieves and false swearers among the “robbers” who have made the temple their den. Yahweh’s house is going to be destroyed as a result of their sins. In Zechariah too there is a threat against houses.  The curses will light on the houses of thieves and false swearers,... Read more

Zechariah’s flying scroll is written with curses.  Another place where curses are written down is Numbers 5, the jealousy test for a woman suspected of adultery.  The verb “cut off” or “purged” ( naqah ) in Zechariah 5:3 is also used in Numbers 5, to describe the status of the woman who has passed the jealousy test: She is “free” of guilt (Numbers 5:19) and “free” to bear children (5:28). Zechariah’s flying scroll is a jealousy test.  It flies over... Read more

The woman Wickedness is carried from the land in an ephah covered with a lead weight (Zechariah 5:6-7).  It is a parodic ark of the covenant, containing a harlot instead of the tablets of the law. Why an ephah?  The Old testament regularly demands that Israel use accurate weights and measures, and often refers to an ephah in these contexts.  Deuteronomy 25:13 says, ”You shall not have in your bag a stone and a stone, a large and a small.  You... Read more

In Zechariah 5:5-11, a woman named Wickedness is put into an ephah and removed to Shinar, where a temple is built for her.  This is a complex parody of the exodus. Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt on eagles’ wings; here we have a picture of the wicked being born out of the land by women with stork wings.  Wickedness goes through an exodus, but it is a reverse exodus, a movement out of the land rather than into the... Read more

In Zechariah 5, the prophet sees a scroll flying through the air and is told that it is the “curse that is going forth over the face of the whole land.”   That vision conjures several other passages and scenes in the Bible. The phrase “face of the land” is used repeatedly in the flood narrative.  Men multiply on the face of the land (Genesis 6:1), but because of their wickedness the Lord determines to blot them out from the... Read more