Longing For The Authority Of God
Hope In Hopeless Times; The Gospel According To Zechariah • Sermon • Submitted
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Then I turned and raised my eyes, and saw there a flying scroll.
Longing for the Authority of God
Zechariah 5:1-11
The first five of Zechariah’s visions are extremely encouraging, for they point out days of blessing and prosperity for Israel.
They tell of the renewed presence of God with his people; the raising up of leaders equal to every threat against the reestablished nation; the prosperity and growth of Jerusalem; the purification of the people symbolized by the purification of Joshua, their representative; and finally, the role of Zerubbabel in completing the temple, leading to a vision of the great Priest-King, the Messiah and the pouring out of His Spirit.
These are all uplifting.
But, as David Baron says, “Before that longed-for day of blessing can at last come—before the beautiful symbolism of the fifth vision shall at last be realized and Israel’s restored candlestick shall once again, and in greater splendor and purity than ever before, shed abroad the light of Jehovah throughout the millennial earth—both the land and people must be cleansed from everything that defileth, or worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.”
This is the meaning of the next three visions (judgments), found in 5:1–6:8.1
1 James Montgomery Boice, The Minor Prophets: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 511–512.
The previous vision ended with the interpreting angel calling Israel’s God “the Lord of the whole earth” (4:14), a title that is also used in Psalm 95:7 and Isaiah 54:5.
Zechariah’s purpose in writing is to tell us about the future of the Jews and Jerusalem, but the future of the whole world is involved in the future of the Jews, for God called Israel to bring blessing or cursing to all the nations of the earth (Gen. 12:1–3).
The prophet describes three key events that give evidence that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is indeed “the Lord of the whole earth.”1
1 Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Heroic, “Be” Commentary Series (Colorado Springs, CO: ChariotVictor Pub., 1997), 108.
Zechariah 5 consists of two separate visions: the vision of the flying scroll in verses 1–4 and the vision of the woman in the basket in verses 5–11.
Both visions are thematically connected, and they both address the problem of continuing iniquity among the people. The exile had the potential to cleanse the people (Isa. 48:10), but even after the exile was over impurity remained in the community (Jer. 6:29).
God removes lawlessness (vv. 1–4). The prophet saw a large open scroll, fifteen feet by thirty feet, floating through the air, with writing on both sides. (A billboard)
On one side he read the third commandment against taking God’s name in vain (Ex. 20:7), and on the other side he read the eighth commandment against stealing (v. 15).
This scroll represented the Law of God that brings a curse on all who disobey it, and that includes all of us (Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10–12); because nobody can fully obey God’s law.
For that matter, the law was never given to save people (Gal. 2:16, 21; 3:21) but to reveal that people need to be saved; “for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20).
Out of Ten Commandments, why did the Lord select the two that forbid stealing and swearing falsely? Were these sins especially prevalent among the Jewish remnant at that time?
It may be that many of the Jewish people were not faithful in their giving to the Lord, robbing Him of tithes and offerings and then lying about it. In their business dealings, they may have cheated one another.
But there is another reason. The third commandment is the central commandment on the first table of the Law, and the eighth commandment is the central commandment on the second table of the law, so these two commandments represent the whole law.
“But whoever shall keep the whole law, yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).
The strange dimensions happen to correspond precisely to the dimensions of the portico in the front of the main hall of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 6:3).
The apparent allusion is particularly significant since the portico was where priestly justice was likely administered.
The implication seems to be that as the people rebuilt the temple and reestablished right worship, they also needed to do something about the unjust social evils among them.
They cannot rebuild the temple and expect God to be present among them in covenant relationship (as he was in Solomon’s temple) if they continue to tolerate blatant covenant breaking in their community (cf. 1 Kings 8:22–61).
Right worship must always translate into right living. If it does not, God’s renewed presence among them will not be one of covenant blessing, but of covenant cursing.
The law courts may have become perverted and the judicial process may have broken down, but God’s judgment will ensure accountability.
In an aggressive act of storming the criminals’ houses, God will send his curse upon those responsible so that they will finally receive their just desserts.
This promised judgment alludes to two passages in the priestly law: Numbers 5:11–28 and Leviticus 14:44–45.
In the first passage, when a woman is suspected of adultery the priest writes the curses for false swearing in a book, washes them off into the “water of bitterness,” and then gives the concoction to the woman to drink.
If she is guilty, the water will cause bitter pain when it enters her, even making her insides swell and “fall away.”
In the second passage, regulations are given for dealing with houses contaminated by rot or mildew. If the priest finds that the house is indeed unclean, then he is supposed to destroy the house, including its stones and timber.
The double allusion makes the point even more dramatically. The thieves and the perjurers within the postexilic community are like the guilt of an unfaithful wife or the devouring rot in an unclean house.
For the good of the community, God must mete out his covenant judgment, completely eradicating the cancerous evil that threatens to contaminate the rest of the community.
As the thieves and perjurers would discover, when God’s judgment on sin comes, there is no safe place to hide, even in the privacy and seclusion of one’s own home.
Moreover, the consumption of both the timber and stone of the houses shows that God’s judgment is utterly exhaustive. Nothing will escape it. In God’s economy, transgressing the covenant is a debt that is never left unpaid.
The Woman in the Basket
Zechariah 5:5-11
The second vision is closely related to the first in that it is also concerned with removing evil from the community.
In the first vision, judgment removes the evil, while in this vision, expulsion is used to do the job.
The vision begins with the angel showing Zechariah a basket that was “going out in the whole land.” Like the scroll in the previous vision, the basket is much larger than normal and is moving about the land.
Sitting inside the basket is a woman, who becomes visible once the lid is removed. The angel informs Zechariah that she symbolizes wickedness.
The woman being initially hidden inside the basket may symbolize that the evil being condemned among the people is largely hidden from the public’s sight as well.
But what kind of evil is in view? In the previous vision, the specific offenses of theft and perjury were named, but in this vision there is no explicit declaration of the social evils in view.
There is however a subtle clue. The vision begins with a picture of a measuring basket, literally an ephah. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the ephah is a normal part of commerce.
It was used to measure flour, barley, or grain quantities (e.g., Lev. 6:13; Ruth 2:17; Isa. 5:10), and thus was sometimes tampered with by dishonest merchants in order to cheat buyers. (39 qrts.)
Amos complained that people were making the ephah small and the shekel great and so cheating buyers with false balances (Amos 8:4–6; cf. Lev. 19:36; Ezek. 45:10).
The only appropriate description for such people is “wicked” according to the prophet Micah.
Am I still to forget, O wicked house,
your ill-gotten treasures
and the short ephah, which is accursed?
Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales,
with a bag of false weights? (Mic. 6:10–11 niv)
The woman inside the basket, then, is a picture of the wickedness that is present in their dishonest commercial transactions.
In order to understand this vision, we must ask ourselves, “What did the Jews bring to their land from Babylon when they returned after their captivity?”
It wasn’t idolatry, for their years of exile cured them of that sin. The answer is—commercialism.
The Jews were people of the land when they went to Babylon, but many of the Jews born in Babylon became people of the city and successful merchants.
So it was the spirit of competitive commercialism that was represented by the woman in the ephah, for both the ephah and the talent are measures of commodities.
After Zechariah is shown the woman inside the basket, the angel throws her back into the basket and slams the lid shut.
Then, two female figures with wings like storks enter the picture, lift the basket, and carry it off. A play on the Hebrew word for “stork” is used to intensify the point.
The people were at fault for their covenant unfaithfulness, but God’s own faithfulness (khasid) to his people would be seen through the two women with wings like storks (khasidhah) that remove the iniquity.
When Zechariah asks where the two women are taking the basket, the angel tells him that they are heading for the land of Shinar. The land of Shinar is another designation for the land of Babylon (cf. Gen. 10:10; 11:2; Dan. 1:2).
This is an ironic jab at Babylon. Apparently, it is the only suitable home for wickedness.
But why opt for the name Shinar instead of the more common name Babylon? Most likely, the reference to Shinar is an intentional allusion to the Tower of Babel account in Genesis 11 where the arrogant presumption of humanity is on vivid display.
They build a tower (in all likelihood a ziggurat or temple) in an attempt to reach heaven. It is a blatant denial of God’s authority over them.
In the same way, for the postexilic community to begin building a temple while social evils like dishonest commerce go unaddressed is an arrogant presumption on God and ultimately mocks his sovereign authority over them.
This interpretation is strengthened by the claim that the basket is being taken to Shinar because a house is being built for it.
An equally plausible translation would be “a temple is being built for it,” inferring that it will occupy the central function, set up on its base, just as a pagan idol would.
In other words, the basket is being transferred to a new religious setting that is more appropriate for it. Dishonest commerce is nothing less than idolatry and thus it belongs not in Yehud but in Shinar, its rightful home.
This also may help to explain why wickedness is personified as a woman.
Some have suggested that the symbol of a woman is used simply because the Hebrew word for “wickedness” (harish‘ah) is feminine in gender.
But, given the overtones of idolatry in the vision, it would not be unreasonable to see here an allusion to the long legacy of goddess idolatry in the history of Israel.
Archaeological evidence has shown a longstanding, grassroots propensity in Israel to supplement legitimate worship of the Lord with folk-style religious worship involving terracotta fertility goddess figurines, statues of a Philistine goddess from Ashkelon, and even a cult stand picturing a “Mistress of the Animals” flanked by two lions.
Within the pages of the Old Testament, the prophets repeatedly condemn the syncretistic appropriation of the Canaanite goddess, Asherah, as the Lord’s consort (e.g., 1 Kings 14:5; Isa. 17:8; Mic. 5:14) and the worship of the “Queen of Heaven” (Jer. 7:18; 44:17–25).
With such a history of idolatrous worship involving foreign goddesses, the personification of wickedness as a woman in the vision of the basket seems all too appropriate, and reveals her removal to be long overdue.
The two visions of our chapter thus bring before us God’s twofold method of dealing with sin in His people.
He pours out His wrath upon the transgressors who are impenitent, and then sees to the utter removal and banishment of sin from the land, that it may in truth be the holy land.
Von Orelli has well compared the thought of the chapter to the Mosaic ritual. Says he,
“The two cleansing acts of this chapter are complementary, like the two goats on the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16, of which the first must give its blood as an expiation before the Lord, while the second carries away the guilt of the people, and the impurity springing from it, to the region of the impure desert-demon.
The cleansing judgment, despite the terror, is a benefit to the land, which is thus purified and fitted to receive the blessing pictured in the former visions.”
And the message of the chapter for the believer of this day may well be summarized in the words of the apostle, exhorting: “let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).
How Jesus fulfills these visions
To such a condition among God’s people, the visions of the flying scroll and the woman in the basket remind us that God will not indefinitely tolerate sin among his people—whether in the postexilic community or in the church today.
There will come a day when he will fully and finally eradicate it and purify the community of his people.
We continue to wait for that day to arrive. Until it does, Jesus himself clearly indicates that the pure and the impure are hopelessly mixed together in this world.
That is why Jesus compares the kingdom to a field with both wheat and weeds (Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43). Though the Son of Man is busy sowing wheat in the field, the evil one is also busy sowing weeds alongside them.
In the field (which is the world), the sowing of the seed (the preaching of the gospel) causes a mixed crop to spring up (true disciples and false ones).
The phrase “all the causes of sin and all evildoers” (v. 41) is very similar to a phrase applied elsewhere in the Gospel to those who take the name of Jesus upon themselves but do so falsely (Matt. 7:23), which is the same problem corrupting the postexilic community.
But that is the nature of God’s people in this world. Weeds always grow alongside the wheat, and during this present age, they are very difficult to separate.
To expect otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of the kingdom in this world and to set ourselves up for disillusionment.
But there will come a day—as both Zechariah and Jesus indicate—when God himself will permanently root out sin from among his people.
At the end of the age the Son of Man will send out his angels to separate the weeds from the wheat, the wicked from the righteous. Sheep from goats. Wheat from tares
And just as the vision of the flying scroll indicated, the guilty will be judged and they will have nowhere to hide.
On that day, the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, [will hide] themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:15–17 ESV)
Upon judgment, they will be permanently removed from God’s presence. Christ will say to them, “Depart from me; I never knew you” (Matt. 7:21–23; cf. Matt. 25:31–46).
But for all those who are in Christ, God’s work of judgment won’t happen to them because it has already happened for them.
Jesus substituted himself for all who place their faith in him, receiving the just penalty for their sins through his death (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2).
In doing so, he exhausted the judgment of God that his people might be delivered from the covenant curse they deserve (Gal. 3:13–14) (Rev. 22:3). In that last day Shinar will not be the final resting place, it will be hell. (Rev. 20:10-15)
Consequently, God’s work of expulsion doesn’t happen to them either; it happens in them.
In the ministry of the Holy Spirit, God works even now to purge sin from his people, just as was pictured in the vision of the woman in the basket (Zech. 5:5–11).
He does this by enabling his people to put to death the deeds of the flesh (Rom. 8:13) and producing within his people the fruit of holiness (Gal. 5:22–23).
St. John of the Cross described this purifying work of the Holy Spirit upon the soul with the helpful image of fire acting on a damp log of wood.
St. John of the Cross described this purifying work of the Holy Spirit upon the soul with the helpful image of fire acting on a damp log of wood.
Initially, the flame assaults the wood, causing it to sweat, smoke, and sputter. Eventually, the flame dries out the wood, thus preparing the wood to receive the flame.
In the same way, the Holy Spirit acts upon the soul to purge it of its impurities. Just as in the case of the log, such a work is often painful for the Christian, but it is necessary.
The more the Spirit expels sin from the heart, the more ready it is to be inflamed and illumined by his presence within it.
Just as the fire pushes out the water from the log and then penetrates it in order to inflame it, so the Holy Spirit pushes out the impurities of our hearts in order that he might fill it and inflame it with his presence.
How does this apply to me
Like the postexilic community, the church is just as indictable for a lack of holiness among its people. Many today are as guilty as those in Zechariah’s day of disconnecting their worship from their ethics.
It is easy for us to do many religious things, to participate in corporate worship, even to pray, read Scripture, and participate in the sacraments, and yet keep other parts of our lives hermetically sealed off.
Like some in the postexilic community, we try to justify dishonest gain in the marketplace with statements like, “it’s not personal, it’s business.” We can rationalize half-truths and fill our lives with our idols of choice.
Unfortunately the immorality doesn’t stop there. Statistics continue to show that morality among professing Christians in the U.S. is little better than the surrounding culture, and sometimes worse.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that conservative evangelical Christians in the U.S. have an equal rate of divorce as that of non-Christians, with some studies indicating that it may be even higher.
Just as alarming are statistics showing that conservative Protestant husbands are just as likely to commit domestic abuse as the general population.
In the area of sexual morality, “born-again” adults cohabitate before marriage and use pornography at rates only a little lower than the national rates.
As for Christians, the lack of holiness among God’s people can produce serious doubts about their faith as well as despondency and frustration with the church.
As we wait for God to intervene with his purifying covenant authority at the end of the age, our responsibility in the meantime is to pursue holiness.
Personally, we must continually flee to Christ who has spared us from judgment and rely on the Holy Spirit who continues to expel sin from our hearts and lives.
Corporately, we must encourage one another to do the same, which sometimes requires the spurs of loving and godly discipline (Matt. 18:15–20; 1 Cor. 5:1–5). Though in all of it we must exercise humility and patience.
“The church is made up of all sorts of people; it always has been.… Even the most discerning are not always good at making judgments; one does not know the heart.
The weeds and the wheat look very much alike.… The judgment will take place at the end, supervised by Christ. Let that be sufficient.”
With that in mind, we do not have to give in to discouragement or disillusionment over remaining sin among God’s people. Like the postexilic community, we are reassured that God will not indefinitely tolerate sin among his people; there will be judgment and purification.
At the same time, we are given hope because we know that he has not given up on his people; he continues his work of rooting out sin from our hearts and lives even now.
That is a great hope—for the church certainly, but also for each one of us individually who continues to struggle against sin and longs for God to remove it from us as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12), as far as Shinar is from Yehud.