Matthew Henry on Zechariah 5:5–end
The foregoing vision was very plain and easy, but in this are things dark and hard to be understood; and some think that the scope of it is to foretel the final destruction of the Jewish church and nation and the dispersion of the Jews, when, by crucifying Christ and persecuting his gospel, they should have filled up the measure of their iniquities; therefore it is industriously set out in obscure figures and expressions, "lest the plain denunciation of the second overthrow of temple and state might discourage them too much from going forward in the present restoration of both." So Mr. Pemble.
The prophet was contemplating the power and terror of the curse which consumes the houses of thieve…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Zechariah 5:8
wickedness--literally, "the wickedness": implying wickedness in its peculiar development. Compare "the man of sin," Th2 2:3.
cast it--that is, her, Wickedness, who had moved more freely while the heavy lid was partially lifted off.
weight--literally, "stone," that is, round mass.
Adam Clarke on Zechariah 5:6
This is an ephah that goeth forth - This, among the Jews, was the ordinary measure of grain. The woman in the ephah is supposed to represent Judea, which shall be visited for its sins; the talent of lead on the ephah, within which the woman was enclosed, the wrath of God, bending down this culprit nation, in the measure of its sins; for the angel said, "This is wickedness;" that is, the woman represents the mass of iniquity of this nation.
John Gill on Zechariah 5:8
And he said, This is wickedness,.... A representation of wicked men, who are wickedness itself, as their inward part is, Psalm 5:9 and particularly of the wicked one, the man of sin and son of perdition, the Roman antichrist and apocalyptic beast; who, though he is called by this title, "his Holiness", his true and proper name is "wickedness"; , that wicked lawless one, 2 Thessalonians 2:8 yea, wickedness itself, being extremely wicked, a sink of sin and of all abominations, Revelation 17:5.
And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; that is, wickedness; that it might be kept within bounds, and not exceed its measure to be filled up: this seems to denote some restraint on sinners, that the…
