Zechariah 5:1 Komentář

Hitherto we have seen visions of peace only, and all the words we have heard have been good words and comfortable words. But the pillar of cloud and fire has a black and dark side towards the Egyptians, as well as a bright and pleasant side towards Israel; so have Zechariah's visions; for God's prophets are not only his ambassadors, to treat of peace with the sons of peace, but heralds, to proclaim war against those that delight in war, and persist in their rebellion. In this chapter we have two visions, by which "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." God will do great and kind things for his people, which the faithful sons of Zion shall rejoice in; but "let the sinners in Zion be afraid;" for, I. God will reckon severely with those particular persons among them that are wicked and profane, and that hated to be reformed in these times of reformation; while God is showing kindness to the body of the nation, and loading that with his blessings, they and their families shall, notwithstanding that, lie under the curse, which the prophet sees in a flying roll (Zac 5:1-4). II. If the body of the nation hereafter degenerate, and wickedness prevail among them, it shall be carried off and hurried away with a swift destruction, under the pressing weight of divine wrath, represented by a talent of lead upon the mouth of an ephah, carried upon the wing I know not where (Zac 5:5-11).

We do not find that the prophet now needed to be awakened, as he did Zac 4:1. Being awakened then, he kept wakeful after; nay, now he needs not be so much as called to look about him, for of his own accord he turns and lifts up his eyes. This good men sometimes get by their infirmities, they make them the more careful and circumspect afterwards. Now observe, I. What it was that the prophet saw; he looked up into the air, and behold a flying roll. A vast large scroll of parchment which had been rolled up, and is therefore called a roll, was now unrolled and expanded; this roll was flying upon the wings of the wind, carried swiftly through the air in open view, as an eagle that shoots down upon her prey; it was a roll, like Ezekiel's that was written within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and woe, Eze 2:9, Eze 2:10. As the command of the law is in writing, for certainty and perpetuity, so is the curse of the law; it writes bitter things against the sinner. "What I have written I have written and what is written remains." The angel, to engage the prophet's attention, and to raise in him a desire to have it explained, asks him what he sees? And he gives him this account of it: I see a flying roll, and as near as he can guess by his eye it is twenty cubits long (that is, ten yards) and ten cubits broad, that is, five yards. The scriptures of the Old Testament and the New are rolls, in which God has written to us the great things of his law and gospel. Christ is the Master of the rolls. They are large rolls, have much in them. They are flying rolls; the angel that had the everlasting gospel to preach flew in the midst of heaven, Rev 14:6. God's word runs very swiftly, Psa 147:15. Those that would be let into the meaning of these rolls must first tell what they see, must go as far as they can themselves. "What is written in the law? how readest thou? Tell me that, and then thou shalt be made to understand what thou readest." II. How it was expounded to him, Zac 5:3, Zac 5:4. This flying roll is a curse; it contains a declaration of the righteous wrath of God against those sinners especially who by swearing affront God's majesty or by stealing invade their neighbour's property. Let every Israelite rejoice in the blessings of his country with trembling; for if he swear, if he steal, if he live in any course of sin, he shall see them with his eyes, but shall not have the comfort of them, for against him the curse has gone forth. If I be wicked, woe to me for all this. Now observe here, 1. The extent of this curse; the prophet sees it flying, but which way does it steer its course? It goes forth over the face of the whole earth, not only of the land of Israel, but the whole world; for those that have sinned against the law written in their hearts only shall by that law be judged, though they have not the book of the law. Note, All mankind are liable to the judgment of God; and, wherever sinners are, any where upon the face of the whole earth, the curse of God can and will find them out and seize them. Oh that we could with an eye of faith see the flying roll of God's curse hanging over the guilty world as a thick cloud, not only keeping off the sun-beams of God's favour from them, but big with thunders, lightnings, and storms, ready to destroy them! How welcome then would the tidings of a Saviour be, who came to redeem us from the curse of the law by being himself made a curse for us, and, like the prophet, eating this roll! The vast length and breadth of this roll intimate what a multitude of curses sinners lie exposed to. God will make their plagues wonderful, if they turn not. 2. The criminals against whom particularly this curse is levelled. The world is full of sin in great variety: so was the Jewish church at this time. But two sorts of sinners are here specified as the objects of this curse: - (1.) Thieves; it is for every one that steals, that by fraud or force takes that which is not his own, especially that robs God and converts to his own use what was devoted to God and his honour, which was a sin much complained of among the Jews at this time, Mal 3:8; Neh 13:10. Sacrilege is, without doubt, the worst kind of thievery. He also that robs his father or mother, and saith, It is no transgression (Pro 28:24), let him know that against him this curse is directed, for it is against every one that steals. The letter of the eighth commandment has no penalty annexed to it; but the curse here is a sanction to that command. (2.) Swearers. Sinners of the former class offend against the second table, these against the first; for the curse meets those that break either table. He that swears rashly and profanely shall not be held guiltless, much less he that swears falsely (Zac 5:4); he imprecates the curse upon himself by his perjury, and so shall his doom be; God will say Amen to his imprecation, and turn it upon his own head. He has appealed to God's judgment, which is always according to truth, for the confirming of a lie, and to that judgment he shall go which he has so impiously affronted. 3. The enforcing of this curse, and the equity of it: I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, Zac 5:4. He that pronounces the sentence will take care to see it executed. His bringing it forth denotes, (1.) His giving it commission. It is a righteous curse, for he is a righteous God that warrants it. (2.) His giving it the setting on. He brings it forth with power, and orders what execution it shall do; and who can put by or resist the curse which a God of almighty power brings forth? 4. The effect of this curse; it is very dreadful, (1.) Upon the sinner himself: Every one that steals shall be cut off, not corrected, but destroyed, cut off from the land of the living. The curse of God is a cutting thing, a killing thing. He shall be cut off as on this side (cut off from this place, that is, from Jerusalem), and so he that swears from this side (it is the same word), from this place. God will not spare the sinners he finds among his own people, nor shall the holy city be a protection to the unholy. Or they shall be cut off from hence, that is, from the face of the whole earth, over which the curse flies. Or he that steals shall be cut off on this side, and he that swears on that side; they shall all be cut off, one as well as another, and both according to the curse, for the judgments of God's hand are exactly agreeable with the judgments of his mouth. (2.) Upon his family: It shall enter into the house of the thief and of him that swears. God's curse comes with a warrant to break open doors, and cannot be kept out by bars or locks. There where the sinner is most secure, and thinks himself out of danger, - there where he promises himself refreshment by food and sleep, - there, in his own house, shall the curse of God seize him; nay, it shall fall not upon him only, but upon all about him for his sake. Cursed shall be his basket and his store, and cursed the fruit of his body, Deu 28:17, Deu 28:18. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, Pro 3:33. It shall not only beset his house, or he at the door, but it shall remain in the midst of his house, and diffuse its malignant influences to all the parts of it. It shall dwell in his tabernacle because it is none of his, Job 18:15. It shall dwell where he dwells, and be his constant companion at bed and board, to make both miserable to him. Having got possession, it shall keep it, and, unless he repent and reform, there is no way to throw it out or cut off the entail of it. Nay, it shall so remain in it as to consume it with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof, which, though ever so strong, though the timber be heart of oak and the stones hewn out of the rocks of adamant, yet they shall not be able to stand before the curse of God. We heard the stone and the timber complaining of the owner's extortion and oppression, and groaning under the burden of them, Hab 2:11. Now here we have them delivered from that bondage of corruption. While they were in their strength and beauty they supported, sorely against their will, the sinner's pride and security; but, when they are consumed, their ruins will, to their satisfaction, be standing monuments of God's justice and lasting witnesses of the sinner's injustice. Note, Sin is the ruin of houses and families, especially the sins of injury and perjury. Who knows the power of God's anger, and the operations of his curse? Even timber and stones have been consumed by them; let us therefore stand in awe and not sin.

INTRODUCTION TO ZECHARIAH 5 This chapter treats of the judgments of God upon the wicked Jews for their sins and impieties, the measure of which was filled up, and of the execution of them, which are represented in two visions: the first is of a flying roll, which signifies the curse of God, and is described by its measure, the length being twenty cubits, and the breadth ten; and by the extent of it, it reaching to the whole earth, and particularly to thieves and false swearers, who shall be cut off by it; and by the certainty of its coming into the houses of such, and the utter desolation it should there make, Zac 5:1 and the other is the vision of an ephah, and a woman sitting in it, and a talent of lead cast upon the mouth of it, which signified wickedness, Zac 5:5 this "ephah" is seen to be lifted up between earth and heaven by two women, who are said to have wings like the wings of storks, and the wind to be in them; and who are said by the angel to carry the "ephah" into the land of Shinar, to build it a house, that it might be established and settled upon its own base, Zac 5:9.

Then I turned, and lift up mine eyes, and looked,.... The prophet turned himself from looking upon the candlestick and olive branches, having had a full and clear understanding of them, and looked another way, and saw another vision: and behold a flying roll, a volume or book flying in the air; it being usual for books, which were written on parchment, to be rolled up in the form of a cylinder; whence they were called rolls or volumes.

“They sank in the depth like a stone.” Why “did they sink in the depth like a stone”? Because they were not the kind of “stones which sons of Abraham could be raised up” but the kind which love the depth and desire the liquid element, that is, who seize the bitter and fluid desire of present things. Whence it is said of these: “They sank like lead in very deep water.” They are serious sinners. For iniquity is also shown “to sit upon a talent of lead,” as Zechariah the prophet says: “I saw a woman sitting upon a talent of lead, and I said, ‘Who is this?’ And he answered, ‘Iniquity.’ ” Hence it is, therefore, that the unjust “sank in the depth, like lead in very deep water.”

(Chapter 5, verses 1 onwards) Then I turned and lifted up my eyes, and behold, a flying scroll! And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.” Then he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. I will raise up, says the Lord of hosts, and it will come to the house of the thief and to the house of the one who swears falsely in my name, and it will remain in the midst of his house and consume it and its wood and its stones. LXX: And I turned and lifted up my eyes and saw a flying sickle. And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a flying sickle, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide. And he said to me: This is the curse that goes out over the face of all the land: because every thief will be punished from this until death, and every perjurer will be crucified from this until death. And I will bring it, says the Lord Almighty, and it will go into the house of the thief, and the house of the one who swears falsely in my name, and it will rest in the midst of his house, and it will consume him, and his wood, and his stones. Turning, the prophet said, to another vision, and lifting my eyes from joyful and fortunate things to sadder things, I see a flying scroll that is called Megella in Hebrew, and it is translated as διφθέρα by Aquila and Theodotion, and as κεφαλὶς by Symmachus, meaning, chapter, according to what we read in the psalm: In the chapter of the book it is written about me (Ps. XIX, 8); or according to the Seventy, δρέπανον πετόμενον, meaning, a flying sickle. For all the things that he had seen above, the construction of the temple, the coming of the Lord Savior, the liberation of the people from Babylon, had been proclaimed. Therefore, so that his heart would not be lifted up with the Apostle (to whom the angel of Satan had been given to buffet him), he also sees the things that are sad, so that whatever had increased in arrogance from the revelation of good things, may decrease from the threat of sad things. Moreover, a flying scroll is shown, in which all sins are written down, so that each person may receive according to their works, whether good or evil, as Daniel says: Thrones were set up, and books were opened. But if we take the sickle, as the LXX translated it, let us take the example from the Apocalypse of John, in which it is written: And the angel answered, and said to him who sat on the horse: Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of thy vineyard, for the grapes thereof are ripe (Apoc. XIV, 18). For sickle, in Deuteronomy we read arrows and sword: I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh (Deut. XXXII, 42). And because God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;). The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished And in Jeremiah we read: How long will you cut with the sword, or the sword of the Lord? How long will you not rest? Return to your sheath (Jer. XLVII, 6). This sword is not only called a sickle, which cuts hay, straw, and thorns; but it is also called an axe of trees, which will cut down those who have not made themselves worthy of the fruits of penance. And about whom John the Baptist proclaimed: Behold, the axe is laid to the roots of the trees: every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matt. III, 10). This volume, in which the sins of everyone are described, or rather, the sickle that cuts down the sins of all, is sent into the vineyard of Sodom, of which it is written: Our enemies are foolish; for their vineyard is the vineyard of Sodom, and their offspring is from Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, and their clusters are bitter. The fury of dragons is their wine, and the incurable madness of asps. (Deuteronomy XXXII, 31 ff.) This sickle measures twenty cubits in length and ten in width, in a number joined together that is sad for the afflicted. For the Lord corrects in order to improve. In the twentieth, which is made up of two decades, harsh and difficult things are announced: in the tenth, that is, one decade, better and prosperous things are revealed: for Israel is taught through all kinds of scourges and punishments. At the same time, let us warn those who think small crimes like theft and perjury, that the curse which is written in the book and (by Al. a) with a sickle, be brought upon the house of the thief and perjurer, and let it remain in it, and consume all its wood and stones. But if there is such a threat of punishment for what is considered lesser offenses (such as theft and perjury), what shall we say about fornication, adultery, homicide, sacrilege, and all other crimes numbered among the works of the flesh by the Apostle (Galatians 5)? It has been said that the length of twenty cubits and the width of ten cubits correspond to the age of our Lord and Savior, that is, the number thirty. This is not for the Father to judge anyone, but all judgment has been given to the Son, and he will judge the world (John 5).

As to the suggestion you made in your letter that we should examine together the nature of an oath extorted by force, I beg of you, do not let our discussion turn crystal-clear matters into murky ones. If a servant of God were threatened with certain death, so that he should swear to do something forbidden and wicked, he still ought rather to die than to swear, so as not to commit a crime in fulfilling his oath. But in this case, … it was only the persistent shouting of the people that was forcing the man not to any crime but to what could be lawfully done, if it were done. And … the only thing to fear was that a few violent men, mingled with a crowd of mostly good ones, might seize the occasion to start a riot, under pretence of virtuous indignation, and might break out into some accursed disturbance to satisfy their passion for robbery. And when even this fear was unfounded, who would think that perjury could be committed even to avoid certain death, much less loss or some kind of physical injury? That individual called Regulus had never heard what the holy Scriptures say about the wrongfulness of a false oath. He had learned nothing about the sickle of Zechariah, and obviously he had not sworn to the Carthaginians by the sacraments of Christ but by the filthiness of demons. Yet he did not so fear certain torture and a horrible sort of death as to take his oath under compulsion, but he went to meet them to avoid perjuring himself, because he had sworn on oath of his own free will.

The vision of the large flying roll, with the angel's explanation, Zac 5:1-4. The vision of the ephah, and of the woman sitting on it, with the signification, Zac 5:5-11.

Behold a flying roll - This was twenty cubits long, and ten cubits broad; the prophet saw it expanded, and flying. Itself was the catalogue of the crimes of the people, and the punishment threatened by the Lord. Some think the crimes were those of the Jews; others, those of the Chaldeans. The roll is mentioned in allusion to those large rolls on which the Jews write the Pentateuch. One now lying before me is one hundred and fifty-three feet long, by twenty-one inches wide, written on fine brown Basle goat-skin; some time since brought from Jerusalem, supposed to be four hundred years old.

SIXTH VISION. THE FLYING ROLL. The fraudulent and perjuring transgressors of the law shall be extirpated from Judea. (Zac 5:1-4) flying roll--of papyrus, or dressed skins, used for writing on when paper was not known. It was inscribed with the words of the curse (Deu 27:15-26; Deu. 28:15-68). Being written implied that its contents were beyond all escape or repeal (Eze 2:9). Its "flying" shows that its curses were ready swiftly to visit the transgressors. It was unrolled, or else its dimensions could not have been seen (Zac 5:2). Being open to all, none could say in excuse he knew not the law and the curses of disobedience. As the previous visions intimated God's favor in restoring the Jewish state, so this vision announces judgment, intimating that God, notwithstanding His favor, did not approve of their sins. Being written on both sides, "on this and on that side" (Zac 5:3), VATABLUS connects it with the two tables of the law (Exo 32:15), and implies its comprehensiveness. One side denounced "him that sweareth falsely (Zac 5:4) by God's name," according to the third commandment of the first table, duty to God; the other side denounced theft, according to the eighth commandment, which is in the second table, duty to one's neighbor.

Sixth Vision: The Flying Roll, and the Woman in the Ephah - Zac 5:1-11 These two figures are so closely connected, that they are to be taken as one vision. The circumstance, that a pause is introduced between the first and second view, in which both the ecstatic elevation and the interpreting angel leave the prophet, so that it is stated in Zac 5:5 that "the angel came forth," furnishes no sufficient reason for the assumption that there were two different visions. For the figure of the ephah with the woman sitting in it is also divided into two views, since the prophet first of all sees the woman and receives the explanation (Zac 5:5-8), and the further development of the vision is then introduced in Zac 5:9 with a fresh introductory formula, "And I lifted up my eyes, and saw." And just as this introductory formula, through which new and different visions are introduced in Zac 2:1 and Zac 2:5, by no means warrants us in dividing what is seen here into two different visions; so there is nothing in the introduction in Zac 5:5 to compel us to separate the vision of the flying roll (Zac 5:1-4) from the following vision of the ephah, since there is no such difference in the actual contents of the two as to warrant such a separation. They neither stand in such a relation to one another, as that the first sets forth the extermination of sinners out of the holy land, and the second the extermination of sin itself, as Maurer supposes; nor does the one treat of the fate of the sinners and the other of the full measure of the sin; but the vision of the flying roll prepares the way for, and introduces, what is carried out in the vision of the ephah (Zac 5:5-11), and the connection between the two is indicated formally by the fact that the suffix in עינם in Zac 5:6 refers back to Zac 5:3 and Zac 5:4.

Zac 5:1. "And I lifted up my eyes again, and saw, and behold a flying roll. Zac 5:2. And he said to me, What seest thou? And I said, I see a flying roll; its length twenty cubits, and its breadth ten cubits. Zac 5:3. And he said to me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the whole land: for every one that stealeth will be cleansed away from this side, according to it; and every one that sweareth will be cleansed away from that side, according to it. Zac 5:4. I have caused it to go forth, is the saying of Jehovah of hosts, and it will come into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth by my name for deceit: and it will pass the night in the midst of his house, and consume both its beams and its stones." The person calling the prophet's attention to the vision, and interpreting it, is the angelus interpres. This is not specially mentioned here, as being obvious from what goes before. The roll (book-scroll, megillâh = megillath sēpher, Eze 2:9) is seen flying over the earth unrolled, so that its length and breadth can be seen. The statement as to its size is not to be regarded as "an approximative estimate," so that the roll would be simply described as of considerable size (Koehler), but is unquestionably significant. It corresponds both to the size of the porch of Solomon's temple (Kg1 6:3), and also to the dimensions of the holy place in the tabernacle, which was twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad. Hengstenberg, Hofmann, and Umbreit, following the example of Kimchi, assume that the reference is to the porch of the temple, and suppose that the roll has the same dimensions as this porch, to indicate that the judgment is "a consequence of the theocracy" or was to issue from the sanctuary of Israel, where the people assembled before the Lord. But the porch of the temple was neither a symbol of the theocracy, nor the place where the people assembled before the Lord, but a mere architectural ornament, which had no significance whatever in relation to the worship. The people assembled before the Lord in the court, to have reconciliation made for them with God by sacrifice; or they entered the holy place in the person of their sanctified mediators, the priests, as cleansed from sin, there to appear before God and engage in His spotless worship. The dimensions of the roll are taken from the holy place of the tabernacle, just as in the previous vision the candlestick was the mosaic candlestick of the tabernacle. Through the similarity of the dimensions of the roll to those of the holy place in the tabernacle, there is no intention to indicate that the curse proceeds from the holy place of the tabernacle or of the temple; for the roll would have issued from the sanctuary, if it had been intended to indicate this. Moreover, the curse or judgment does indeed begin at the house of God, but it does not issue or come from the house of God. Kliefoth has pointed to the true meaning in the following explanation which he gives: "The fact that the writing, which brings the curse upon all the sinners of the earth, has the same dimensions as the tabernacle, signifies that the measure will be meted out according to the measure of the holy place;" and again, "the measure by which this curse upon sinners will be meted out, will be the measure of the holy place." With this measure would all sinners be measured, that they might be cut off from the congregation of the Lord, which appeared before God in the holy place. The flight of the roll symbolized the going forth of the curse over the whole land. כּל־הארץ is rendered by Hofmann, Neumann, and Kliefoth "the whole earth," because "it evidently signifies the whole earth in v. Zac 4:10, Zac 4:14, and Zac 6:5" (Kliefoth). But these passages, in which the Lord of the whole earth is spoken of, do not prove anything in relation to our vision, in which כּל־הארץ is unmistakeably limited to the land of Canaan (Judah) by the antithesis in Zac 5:11, "the land of Shinar." If the sinners who are smitten by the curse proceeding over כּל־הארץ are to be carried into the land of Sinar, the former must be a definite land, and not the earth as the sum of all lands. It cannot be argued in opposition to this, that the sin of the land in which the true house of God and the true priesthood were, was wiped away by expiation, whereas the sin of the whole world would be brought into the land of judgment, when its measure was concluded by God; for this antithesis is foreign not only to this vision, but to the Scriptures universally. The Scriptures know nothing of any distribution or punishment of sins according to different lands, but simply according to the character of the sinners, viz., whether they are penitent or hardened. At the same time, the fact that כּל־הארץ denotes the whole of the land of Israel, by no means proves that our vision either treats of the "carrying away of Israel into exile," which had already occurred (Ros.), or "sets before them a fresh carrying away into exile, and one still in the future" (Hengstenberg), or that on the coming of the millennial kingdom the sin and the sinners will be exterminated from the whole of the holy land, and the sin thrown back upon the rest of the earth, which is still under the power of the world (Hofmann). The vision certainly refers to the remote future of the kingdom of God; and therefore "the whole land" cannot be restricted to the extent and boundaries of Judaea or Palestine, but reaches as far as the spiritual Israel or church of Christ is spread over the earth; but there is no allusion in our vision to the millennial kingdom, and its establishment within the limits of the earthly Canaan. The curse falls upon all thieves and false swearers. הנּשׁבּע in Zac 5:3 is defined more precisely in Zac 5:4, as swearing in the name of Jehovah for deceit, and therefore refers to perjury in the broadest sense of the word, or to all abuse of the name of God for false, deceitful swearing. Thieves are mentioned for the sake of individualizing, as sinners against the second table of the decalogue; false swearers, as sinners against the first table. The repetition of מזּה כּמוה points to this; for mizzeh, repeated in correlative clauses, signifies hinc et illinc, hence and thence, i.e., on one side and the other (Exo 17:12; Num 22:24; Eze 47:7), and can only refer here to the fact that the roll was written upon on both sides, so that it is to be taken in close connection with כּמוה: "on this side ... and on that, according to it" (the roll), i.e., according to the curse written upon this side and that side of the roll. We have therefore to picture the roll to ourselves as having the curse against the thieves written upon the one side, and that against the perjurers upon the other. The supposition that mizzeh refers to כּל־הארץ is precluded most decidedly, by the fact that mizzeh does not mean "thence," i.e., from the whole land, but when used adverbially of any place, invariably signifies "hence," and refers to the place where the speaker himself is standing. Moreover, the double use of mizzeh is at variance with any allusion to hâ'ârets, as well as the fact that if it belonged to the verb, it would stand after כּמוה, whether before or after the verb. Niqqâh, the niphal, signifies here to be cleaned out, like καθαρίζεσωαι in Mar 7:19 (cf. Kg1 14:10; Deu 17:12). This is explained in Zac 5:4 thus: Jehovah causes the curse to go forth and enter into the house of the thief and perjurer, so that it will pass the night there, i.e., stay there (lâneh third pers. perf. of lūn, from lânâh, to be blunted, like zûreh in Isa 59:5, and other verbal formations); it will not remain idle, however, but work therein, destroying both the house and sinners therein, so that beams and stones will be consumed (cf. Kg1 18:38). The suffix in כּלּתּוּ (for כּלּתהוּ, cf. Ges. 75, Anm. 19) refers to the house, of course including the inhabitants. The following nouns introduced with ואת are in explanatory apposition: both its beams and its stones. The roll therefore symbolizes the curse which will fall upon sinners throughout the whole land, consuming them with their houses, and thus sweeping them out of the nation of God.