TEXT [Commentary]

  H.   A Woman in a Basket (5:5-11)

5 Then the angel who was talking with me came forward and said, “Look up and see what’s coming.”

6 “What is it?” I asked.

He replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain,[*] and it’s filled with the sins[*] of everyone throughout the land.”

7 Then the heavy lead cover was lifted off the basket, and there was a woman sitting inside it. 8 The angel said, “The woman’s name is Wickedness,” and he pushed her back into the basket and closed the heavy lid again.

9 Then I looked up and saw two women flying toward us, gliding on the wind. They had wings like a stork, and they picked up the basket and flew into the sky.

10 “Where are they taking the basket?” I asked the angel.

11 He replied, “To the land of Babylonia,[*] where they will build a temple for the basket. And when the temple is ready, they will set the basket there on its pedestal.”

NOTES

5:6 basket for measuring grain. This “basket” (’epah [TH374, ZH406], transliterated “ephah”; cf. NLT mg) was a standardized unit of dry measure equivalent to approximately one-half bushel. Typically the baskets of OT times were woven of willow or palm branches, reeds, or cane. The condemnation of an “unjust ephah” by the OT prophets makes the association between the ephah basket and evil a familiar one (cf. Ezek 45:10; Mic 6:10).

sins. The NLT agrees with most English versions (e.g., NIV, NRSV), which follow the reading in the LXX and Syriac “their iniquity” (reflecting ‘awonam [TH5771/3963.1, ZH6411/4392]) instead of the difficult MT “their eyes” (‘enam [TH5869/3963.1, ZH6524/4392]). Meyers and Meyers (1987:296), however, prefer the MT and translate “this is its appearance [i.e., the ephah basket] in all the land” (rendering “their eyes” with the figurative meaning “appearance” or “shining”).

5:7 heavy lead cover. The heavy metal lid is not a natural cover for the ephah basket (which might also refer to a clay barrel of an ephah). That the “cover” (kikkar [TH3603, ZH3971]) is made of a talent (60 or more pounds) of “lead” (‘opereth [TH5777, ZH6769]) emphasizes “the fact that an extraordinary device is being used to enclose forcefully and unalterably the ephah’s strange contents” (Meyers and Meyers 1987:299).

5:8 Wickedness. The term (rish‘ah [TH7564, ZH8402]) refers to evil generally, whether moral or ceremonial. The word is sometimes used in word-pairs as the polar opposite of “righteousness” (e.g., Prov 13:6; Ezek 33:12; see commentary below). Since the word for “Wickedness” is a feminine noun, evil is personified as a woman (see further the discussion in Redditt 1995:73-74).

5:9 two women. The depiction of the two-winged creatures as “women” is unusual in the OT. Typically such divine or angelic beings are male figures. It is unclear whether these female divine beings are attendants of Yahweh or of the wicked woman enclosed in the ephah basket. If the two women are attendants of Yahweh, then they represent a unique class of angelic beings in the heavenly realm. If they are the angelic retainers of “Wickedness” (representing a foreign goddess), then their submission to the command of God demonstrates his power over false gods (see Meyers and Meyers 1987:305-306). Either way, the role of these female attendants who carry off “Wickedness” is significant in its contrast to the “evil woman” in the basket.

wind. The word (ruakh [TH7307, ZH8120]) may suggest the double entendre since it can mean either “wind” or “spirit” (i.e., “gliding on the Spirit”).

stork. The stork is a migratory bird of the Mediterranean basin. Baldwin (1972:129) has suggested a wordplay with “stork” (khasidah [TH2624, ZH2884]) and “faithful one” (khasid [TH2623A, ZH2883]): “the removal of ‘wickedness,’ like the removal of Joshua’s filthy garments (3:4), was an act of free grace on the part of the covenant-keeping (khasid) God.”

5:11 Babylonia. Babylonia was the land of Hebrew captivity (Mic 4:10). The prophets condemned Babylon as a place of idolatry and wickedness (Isa 46–47; Jer 50–51). In the NT, Babylon is a metaphor for the evil of Rome and the Roman Empire (Rev 17:5; 18:2; cf. 1 Pet 5:13).

temple . . . pedestal. The reference to building a “house” or “temple” (bayit [TH1004, ZH1074]) for the woman in the ephah basket and then setting the basket upon a base or pedestal of some sort suggests that this woman named “Wickedness” is a goddess of the Babylonian pantheon.

COMMENTARY [Text]

There is general agreement that the seventh vision continues the theme of cleansing begun in the fourth vision with the investiture of the newly clad high priest, Jeshua (3:1-10). Most commentators also acknowledge that the symbolism of the evil woman in the basket represents a seductive and dangerous force that is difficult to contain (to the point of being “pushed” back into the basket that is closed with a “heavy lid”; 5:8). In fact, this evil is so potent and so aggressive that it cannot be confined but instead must be shipped back to its source (the land of Babylon) by divine decree. Beyond this broad understanding, however, interpreters tend to part ways when it comes to identifying the evil woman named “Wickedness” sitting in the ephah basket.

Several explanations have been put forth in an attempt to identify the woman in the basket named “Wickedness” (5:7-8). Most often, the woman is understood to represent a system of evil generally speaking, the moral and socials ills, the ceremonial impurities and religious apostasy, and the injustices of the political and legal institutions of Israel (regularly condemned by the Hebrew prophets). For some, the woman in the basket symbolizes the “pagan women” brought into the Hebrew community through wrongful intermarriage (an issue for the prophet Malachi in Mal 2:10-16, and one of the reform initiatives of Ezra and Nehemiah—see Ezra 9–10). Finally, the woman may be a figure for “spiritual adultery” or idolatry since the evil of ritual prostitution is usually associated with idol worship in the OT (e.g., Jer 23:10; Ezek 16:15; Hos 2:2; see the discussion in Harrington 2002:495-496). Whatever the case, God himself will both contain and remove “Wickedness” from his people and the land of Israel. Although cleansing from sin is the gracious work of God (Ps 51:2, 7), those guilty of sin and rebellion against God must turn to God and seek his cleansing for the forgiveness of sins and a restored relationship with him (cf. Ezek 24:13).

The Old Testament associates wickedness with idolatry, and it is this “wickedness of the other nations” that caused God to displace them from the land with Israel (Deut 9:4-5). It seems likely that the woman named “Wickedness” sitting in the basket represents one of the fertility goddesses of the ancient Near East (see the discussion in Meyers and Meyers 1987:302-303). The Queen of Heaven (cf. Jer 44:17-25) and Asherah (cf. Deut 7:5; 16:21) are likely candidates, especially since the word “wickedness” (rish‘ah [TH7564, ZH8402]) is an anagram of the name “Asherah.” The issue is not so much the identification of the woman seated in the ephah basket as the sin of idolatry itself. The people of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were exiled to Mesopotamia for this same “wickedness,” provoking God to anger with their idolatry (2 Kgs 17:16-18; 2 Chr 36:14).

The divine judgment of exile purged the Hebrews of idolatry—one sin that the postexilic prophets do not mention in their indictments of the restoration community. The land of Israel, however, was still contaminated by the spirit of idolatry. In the context of covenant relationship, the land is personified; it too had been defiled by Israel’s idolatry. Hence, Zechariah’s vision shows God removing the residue of pollution from idolatry from the Promised Land (Lev 18:24-25). The symbolism of the vision would suggest that this spirit of idolatry had been confined but still threatened the restoration community. For this reason God sends it (the woman in the basket) back to Babylonia. The destination of the woman in the basket may be a piece of dramatic irony since the Hebrew people had just returned from exile there. It may also be a metaphor for the removal of sin as far as the east is from the west so that it is remembered no more, as in the Psalms (Ps 103:12; cf. Isa 43:25). It may even be that the “Wickedness” in the basket is simply returning to its source to do its destructive work there, since the earlier visions of Zechariah make it clear that God intended to punish those nations who scattered and humbled Judah (1:21).