The Woman in the Ephah Zechariah 5

    Zechariah 5, Vision #7 the Woman in the Basket.

   The prophet Zechariah was born in Babylon and left with the first remanent freed by Cyrus the Great after 70 years of captivity. Zechariah returned to Judah in 538 B.C. in the second year of Darius. He was instrumental in stirring the hearts of the Israeli people to complete the rebuilding of the temple 516 - 515 B.C., after a series of failed and forgotten attempts. Before the temple could be built, wickedness had to be removed. 

   Yahweh called Zechariah as a messenger to receive visions of prophecies in the year 520 – 519 B.C., twenty years after the fall of Babylon. Zechariah is in Judah when he receives his visions from the angel. 

     Then the angel who was speaking with me went out and said to me, “Lift up now your eyes and see what this is going forth.”  I said, “What is it?” And he said, “This is the ephah going forth (moving, in motion).” Again, he said, “This is their appearance (iniquity) in all the land (and behold, a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah.”  Then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and cast the lead weight on its opening. Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and there two women were coming out with the wind in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the ephah?” Then he said to me, “To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.” Zechariah 5:5-11 NASB

   An ephah represents a system of measure; it was a container used to measure volume for dry goods such as barley or fine flour. It was used in commerce and trade for the storing, weighing, buying and selling of dry goods. It wasn’t very big, equal to about a bushel 35 liters or 6 gallons. 

   And I said, what is it? And he said, this is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, this is their resemblance (of wickedness) through all the earth. 

   “What is it?” I asked. And he replied, “A measuring basket is going forth.” Then he continued, “This is their iniquity in all the land.” 

   

   (the photo above is from an AI image generator. Apparently AI does not know what an ephah is. This is a basket, not an ephah :) )

    Instead of barley or fine flour, this ephah contained a woman whose name is Wickedness. Wickedness was the commodity being stored and measured as the earth was being cleansed in order to build the new temple. 

    Leviticus 19 speaks against corrupt trade practices, cheating others with commerce, illegal business practices and defrauding neighbors. It is considered unrighteous to do so. I imagine this corruption of immoral business practices was trapped in the ephah along with other types of wickedness. 

    You shall do no unrighteousness in judgments, in meter yard, in weight or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin (a weight or measure) shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Lev 19:35,36

    The woman represents the wickedness of the land. The measure of wickedness was full and the ephah was sealed with a heavy leaden lid, making it ready for transport. She was then sent into the land of Shinar where a temple will be built at the appointed time and she and the ephah will be placed upon a pedestal. The temple and pedestal represents worship, false worship, the worship of wickedness. 

   She represents the wickedness of the earth and the ephah represents corrupt commerce. The buying and selling of wickedness. This is coveted and worshiped by the kings of the earth in the last days when wickedness rules the world. By the willful  fornication of the kings who indulge in wickedness as a commodity, it is spread throughout the earth infecting all in its path.  

   The mark of the beast will be tied to commerce, the economic system that will eventually control the ability to fairly buy or sell. 

   If you don’t have the mark, you cannot buy or sell. 

   The system will be corrupt and religiously bias. The ephah represents commerce and the corruption surrounding the act of buying and selling. The woman, wickedness is sealed inside a basket made for the economic measure of a commodity and is transported to the land of Shinar where a temple will be built for her. 

   She, inside her ephah will be set upon a pedestal made for worship and a great city will rise around her. She represents deceptive economic practices, immoral buying and selling, false worship and idolatry. She will be adored as she courts many lovers among the kings of the earth. They become enamored with the filth of her fornications and her many sorceries as she putrefies the souls of man with vast amounts of power and wealth. This is embodiment of false worship, the worship of wickedness. 

   Her service will be the distribution of wickedness. Whatever immoral carnal perversion man can muster; she will sell and transport upon merchant ships. 

   And, she is being taken to the land of Shinar. 

   Wait!! What?? 

   Why isn't she going to Rome? 

    Doesn’t God know that the sins of Babylon had been moved to Rome? 

    Babylon has been spiritually relocated to Rome. Babylon really means Rome. Babylon is just a 'code word' for Rome. Not always, but definitely in the interpretation of Revelation 17. That’s what I been told. Maybe it’s a mystery? Afterall, Babylon is a mystery and it really means Rome. 

  Why didn’t the winged women transport the woman in the basket ‘to a land that sits to the west of the great sea, (the Mediterranean) now known as Italy?”  Isn't that what our bible teachers claim? That Babylon really means Rome, especially concerning the prophecy of the woman in Revelation 17. Babylon is 'code word' for Rome. 

   

   How confusing, how mysteriously this web of tangled intrigue has crept into the modern church.  

   Who picked up Shinar and whisked it away to Rome? 

  Ancient Mesopotamian fertility goddesses had been replaced by Alexander Hislop with the worship of Semiramis and Tammuz and tied to Rome. Ishtar, the original Queen of Heaven has been replaced by Semiramis and set into the church of Rome by the imagination of one man. Modern-day scholars, even the most fundamental, hard core Bible teachers of our day have replaced the ancient area known as the land of Shinar with the Church of Rome to complete Hislop’s theory. 

   Wouldn’t it be nice to just be able to read and interpret the bible without Hislop’s theology interpretating it for us?

   Seems as if this woman and the full measure of sin trapped inside of the ephah have a special futuristic role to yet play in the land of Shinar. 

   Where is the land of Shinar? Well, it's the land that sits between the Tigris and the Euphrates in Iraq. This was the location of the Tower of Bael and where the ancient Babylonian kingdom claimed as its territory. 

   Zechariah is shown this vision long after the Babylonian kingdom had fallen to the Persians. So, we know that this symbolic vision was not for Zechariah’s time but for an undisclosed futuristic one. 

   The ephah symbolically ties into the corrupt system of ecommerce that antichrist will use to control the buying and selling of the last days. An evil form of global control to entice people to take the mark. The ephah and the woman are going to the land of Shinar. This suggest that the harlot city in the last days will be the location for the system of the beast. 

   In Revelation 17 verse one, the harlot city is defined as a great whore, πόρνης, a  commercially corrupt one. Wait! I thought the commercial side of the city wasn't until the 18th chapter. 

   Or, that's what we are told. Chapter 17 is the 'religious' side of the city and 18 defines the 'commercial' side. 

   What if I told you that in the Greek the word translated into English as 'whore or prostitute' defines the religious side of the city as commercially corrupt? Not only is she commercially corrupt, she is spiritually commercialized as well. All this information is contained in the very first verse of Revelation 17!!

   And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me saying, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgement of the great whore (Greek: πόρνης commercially corrupt one, English: prostitution) that sits upon many waters Revelation 17:1

   The angel converses with John before their departure and gives him a little insight to prepare him as they move through the heavenly spiritual dimensions. The angel tells him that she is a great (mega, megalēs) whore, a harlot, a πόρνης – a commercially empowered prostitute, a city of ill repute and she sits on many waters fornicating with the kings of the earth. By their fornication the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her immorality.  

   When defined by the Greek, the woman, the scarlet harlot is defined as πόρνης – a commercially empowered, commercially corrupt one, a female trafficker, commercially immoral, to sell or export. 

   This is generally defined in the English by its root: πόρνη which is prostitute, which completely misses the full interpretation of the translation. As the commercially corrupt one, this connects both chapters together as one entity. The city has fallen under judgement, the 'why' of the judgement is shown in chapter 17 while judgement itself is shown, completed in the following chapter. 

   John details the events surrounding this 'woman' that will unfold at the end of the tribulation period. Many scholars believe that the harlot city called Babylon will be a rebuilt world capital located near the ancient ruins of the ancient Babylon city. She will be the city that rules over the middle east encasing the ancient lands of the lion, the bear and the leopard. These three empires make up the genetics of the beast kingdom in the end of days.  

   The woman and the ephah; the representation of a stored commodity of wickedness and corrupt commercialism is transported to Shinar and placed upon a pedestal. There, a temple is built for her representing worship; the worship of wickedness, of man's carnal pleasure. Without the mark you cannot buy or sell. 

And, in the end, Wickedness will rule the world.