The Woman in the Ephah Zechariah 5

Unfulfilled Prophecy in the Land of Shinar: Zechariah 5, the Woman in the Ephah 

   It was 738 B.C., the second year of Darius the Mede, when the first remnant returned to Judah after 70 years of captivity in Babylon. The prophet Zechariah was born there and returned to Judah with this first remnant. 

   After a series of failed and forgotten attempts; Zechariah was instrumental in stirring the hearts of the Israeli people to complete the rebuilding of the temple: 516 - 515 B.C.  Construction began around 536 B.C., two years after the first remnant returned, but faltered many times. Before the temple could be completed, the wickedness of Babylon had to be removed from the hearts and minds of the people and the land. 

   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 received several visions from the angel. The Woman in the Ephah was the seventh vision. After this vision, the temple was finally dedicated in 516 B.C. 

   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 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. 

   An ephah was commonly used as a system of measure. It was a small  container that measured dry goods, such as grains, barley or flour in commercial transactions. It wasn’t very big, equal to about a bushel, 35 liters or 6 gallons. 

   Instead of dry goods, this ephah contained a woman named Wickedness. Wickedness is the commodity being stored and measured, cleansing the land so that the new temple could be built.  

    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 unrighteousness.  

    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 shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Lev 19:35,36

   Amos 8:5 speaks of treating the Sabbath as an inconvenience that interferes with the ability to produce a profit. Sales then become an economic injustice, using unjust measures and unjust trade practices: Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

    The woman represents economic wickedness and, the measure of wickedness is full. The ephah is sealed with a heavy leaden lid, and made ready for transport. She is to be sent into the land of Shinar where a temple will be built and, she and the ephah will be placed upon a pedestal. The temple and pedestal represents worship, false worship; the worship of wickedness. 

   The land of Shinar is the land that sits between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, in what is now Iraq. This was the location of the tower (temple) of Babel and the area of the Babylonian kingdoms which followed. When Nebuchadnezzar was King, his territory sat on many waters: from the Persian Gulf to the the Red Sea and across the Nile into Egypt, the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, and the Mediterranean. The various seas of the middle east were the borders of Babylon. 

   Zechariah is shown this vision long after the Babylonian kingdom had fallen to the Mede-Persian kingdom of Cyrus the Great. So, we know that this vision was not for Zechariah’s time but, for an undisclosed futuristic one. The future of Babylon's ancient lands appears to be a prosperous one, filled with unjust economic practices, as the Al Faw Grand Port is nearly complete. The prophetic implication of a great city located within the land of Shinar, has drastically increased. 

   The woman represents the wickedness of the earth and, the ephah represents corrupt commerce; the buying and selling of an unjust measure. 

Photo - Bible.art

   Where have we read about these sort of things before? Yes! In the book of Revelation! The harlot woman, with the mysterious name written upon her forehead; Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth, holds a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things, and the filth of her adulteries. In Revelation 13, we see the rise of the Beast out of the Earth; the religious system of the first beast, the Beast out of the Sea. 

  The religious leader, the false prophet will convince those who dwell on earth to create and image to the beast - which had the wound by the sword and did live: Rev 13:14. 

   As per Daniel, a beast is a kingdom. A beast kingdom rises up from the sea with seven heads and ten horns. One of his heads was mortally wounded but the deadly wound did heal, and all the world wondered after the beast... that was, and is not (was slain) and yet is: Rev 13:3;17:8. Only a beast kingdom can be mortally wounded or slain as it is a beast; a living, breathing thing: lion, bear, leopard, beast of ten horns. 

   After the image is created, the false prophet causes the image to speak. The image will speak blasphemous things and cause all who will not worship it to be killed. Rev 13:15. This is similar to the image of gold, that Nebuchadnezzar had set upon the plains of Dura for all nations within his kingdom, to bow before in worship. This is the image that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego had refused to bow before in worship: Daniel 3. 

   Those who worship the image, the name of the beast or the number of the name of it, will receive preferential treatment to buy and sell freely. A mark will be worn on or upon the right hand or, forehead to prove submission and loyalty to the beast kingdom. If you have the mark, you are free to buy and sell. If you refuse the mark, the name of the beast or, the number of the name of it, you are condemned to death. 

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

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

   This loyalty and allegiance to the beast is coveted and worn by the kings of the earth in the last days, when wickedness rules the world: 17:2;18:3. By the willful  fornication the kings of the earth, who indulge in the commodity of wickedness, it is spread worldwide, making the inhabitants of the earth drunk: Rev 17:2.

   The system will be morally 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. 

   The woman in the ephah represents deceptive economic practices, immoral buying and selling, false worship and idolatry; and she is taken to the land of Shinar. 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 carnal wealth and prestige, the worship wickedness. 

   Her service will be the distribution of commercially corrupt wickedness. 

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

   Seems as if the full measure of sin, metaphorically depicted as a woman trapped inside of the ephah, have a special prophetic role yet to play, in the land of Shinar. 

   The ephah ties into the corrupt system of commerce, initiated by the the false prophet in  the last days. An evil form of buying and selling to entice people to bow in submission before the image, and take the mark. The ephah and the woman are going to the land of Shinar. This suggests that Babylon the Great will be a merchant system that serves the beast's religious system of buying and selling. 

   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 (Greek: πόρνης  commercially corrupt one, English translation: prostitute) that sits on many waters. 

   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 πόρνης – a commercially empowered 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 and prophecy teachers believe that the harlot city called Babylon the Great will be built as a world capital, located near or around the ruins of the ancient Babylon city. She will be the city that rules over the middle east; the ancient lands  of Babylon, the lion, Mede-Persia, the bear and the ancient lands of the Grecian empire of Alexander the Great; the leopard. These three empires are found in the genetic make up of the beast who rises in the end of days - the fourth beast kingdom.  

  While other Bible teachers can't escape from the seductive pull of Rome and the Roman Catholic church - they will tell you that Babylon has been relocated to Europe, and that Babylon simply means Rome. 

   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. Without the mark you cannot buy or sell. 

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