Zechariah 5:9

Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked,.... This is not a new vision, but a continuation of the former, as appears from the "ephah" seen in it: and, behold, there came out two women; out of the same place the "ephah" did.

Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth.

Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked: see . There came out, from the same place whence the ephah came, two women: the sinful nation was resembled to a woman, and now, to keep a decorum in the vision, they who are to be God’ s executioners, to punish that wicked woman, are called women: it is like enough to be meant of the Romans, a warlike and stout nation. The wind was in their wings: they are set forth as having wings like the wings of storks, large and strong, and as flying before the wind with great swiftness; so should Divine vengeance swiftly follow and certainly overtake the Jewish nation, when, after their return out of captivity, they shall corrupt themselves, and fill up the measure of their sins. They lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven; the judgments came thus flying, and so bare away with them those that are to be punished: it is a secret intimation of a future deportation or carrying the Jews into captivity again for sin.

Zechariah 5:9 Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind [was] in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven.Ver. 9. Behold, there came out two women] Winged women, and carried through the air with a pleasant wind, to note their ready and speedy obedience, prompt and present. Women they are said to be, to keep proportion with the present vision; lest the meeting and mixing together of men and women in the same matter might minister occasion to some impure surmisings. But that they were men, and not women, that are here meant is agreed upon by all. These were Ezra and Nehemiah (saith Willet on Leviticus 11:1-47., after Junius and Piscator on the text), those great reformers of the Jewish Church. But this stands not with the last verse. I rather subscribe to those that expound the text of the Romans, who with great celerity and violence destroyed the Jews’ state; and so, that which they feared befell them, John 11:48. The Romans, said they, shall come to take away both our place and our nation; and within a few years it proved accordingly; as if God had taken them at their word, as he did those murmuring miscreants, Numbers 14:28 "As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do unto you." Hereunto the Chaldee paraphrast consenteth, when by these two women thus described he understandeth, populos leves et expeditos, such agents and instruments as God would employ in the speedy execution of his wrath upon the Jewish nation; such as were Titus, Vespasian, and Aelius Adrian. Diodati maketh these two women a figure of God, two properties, namely, mercy towards his elect, and justice towards his enemies, wherewith he transports upon these last the judgments by which he had punished his own people; which is done with admirable celerity. Thus he. Danaeus makes those two women to be the anger and justice of God, which do always follow and wait upon one another, and take vengeance on men’ s wickedness. Iudicium sit penes lectorem. And the wind was in their wings] A masculine affix referred to a feminine noun: to intimate that these women were indeed types of men, saith Mr Pemble. The Romans were men every inch of them, as the proverb is; and therefore of cowards they were wont to say that they had nothing Roman in them; and of Brutus, that he was the last of the Romans. And they lift up the ephah between the earth and the heaven] This betokeneth a deportation and dissection of the Jewish nation; being tossed as a tennis ball into all nations, and scattered into the four winds, as Jeremiah 49:36. Rupertus hence concludeth them rejected of both earth and heaven.

(9) Behold . . .—Here commences the third scene of the vision. We need not enter into the minute details of the verse, as they are, probably, introduced merely to give greater distinctness to the picture. (Comp. Note on Zechariah 1:8.) The wings of the woman seem, however, to be represented as filled with the wind to enable them to carry their burden with greater ease and velocity through the air. The prophet, perhaps, borrowed his imagery from some of the grotesque figures he had seen in Babylon.

Verse 9. There came out two women] As the one woman represented the impiety of the Jewish nation; so these two women who were to carry the ephah, in which the woman INIQUITY was shut up, under the weight of a talent of lead, may mean the desperate UNBELIEF of the Jews in rejecting the Messiah; and that IMPIETY, or universal corruption of manners, which was the consequence of their unbelief, and brought down the wrath of God upon them. The strong wings, like those of a stork, may point out the power and swiftness with which Judea was carried on to fill up the measure of her iniquity, and to meet the punishment which she deserved. Between the earth and the heaven.] Sins against GOD and MAN, sins which heaven and earth contemplated with horror. Or the Babylonians and Romans may be intended by the two women who carried the Jewish ephah to its final punishment. The Chaldeans ruined Judea before the advent of our Lord; the Romans, shortly after.

9. looked] Rather, saw.came out] or came forth (as in Zechariah 5:5-6), from the surrounding darkness upon the stage or scene of the vision. No meaning need be sought for the details of this verse. They merely convey the fact, clothed in imagery in keeping with the vision, that wickedness was borne swiftly from the land. “Pertinent haec ad colorem imaginis.” Maurer.

There came out two women - It may be that there may be no symbol herein, but that he names women because it was a woman who was so carried; yet their wings were the wings of an unclean bird, strong,

8. The interpreter proceeds to explain the significance of the woman. This is wickedness — The wickedness of the whole land (Zechariah 5:6) is personified in the one woman.