Zechariah 5:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

ZECHARIAH CHAPTER 5 By the flying roll is showed the curse of thieves and of false swearers, Malachi 5:1-4. By a woman in an ephah, pressed under a weight, and carried away to Shinar, is denoted wickedness, and the judgment of it, Malachi 5:5-11. Then, or And, Heb. i.e. after I had seen those comfortable visions, and been instructed in the true meaning of them. I turned; changed his posture, though the occasion of it be not mentioned, nor the posture into which he put himself. Lifted up mine eyes; looked up into the air where the vision appeared. Looked, very diligently, and discerned clearly. A flying roll; a volume, or book, which in those days were not written as now our books are printed and bound, but were written, as deeds are now, on large or long parchments, and rolled up upon a neat round stick, or else rolled upon themselves; such the roll here seen: much as our large geographical maps are rolled upon rollers, sad lodged in a convenient cavity, so were their books of old. But probably here now the roll was spread out at large, flying in the air swiftly, perhaps with some noise, that might make the prophet look about him.