CRITICAL NOTES.] Flying roll] Vision sixth.
Zechariah 5:2.] Ten yards long and five yards broad. The size intended to indicate the number of curses contained; and Flying] The velocity of judgments upon the wicked.
Zechariah 5:3. Earth] Land of Judah first; ultimately, to all the earth. Stealeth] Sinners against the second commandment, false swearers against the first. Cut off] Lit. cleared, swept away as offensive (1 Kings 14:10; Ezekiel 24:11). Two sins put for the whole. This side—that side] The scroll was written on both sides, as in Exodus 32:15. Henderson gives: “From that place, whether on the right hand or on the left, he should be swept away by the Divine judgment. Nowhere should he find protection.”
Zechariah 5:4. Forth] Out of the treasure-house (Jeremiah 10:13). Enter and remain] Lit. lodge or stay; not idle, but consuming inmates, beams, and stones (cf. 1 Kings 18:38; Leviticus 14:45).
HOMILETICS
THE UNCHANGING LAW AND ITS UNIVERSAL CURSE.—Zechariah 5:1-4
The series of visions now take another turn. In the two preceding Chapter s we have the elements of the gospel, in the destruction of Zion’s foes, the forgiveness of the people, the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and the finishing of the temple. Now we learn that God is holy, and cannot tolerate sinners in their wickedness—that all who remain impenitent or reject God’s mercy will be punished with a long and dreary exile, or visited with exterminating judgment. “The white robes of innocence and the golden oil of the Holy Spirit disappear, and in their place comes a fearful curse, overshadowing the land and threatening an irrecoverable overthrow” [Lange]. We learn from the connection of these words—
I. That God’s law is not abrogated by change of circumstances. The Jews were restored to their land, forgiven in their sins, and aided in their work; but the law of God still observed, and would punish, their guilt. No place, time, nor circumstances can alter this law. It is “from eternity to eternity.” It is the revelation of God, and the standard of rectitude in all nations and ages. Unchangeable in its nature, demands, and design, it is designed to educate conscience, to keep alive a sense of sin, and to lead to repentance and faith. “The law entered (came in by the way, i.e. provisionally, with the foreseen effect) that the offence might abound.”
II. That the curse of God’s law will come upon all transgressors. “This is the curse that goeth forth.” There is a constant tendency in men to abuse Divine goodness, and encourage sin. But to all who see, the “flying roll” unfolds the knowledge of God. It is still a “fiery law,” pronouncing curses on those who disobey. Sinai still thunders forth its terrors to all who in spirit, word, or deed break its principles. They lay hold upon all, and where is the man that can escape? “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”
III. That Divine grace alone will secure a man from the curse of God’s law. The Jews were reminded that sin would hinder their work—that they were to forsake it, if God must continue to help them, and fix them in their own land. In other words, God’s favour alone would be the ground of their security. They are only safe who trust his mercy and obey his will. “The lesson under a different form,” says Wardlaw, “was also, that the land to which they had been restored, must be held by the same tenure as before. God had given it originally by promise. By faith of the promise it was obtained. By ‘the obedience of faith’ it was held. The inheritance was never ‘of the law;’ was never held by any legal tenure—by any kind of desert—any right arising out of the doings of those who occupied it.” Only in Christ are we free from condemnation. We are saved by grace, not by works. “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
THE FLYING ROLL, OR SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT.—Zechariah 5:1-4
Taking this roll as representing the curse of God, ready to be executed upon transgressors, let us “lift up our eyes and behold” the sins which bring the curse, and provoke God to ruin men in personal and domestic affairs.
I. The sins. Some infer the Divine authority of the roll, from its size, just the dimensions of the temple porch, a place where the law was usually read; others infer, the great number of the sins and curses written upon it. Like Ezekiel’s roll “it was written within and without,” and full of “lamentations, and mourning, and woe.”
1. The sins were grievous. Two kinds are specified as indicating the whole. (a) Sins against man. “Every one that stealeth.” This means every kind of injustice and violence. (b) Sins against God. “Every one that sweareth.” False or profane swearing was common among the Jews. Stealing and perjury often together; for the covetous and fraudulent have no scruple in the use of God’s name (cf. Proverbs 30:9). Innumerable methods of fraud and deceit are constantly practised, and scarcely considered criminal, because customary. But all who are guilty of injustice and dishonesty with their neighbours in whatever form, and all who withhold from God, in principle and action, the reverence due to his name, are under the curse of the law.
2. The sins were open. They were not only written on the roll, but the roll was open, and of extraordinary size. “It was not rolled up and sealed, but fully expanded to view, that nothing it contained might be concealed,” says one. Sins are written legibly on our moral constitution, in the sight of God and man, and are “known and read of all men.” Sin is self-revealing. It is impossible to hide wrong doing. Jupiter was supposed to write down the sins of men in a book. God keeps a record of human guilt, which will be unfolded on earth and in eternity. “Some men’s sins are open (manifest, clear,) beforehand, going (like heralds) before to judgment; and some men they follow after.”
II. The punishment. “This is the curse that goeth forth.” The curse of the Divine law must be denounced against all transgressors. Its sanction must be set forth and not erased. The theology which denies Divine justice, and deludes the conscience, finds no place in the teaching of the prophet. “The anathemas of Scripture are not a mere brutum fulmen, but a solid and terrible reality.”
1. The curse was universal. “Every one shall be cut off.” It hangs over “the face of the whole earth,” ready to fall upon its objects.
2. The curse was inevitable. “I will bring it forth, saith the Lord.” Who can turn aside that which Almighty power sends forth? On “this side, and on that,” the ungodly are “cut off.”
3. The curse was swift. Its speed was not slow: “I see a flying roll.” Judgments sleep not, but suddenly break forth, and overtake the disobedient. The lightning from heaven is not more swift and irresistible. “He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.”
4. The curse was destructive. It penetrated the house, and consumed everything inside, like the plague of old. “It shall enter into the house.” (a) It destroys families. The homes of the thief and the false-swearer were attacked. The curse of God comes to the sinner where he thinks himself most protected and most secure. (b) It destroys possessions. Vengeance enters and remains in the house until it answers the end for which it is sent. It “remains in the midst of it;” abides like leprosy, infecting, wasting, and consuming all. Ahab multiplied his house, and defied the curse pronounced against it; but the stroke swept all away (1 Kings 21:20-22). “The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked; but he blesseth the habitation of the just.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Zechariah 5:1. Prophecies partly appertain to those in whose times the sacred writers prophesied, partly to the mysteries of Christ. And therefore it is wont of the prophets, at one time to chastise vices and set forth punishments; at another, to predict the mysteries of Christ and the Church [Aug. de Civ. Dei]. It was a wide, unfolded roll, as is involved in its flying; but its flight signified the very swift coming of punishment; its flying from heaven, that the sentence came from the judgment-seat above [Pusey].
Zechariah 5:2. Its large size might denote two things:—the large number and amount of the Divine denunciations it contained; and at the same time, there being room for writing them large, that they might be seen. It was at the same time “flying.” By which, also, two things might be denoted—that it was not meant for any particular city or locality, but to make a progress through the length and breadth of the land; and also, that the denunciations of Jehovah written in it would come speedily and surely on those against whom they were pointed [Wardlaw].
Zechariah 5:3. Cut off: lit. cleansed away. The moral meaning of the Hebrew word suggests, the defiling and offensive nature of sin, and the several measures necessary to take it away. “None who enter the porch of the visible Church may flatter themselves that they can escape God’s wrath and malediction, if they commit any of the sins condemned by the comprehensive commination of this flying roll, which may be compared to a net, co-extensive with the world, and drawn throughout the whole from side to side” [Wordsworth].
Zechariah 5:4. A man’s house is termed his castle, but is unable to hold out against Divine judgments, which may be noticed—
1. for terribleness;
2. suddenness; and
3. retributive end. Property and estates often cut off, families dried up root and branch, and doomed to perpetual curse (cf. Job 18:14-15). “It is a curse that embitters every sweet, and gives more than twofold intensity to every bitter. From this world it must accompany and follow a man to another, and settle with him there for ever. The special reference made to their houses, with the stones thereof and the timber thereof, forcibly points to the care which they had been taking of their own accommodation, in comfort and elegance, while Jehovah’s house was neglected” [Wardlaw].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Zechariah 5:3. Curse. The good make a better bargain, and the bad a worse, than is usually supposed, for the rewards of the one, and the punishments of the other, not unfrequently begin on this side of the grave [Colton’s Laconics]. The wages that sin bargains with the sinner are—life, pleasure, and profit; but the wages it pays them with are—death, torment, and destruction. He that would understand the falsehood and death of sin, must compare its promises and payments together [South].
“Our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us” [Shakespeare].