Zechariah 5:6
basket <0374> [This is an ephah.]
"The meaning of this vision," says Archbishop Newcome, "seems to be, that the Babylonish captivity had happened on account of the wickedness of the Jews, and that a like dispersion would befall them if they relapsed into like crimes." The woman who sat in the {ephah} was an emblem of the Jewish nation; the casting the weight of lead on the mouth of the {ephah} seems to mean the condemnation of the Jews, after they had filled up the measure of their iniquities by crucifying the Messiah; the "two women, with wings like a stork, and the wind in their wings," seem emblematical of the Roman armies and the rapidity of their conquests; and their lifting up the {ephah} and carrying it through the air, to build it a house in Shinar or Babylon, where it was fixed on its own basis, represents the taking of Jerusalem, the dispersion of the Jews, and the long continuance of that calamity, as a just punishment of their unbelief.
