Just Ephah

The woman Wickedness is carried from the land in an ephah covered with a lead weight (Zechariah 5:6-7).  It is a parodic ark of the covenant, containing a harlot instead of the tablets of the law.

Why an ephah?  The Old testament regularly demands that Israel use accurate weights and measures, and often refers to an ephah in these contexts.  Deuteronomy 25:13 says, ”You shall not have in your bag a stone and a stone, a large and a small.  You shall not have in your house an ephah and an ephah [ie, different sized ephahs], a large and a small.  You shall have a full and just measure.”  Leviticus 19:36 says something similar: “You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin.  Amos (8:5) condemns those who trample the needy and say, “When will the new moon be over, so that we may buy more grain, and the sabbath, that we may open the wheat market, to make the ephah smaller and the shekel bigger, and to cheat with dishonest scales.”

The vision of wickedness in an ephah is a vision of wicked commerce, the use of unfair and unjust weights and measures.  And, since worship is sometimes depicted as commerce between God and Israel, the vision may also have liturgical import.  An ephah full of wickedness symbolizes both unjust economic dealings, and also idolatrous worship.