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.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
