Zechariah 5:1-4

A couple of notes on the first vision of Zechariah 5, and then translation.

1) Verse 3 is difficult to translate, and is somewhat surprising. The scroll represents, the angel says, the curse going throughout the land, but the effect of the curse in verse 3 is not negative and destructive but purgative. Everyone who steals, the angel says, will be “freed” or “exempted.” The verb means “be innocent” (Judges 15:2) or “remain unpunished” (Jeremiah 25:29). At times, it can have a more negative connotation – a city is “freed” of people in Isaiah 3:28. But the general use suggests a redemptive theme: This is a liberating curse.

2) Similar positive connotations attached to the verb used in verse 4, translated “consume” by the NASB. The verb can be translated as “complete” or “finish,” and is the word used at the end of the creation week and the end of the account of the building of the tabernacle. In context, it certainly seems to mean that the Lord’s curse “ends” the house, but the use of this verb in connection with a house, and its timber and stone, is suggestive of something more positive.

The translation:

And I returned And I lifted my eyes and I saw

And behold a scroll flying.

And he said to me,

“What do you see?”

And I said,

“I myself see a scroll flying

Its length twenty cubits and its width ten cubits.”

And he said to me,

“This the curse going forth over the face of all the earth/land

For all everyone who steals from this just like it will be exempt

And all who swear from this just like it will be exempt.”

“I will cause it to go forth,” oracle of Yahweh of Hosts,

“And it will enter to the house of the one who steals

And to the house of the one who swears in my name to falsehood

And it will remain (stay-the-night) in the midst of its house

And it will destroy/complete it and its wood and its stone.”