This study led me into a direction I did not expect and into a depth, that I don't even think I was able to scratch the surface of, but here it is and may it inspire others to go "deeper still."
Zechariah
Bible Study # 8
Zechariah
5:5-11
The Ephah
5
Then the angel who was
speaking with me went out and said to me, “Lift up now your eyes
and see what this is going forth.” 6
I said, “What is it?”
And he said, “This is the ephah going forth.” Again he said,
“This is their appearance in all the land 7
(and behold, a lead
cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah.”
8
Then he said, “This is
Wickedness!” And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and
cast the lead weight on its opening. 9
Then I lifted up my eyes
and looked, and there two women were coming out with the wind in
their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they
lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. 10
I said to the angel who
was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the ephah?” 11
Then he said to me, “To
build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is
prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.” NASB
In
the previous vision from this book, two commandments were emphasized,
“No lying” and “No stealing.” It leads us to this vision
because it is in the interest of “man's petty kingdom” that
people resort to lying and stealing.
Ephah, the largest measure for dry goods among the Jews.
(Ton, would that be a similar term?) It is a symbol of trade or
commerce and we are about to go very deep in God, together, we will
'selah', stop and look at this bush that burns but is not consumed.
Zechariah
ends with this verse, 14:21 “And every
pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the Lord
of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and
boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be
a trader in the house of the Lord
of hosts on that day.” A trader, a merchant, no longer in the
house of the Lord. Who are you trusting in?. Where do you put your
trust?
This
scripture brought other verses to mind.
Revelation 17:1 Then
one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with
me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great
harlot who sits on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth
committed acts
of
immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the
wine of her immorality.” 3 And he carried me away in the Spirit
into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full
of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman
was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious
stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations
and of the unclean things of her immorality, 5 and on her forehead a
name was
written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND
OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” 6 And I saw the woman drunk
with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of
Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered greatly. 7 And the angel said to
me, “Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman
and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the
ten horns.
8 “The
beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of
the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth,
whose name has not been written in the book of life from the
foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he
was and is not and will come. 9 Here is the mind which has wisdom.
The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, 10 and
they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet
come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. 11 The beast
which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one
of the seven, and he goes to destruction. 12 The ten horns which you
saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they
receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. 13 These have
one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.
Revelation 18:10-20 10
They will stand at a distance, terrified by her great torment. They
will cry out,
“
How terrible, how terrible for you,
O Babylon,
you great city!
In a single moment
God’s judgment came on
you.”
11 The merchants of the world will weep and mourn for
her, for there is no one left to buy their goods. 12 She bought great
quantities of gold, silver, jewels, and pearls; fine linen, purple,
silk, and scarlet cloth; things made of fragrant thyine wood, ivory
goods, and objects made of expensive wood; and bronze, iron, and
marble. 13 She also bought cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh,
frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep,
horses, chariots, and bodies—that is, human slaves.
14 “The fancy things you
loved so much
are gone,” they cry.
“All your luxuries and
splendor
are gone forever,
never to be yours again.”
15 The merchants who
became wealthy by selling her these things will stand at a distance,
terrified by her great torment. They will weep and cry out,
16
“How terrible, how terrible for that great city!
She was clothed
in finest purple and scarlet linens,
decked out with gold and
precious stones and pearls!
17 In a single moment
all the
wealth of the city is gone!”
And
all the captains of the merchant ships and their passengers and
sailors and crews will stand at a distance. 18 They will cry out as
they watch the smoke ascend, and they will say, “Where is there
another city as great as this?” 19 And they will weep and throw
dust on their heads to show their grief. And they will cry out,
“
How terrible, how terrible for that great
city!
The ship owners became wealthy
by transporting her great
wealth on the seas.
In a single moment it is all gone.”
20 Rejoice over her fate,
O heaven
and people of God and apostles and prophets!
For at
last God has judged her
for your sakes.
NLT
The
anti-Christ is said to control buying and selling.
“
And that no man might
buy or sell, save he that had the
mark, or the
name of the
beast, or the
number of
his name.”
Revelation
13:17
1 Timothy 6:9,10 “For
men who set their hearts on being wealthy expose themselves to
temptation. They fall into one of the world’s traps, and lay
themselves open to all sorts of silly and wicked desires, which are
quite capable of utterly ruining and destroying their souls. For
loving money leads to all kinds of evil, and some men in the struggle
to be rich have lost their faith and caused themselves untold agonies
of mind.” Phillips
The
most evil thing about evil is that it does not appear to be evil.
Mammon,
is more than money. Money personified and trusted in, as opposed to
God.
Matthew 6:19 “Do not
store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys,
and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22
“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear,
your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad,
your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is
in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve
two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or
he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
and wealth.(mammon)
The Cure
for Anxiety
25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried
about your life, as to
what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as
to what you will put on. Is not life more
than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of
the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and
yet your heavenly
Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who
of you by being worried can add a single
hour to his life? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe
how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed
himself like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the
field, which is alive
today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will
He not much more clothe
you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will
we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for
clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for
your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But
seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things
will be added to you.
34 “So do not worry
about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has
enough trouble of its own.
Proverbs
11:44 Riches do not profit in the day of
wrath,
But righteousness delivers from death.
Habakkuk 3:17 Though the fig tree should not blossom
And
there be no fruit on the vines,Though
the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no
food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And
there be no cattle in the stalls,
18 Yet I will exult in the
Lord,
I will rejoice in
the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord God
is my strength,
And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet,
And
makes me walk on my high places.
Jesus tells an
interesting parable in Luke 16:1-15 on “making friends with
unrighteous mammon.”
Matthew Henry
has some good comments on this parable.
“
The things of this world are the mammon
of unrighteousness, or the false mammon,
not only because often got by fraud and unrighteousness, but because
those who trust to it for satisfaction and happiness will certainly
be deceived; for riches are perishing things, and will disappoint
those that raise their expectations from them. Though this mammon
of unrighteousness is not to be trusted
to for a happiness, yet it may and must be
made use of in
subservience to our pursuit of that which is our happiness. Though we
cannot find true satisfaction in it, yet we may make
to ourselves friends
with it, not by way of purchase or merit,
but recommendation; so
we may make God and Christ our friends, the good angels and saints
our friends, and the poor our friends; and it is a desirable thing to
be befriended in the
account and state to come.
We have no other way to prove ourselves the servants of
God than by giving up ourselves so entirely to his service as to make
mammon, that is, all
our worldly gain, serviceable to us in his service (v. 13): No
servant can serve two masters, whose commands
are so inconsistent as those of God and mammon
are. If a man will love
the world, and hold to
that, it cannot be but
he will hate God and
despise him. He will
make all his pretensions of religion truckle (to be submissive) to
his secular interests and designs, and the things of God shall be
made to help him in serving and seeking the world. But, on the other
hand, if a man will love God,
and adhere to him, he
will comparatively hate
the world (whenever God and the world come in competition) and will
despise it, and make
all his business and success in the world some way or other conducive
to his furtherance in the business of religion; and the things of the
world shall be made to help him in serving God and working out his
salvation. The matter is here laid plainly before us: Ye
cannot serve God and mammon. So divided are
their interests that their services can never be compounded.
If therefore we be determined to serve God,
we must disclaim and abjure the service of the world.”
Back to the
Zechariah text.
The ephah is
sent out to pervade the people with its influence. Trade or commerce
with its temptations “to make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and to deal falsely with balances of deceit” Amos 8:5
This is
wickedness, the embodiment of iniquity, lawlessness. A principality
just under Satan in its power. (The organism that is effectively the
bride of Satan in a like manner to the church being the bride of
Christ.)
Represented by
a woman because its power is that of a temptress, enticing and
bringing a dangerous influence over the souls of men. This system is
altogether alien and opposed to the principles of God.
David Baron
“It is a
striking and noteworthy fact, which no intelligent man can fail to
observe, that commerce is more and more bringing the nations under
its sway.
It now sets up
the governments and dictates the policies of the nations. It is for
it that the mighty armaments are being built and that wars are being
made. In all the earth and among all nations that which is
symbolized by the ephah is becoming the great controlling center of
society. The producing power of manufacture, the distributing skill
of the merchant, the controlling power of those who trade in money
and command the circulating medium of commerce—these and similar
interests, when combined , are able to speak with a voice which no
government can refuse to hear. Their will is potent. Legislation and
government accommodate themselves to their demands. Indeed the
state has become virtually and organ for the system of commerce. Its
will is paramount. In the 18th
chapter of Revelation, the close of this age, has 'merchants being
the great men of the earth,' and the commercial city is the 'queen of
the nations.' This system as a part to play in the final apostasy.
Seductive attractiveness and luxury are used to allure men.
The two
women... Apostate Christianity and Apostate Judaism both given over
to the worship of Mammon;.
The land of
Shinar, ancient land of the first rebellion against God.
The final
anti-Christ apostasy “in which a godless Judaism and a corrupt,
unbelieving Christianity will be united for the sake of a the false
peace, and pomp, and luxury, and a humanitarianism dissociated from
God and the truth, which the system, outwardly symbolized by the
ephah, will for a time minister to them, but which, as Scripture also
warns us, will end in the most terrible judgment which has yet
befallen man upon the earth. “
So, what have
we here? Beware when you are tempted to lie and to steal for any
reason. Beware of trusting in the riches of this world. They are
not evil, but they are viciously, seductive. The portion from
Matthew 6 is worth a very slow and prayerful read. It is a loving
warning, from the One who made us and knows our weaknesses. The
passage from Habakkuk is worth a slow and prayerful read because
God's answer to the prophet did not consist in even one temporary
blessing of provision, His presence, intimacy with Him, a trust that
goes beyond sight and grabs hold of the invisible, that is what God
is after.
