Chapter 5 of Zechariah continues the series of visions seen by the prophet. After the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him in the previous visions that this redemption - the building of the Second Temple - was not yet the ultimate and final redemption, the next vision comes and shows him the sins on account of which the Temple will be destroyed and they will be exiled a second time. That is to say: what I told you previously, that this is not the final redemption and that there is destined to be a Third Temple - now I will show you through which sins the Second Temple will be destroyed. This is how the Malbim explains the opening of the chapter.
וָאָשׁוּב וָאֶשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאֶרְאֶה וְהִנֵּה מְגִלָּה עָפָה׃ - And I turned and lifted up my eyes, and I looked, and behold, a flying scroll.
Zechariah says: I lifted my eyes in prophecy and I see a flying scroll. What is a "flying scroll" (megillah afah)? Chazal explain that afah means doubled over, as the Aramaic Targum renders "double" (kaful) as af; thus, a flying scroll was a doubled scroll, and Chazal expounded that the Torah was written upon it. We, however, will explain more in line with the primary literal meaning (peshat), as Targum Yonatan translates: "megilata porchah" - a scroll flying through the air.
Rashi explains that according to the simple meaning of the verse, this is a scroll of calamity, similar to what Yechezkel saw, upon which was written "lamentations, moaning, and wailing" - expressions of dirges, sorrow, and weeping over the condition of Israel and the destruction.
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי מָה אַתָּה רֹאֶה וָאֹמַר אֲנִי רֹאֶה מְגִלָּה עָפָה אָרְכָּהּ עֶשְׂרִים בָּאַמָּה וְרָחְבָּהּ עֶשֶׂר בָּאַמָּה׃ - And he said to me, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits, and its breadth is ten cubits."
Radak notes that it is not explicitly clarified regarding which era this prophecy was spoken, and his opinion is that it was said concerning the prophet's own time. That is, unlike the Malbim who explained that this already refers to the cause of the destruction of the Temple - that while at the beginning of the Second Temple's construction, the prophet reveals why it will ultimately be destroyed - the prophecy rather speaks of the contemporary era and the sins prevalent among them then. Proof of this: in the Book of Ezra we see that they had many transgressions, and it was concerning theft and false oaths that the curse went forth. Radak adds that although theft is not as severe as swearing falsely - a false oath being far more severe - nonetheless, theft leads to false oaths, for if a thief is caught and compelled to swear an oath, he swears falsely to clear himself.
As for the dimensions of length and breadth given here, Radak explains that he saw the scroll emerging from the Ulam (vestibule) of the Temple, which was twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide, referring to the structure built by Shlomo. Even though that structure had already been destroyed, the scroll, as it were, emerges from the place where the Ulam had stood, spread out to the exact measure of its length and breadth. The Malbim, in contrast, explains that the dimension corresponds to the entrance of the Heichal (Sanctuary), whose height was twenty cubits and width was ten cubits. Thus we have two interpretations of "twenty by ten": Radak directs it to the Ulam, and the Malbim to the entrance of the Heichal.
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי זֹאת הָאָלָה הַיּוֹצֵאת עַל פְּנֵי כָל הָאָרֶץ כִּי כָל הַגֹּנֵב מִזֶּה כָּמוֹהָ נִקָּה וְכָל הַנִּשְׁבָּע מִזֶּה כָּמוֹהָ נִקָּה׃ - And he said to me, "This is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole land; for everyone who steals, according to it from this side, has been cleared, and everyone who swears [falsely], according to it from that side, has been cleared."
The verse is difficult: what is the meaning of "everyone who steals from this side like it," and above all - how can it say of the thief and the one who swears falsely that he is "cleansed" (nikah)? After all, he committed a transgression, stole and swore falsely, so how can one speak of him as being cleared of guilt? All the commentators address this difficulty.
Rashi explains: "Nikah" (cleansed/exempted) applies until now. Whoever stole until today, "on this side as on that side is cleansed" - from this calamity he was cleared; he was not repaid for his deeds. Rather, the Holy One, Blessed be He, waited until everyone's measure of guilt was full, and then they were stricken with destruction and exile. In other words: until now, whoever committed these sins was exempted, but from now on, they will pay a heavy price for every transgression they commit.
Ibn Ezra explains that "nikah" is a description of what goes through the mind of the thief and the one who swears falsely: he is convinced he is clean, that no harm will befall him and he will not be punished. This is not what will happen to him, but rather what he thinks and presumes. Regarding the repetition "from this side... from that side", Ibn Ezra explains that both sides of the scroll were written upon, like "written on this side and on that side": either both sides recorded that the thief and the swearer considered themselves clean, or one side read "the thief is clean" and the other side read "the one who swears is clean."
Radak explains the exact opposite: "Nikah" here is not an expression of innocence or acquittal at all, but like "and I will surely not clear him" (venakeh lo anakeh) - an expression of eradication and cutting off. They will purge him from the world, cut him off from the world. "Everyone who steals is purged" - Hashem will purge him from His world and cut him off. According to this, there is no difficulty at all here, as it does not speak of acquittal from punishment, but rather the exact opposite.
The Malbim explains: "This is the curse going out" - written upon this scroll are all the curses by which people swore falsely under an oath of imprecation (shevuat alah), and the scroll itself goes forth to avenge itself upon the false swearer. This is the aspect of "your evil will chastise you": a person swears falsely, his oaths are inscribed upon the scroll, and the scroll flies and goes forth to exact retribution from him.
Chazal say, "Your evil will chastise you" - a person commits a sin, and the sin itself exacts punishment from him. This is what is written, "The foolishness of man subverts his way, and his heart rages against Hashem": a person acts foolishly, and it corrupts his path - for the sin creates a destructive angel (mashchit), and that destructive force harms him and pursues him. Afterward he comes with complaints: "Master of the Universe, why is this happening to me? Why are You doing this to me?" Yet you brought it upon yourself.
It is written that the Holy One, Blessed be He, sustains and nourishes the destructive angels we have created; for if we had to nourish and sustain them - that is, if the Holy One, Blessed be He, were to unleash them upon us - we would not survive for even a single moment. This is the meaning of "Nosei avon" (He bears iniquity), as explained by the author of Tomer Devorah in his exposition of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy: "Bearing iniquity, transgression, and sin" - the Holy One, Blessed be He, carries, nourishes, and sustains the destructive agent until the person repents. Otherwise, the destroyer requires a life source, and its fundamental source of life is you; you created it, so you must sustain it. The Holy One, Blessed be He, could direct it back to us, but then no one would ever survive to repent, since in a single moment a person would cease to exist under the weight of the destructive forces he created. Thus, this scroll, upon which all the false oaths and curses are written, is itself their transgressions, and it is what goes forth to exact retribution from them and punish them. The evil you created is what chastises you.
Why does the prophet see the scroll going forth from the Sanctuary (Heichal)? The Malbim explains: this is what we find King Solomon praying in the Book of Kings - "If a man sins against his neighbor, and an oath is laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the curse comes before Your altar in this house; then hear in heaven, and act, and judge Your servants, condemning the wicked." An alah is an oath accompanied by a curse; people would come before the altar and swear there, and from there - from before the altar - the judgment of the false swearer goes forth.
Their custom was primarily to administer an oath regarding theft: whoever suspected his neighbor of stealing from him would tell him to swear that he did not steal. Thus we see in Shoftim 17: "The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you, concerning which you cursed..." - Micah's mother had a sum of eleven hundred pieces of silver, and Micah stole the silver. After his mother pronounced a curse, declaring that whoever stole it should suffer such-and-such, he came and admitted that the silver was with him. Afterward, he consecrated that same silver for an ephod and teraphim, and from this began the story of the idol of Micah - he fashioned an idol from that very silver. We learn from this that one who suspected his neighbor of theft would place him under an oath.
In such hidden matters, they would issue a ban (cherem) and a curse upon anyone who had knowledge and concealed it. Similarly, King David cursed that whoever knew how to stop the subterranean waters that surged upward and failed to reveal it should choke. Ultimately, it was Achitophel who told him what to do; yet because the curse of a sage, even if conditional, comes to pass, Achitophel's end was that he choked, as he went and hanged himself. Thus, people would come to the Beit HaMikdash to administer oaths to one another concerning theft, as it is written, "The oath of Hashem shall be between them both," and the curse would come before the altar and into the Heichal.
Therefore, says the Malbim, the prophet now sees the curses that were in the Heichal going forth from the Heichal to execute judgment and descend upon the person who swore falsely. All these curses are written upon the scroll, and the scroll is immense - matching the length and breadth of the entrance of the Heichal, as if to say: with your false oaths, you filled the Heichal. A scroll filled with false oaths, the size of the length and width of the Heichal's entrance (and according to the Radak, the length and width of the Ulam itself), and this is the curse that now goes forth to execute judgment and exact retribution from all the sinners.
And as for what is said, "for everyone who steals has acquitted himself according to it from here" - the Malbim explains that the thief would try to clear himself through an imprecation and an oath: "I swear to you that I did not take it." "From here" - from this imprecation inscribed in the scroll, in the wording written here, he took the oath upon himself to clear himself of suspicion and claim he did nothing. The same applies to one who swore falsely concerning other matters. "Has acquitted himself according to it" - he cleared himself of suspicion according to the formula written in the scroll, and in that scroll was written the curse and imprecation he accepted upon himself.
הוֹצֵאתִיהָ נְאֻם ה' צְבָאוֹת וּבָאָה אֶל בֵּית הַגַּנָּב וְאֶל בֵּית הַנִּשְׁבָּע בִּשְׁמִי לַשָּׁקֶר וְלָנֶה בְּתוֹךְ בֵּיתוֹ וְכִלַּתּוּ וְאֶת עֵצָיו וְאֶת אֲבָנָיו׃ - "I have sent it out," says the Lord of Hosts, "and it shall enter the house of the thief and the house of one who swears falsely by My name; it shall abide in the midst of his house and consume it, both its timber and its stones."
The scroll now goes forth from the Heichal, inscribed with all the false oaths that were taken, and it enters the house of the thief and the house of the one who swore falsely in His name. And why does it take effect upon him? Because he himself accepted the oath and the curse upon himself - for in an oath, a person swears that such-and-such should befall him if he stole. Having taken this upon himself, the oath comes and rests upon him. "And it shall abide in the midst of his house and consume it, both its timber and its stones" - as Chazal say: Things that fire and water cannot consume, a false oath consumes.
וַיֵּצֵא הַמַּלְאָךְ הַדֹּבֵר בִּי וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי שָׂא נָא עֵינֶיךָ וּרְאֵה מָה הַיּוֹצֵאת הַזֹּאת׃ - Then the angel who spoke with me went out and said to me, "Lift up your eyes now, and see what is this that goes forth."
Now he wished to show him another matter: that they had additional sins, and how they would be punished for them measure for measure. The punishment for a false oath, as we have seen, is boundless and measureless - the curse comes upon him and upon his house, lodges in the midst of his house, and consumes its timber and stones. But here he comes to show a different punishment for other matters, a punishment that has limit and measure.
An "ephah" is a measure. Thus we say of someone who applies a double standard: "He acts with an ephah and an ephah." In their time, the ephah served as a unit of measurement, just as we would say a "liter" today. One who measures for each person with a different ephah - that is "an ephah and an ephah," giving not according to true measure but a different amount to each. Here he comes to tell him: The punishment that will come upon them is measured, measure for measure, in an exact ephah according to the deed they committed.
וָאֹמַר מַה הִיא וַיֹּאמֶר זֹאת הָאֵיפָה הַיּוֹצֵאת וַיֹּאמֶר זֹאת עֵינָם בְּכָל הָאָרֶץ׃ - And I said, "What is it?" And he said, "This is the ephah that goes forth." And he said, "This is their eye throughout all the earth."
As we explained at the opening of the book, Zecharya lived at the close of prophecy, and as such prophecy had already grown faint - and in the context of prophecy, "faint" means many parables and little direct understanding. The prophet himself often finds it difficult to grasp the vision, and the angel must explain it to him. And we who study find numerous interpretations here for the same verses, for the more obscure the language, the more numerous the explanations become, as each commentator resolves the matter in a different way. It is not our way to branch out into countless commentaries; we study with the core foundation - Rashi, Radak, and especially the Malbim.
The Radak explains that the ephah going forth alludes to the exile of the Ten Tribes, who are submerged in exile with no prospect of departing from it. For Zecharya already stands at the beginning of the rebuilding of the Second Temple, and Yehudah and Binyamin - at least some of them - have already emerged from exile. And he shows him: This is an "ephah" - measure for measure. Just as they prolonged their days in their wickedness, for the entire period of the kingdom of Shomron following the death of Shlomo was wicked and did not produce even a single righteous king, so the Holy One, blessed be He, will prolong their days in exile for a very long time. This is the ephah, and this is the measure.
"This is their eye throughout all the earth" - the Radak explains: The ephah that you see teaches that there is an Eye that sees their deeds, the eyes of Hashem that range throughout all the earth.
The Malbim explains that "this is the ephah that goes out" refers to the measure that goes forth to judge them measure for measure, and the punishment will correspond to the sin according to its exact measure. Note this well: the ephah does not go out from the Heichal (the Sanctuary). The scroll went out from the Heichal, but the ephah, which comes to punish for other iniquities, does not go out from there - because a false oath is taken before the altar, whereas for other sins people did not come before the altar and the Heichal. Therefore it says, "this is their eye throughout all the land": the eye supervising these sins is not the eye in the Heichal, but rather stems from Hashem's eye that surveys the entire land and sees their sins, and for this sin they will receive measure for measure - middah keneged middah.
וְהִנֵּה כִּכַּר עֹפֶרֶת נִשֵּׂאת וְזֹאת אִשָּׁה אַחַת יוֹשֶׁבֶת בְּתוֹךְ הָאֵיפָה׃ - And behold, a lead weight was lifted up, and this was one woman sitting inside the ephah.
Targum Yonatan translates: "And behold, nations as a whole shall exile them entirely" - nations will come and exile them in their entirety, and so it is carried aloft as the wind carries it; "and other nations shall come and dwell in their place." And on what account? "Because they conducted business with false measures" - for using a deceitful ephah in commerce.
The matter of a false ephah is something the Torah warns about repeatedly: "You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, a great and a small; you shall not have in your house diverse measures (ephah and ephah)." The Torah warns man to be scrupulously careful that his measures are accurate and proper. In Chazal's times, inspectors would go around to the shops to verify that the measures were honest. After all, if someone's "liter" measure is actually 900 cc, he steals 100 cc from every customer; and if his weight stone is 950 grams, he profits 50 grams at each person's expense by selling less. Even today, there are officials in charge of calibrating gas stations, who go and measure to ensure that fuel metering is accurate - that air or water is not being pumped, and that the counter does not run too fast. There was always a need for appointed inspectors tasked with ensuring that all measures remain precise.
The Radak continues his line of interpretation that this refers to the Ten Tribes. The lead weight is a sinker - just as a fisherman weights his hook with lead, and just as they would place lead on a fishing net so it would sink to the bottom. Lead is meant to weigh things down. And the woman sitting inside the ephah represents the Ten Tribes, who are like a woman who deserted her husband; she sits inside the ephah - in the very place where she corrupted herself, through deceitful measures. Consequently, there is a lead weight that submerges her and does not allow her to emerge when Yehudah and Binyamin go forth to be redeemed at the start of the Second Temple. They remain sunken there, as though the Holy One, blessed be He, placed a heavy weight upon them to keep them submerged in exile.
וַיֹּאמֶר זֹאת הָרִשְׁעָה וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ אֹתָהּ אֶל תּוֹךְ הָאֵיפָה וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ אֶת אֶבֶן הָעוֹפֶרֶת אֶל פִּיהָ׃ - And he said, "This is Wickedness." And he cast her into the midst of the ephah, and he cast the lead weight over its mouth.
The Malbim explains that the interpretation of the vision is found in this verse: the woman sitting inside the ephah is Wickedness itself, manifested in the form of a woman. And Wickedness sits inside the ephah, as if to say that it itself punishes the wicked. For the ephah is the punishment measured out according to one's actions, and who sits within it? The very wickedness that one committed. This is the Wickedness sitting inside the ephah - it measures out, by measure and volume, the retribution due for what you have done, and it metes out the fitting punishment. This embodies the principle of "Your own evil shall chastise you": the wickedness one committed, symbolized here by the woman, is what measures out retribution to him measure for measure. Through this, people will fear to do evil, seeing that precisely as a person acted, so does he receive his retribution.
And what is the casting of the lead weight onto its mouth? Wickedness demands punishment. It is written in the sacred texts that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not overlook wrongdoing. Why? Because the Kingdom of Heaven mirrors an earthly kingdom. Just as in an earthly government, when an indictment is filed in court, the court cannot arbitrarily decide that it simply does not wish to judge - once the matter meets all legal parameters, it is obligated to adjudicate. So too in the Heavenly Court: when an accusation arises, the Holy One does not say, "We are taking a two-year recess and accepting no indictments." If there is an accusation, there must be a trial.
And when there is a trial, a defense advocate is required to counter it - finding merits on behalf of the Jewish people and presenting various mitigating grounds. And if, Heaven forbid, there is none, and there are no merits, punishment must inevitably follow. This is similar to what we know of civil law, where a judge sometimes cannot alter the severity of the sentence: there are crimes for which the legislature set a mandatory minimum fine or prison term, and he cannot consider mitigating circumstances to reduce the years. Once he rules that a certain offense was committed, the sentence must be ten years in prison or a specific fine, and he cannot give less. So it is in Heavenly judgment: once there is an accusation and no defense advocacy succeeds in dismissing it, retribution must follow, and there is no one to silence the mouth of the accuser.
We pray, "Seal the mouth of the Satan," while some versions read "Muzzle the mouth of the Satan" - that the Holy One, blessed be He, should stop his mouth so he cannot accuse. And how is his mouth muzzled? Through merits, through teshuvah, and through mending our ways. One cannot muzzle his mouth without cause; there must be a genuine reason to seal the mouth of the Satan. Here, the woman symbolizing Wickedness sits inside the ephah and punishes them measure for measure, middah keneged middah. When the Jewish people observe this and recognize it as divine justice, wickedness will cease, for when a person sees that he receives exactly according to his deeds, it rouses him to teshuvah. And when he is aroused to teshuvah, the mouth of the accuser is silenced. This, explains the Malbim, is why he saw the lead weight cast onto the mouth of Wickedness: the lead upon its mouth serves to seal the opening, so she can no longer continue to accuse. The Jewish people do teshuvah and mend their ways - "and all iniquity shall stop her mouth."
From these verses, our Sages derived the account of the Men of the Great Assembly, who trapped the Yetzer Hara (the evil inclination) inside a lead cauldron, so that its voice could no longer be heard from within.
וָאֶשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאֵרֶא וְהִנֵּה שְׁתַּיִם נָשִׁים יוֹצְאוֹת וְרוּחַ בְּכַנְפֵיהֶם וְלָהֵנָּה כְנָפַיִם כְּכַנְפֵי הַחֲסִידָה וַתִּשֶּׂאנָה אֶת הָאֵיפָה בֵּין הָאָרֶץ וּבֵין הַשָּׁמָיִם׃ - Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, two women came forth with the wind in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven.
Why specifically two women? Rashi explains that those who oppress us have always come in pairs, and misfortune comes in pairs. Similarly, Midrash Tehillim states that those who subjugated Israel were doubled: Babylon and the Chaldeans, Media and Persia, Antiochus and Macedonia (Greece), Edom and Ishmael. Likewise, Rabbi Elazar HaKalir established in his liturgical poems (piyutim), "a fourth that is an eighth" - meaning that while this is technically the fourth exile, in reality it is the eighth, for every exile is doubled, and in every exile there were two who oppressed us, so that the four effectively become eight.
In this chapter, the Holy One, blessed be He, shows Zechariah two visions of retribution. The first - a flying scroll matching the dimensions of the entrance to the Sanctuary (or the entrance of the Hall, according to the Radak), inscribed with all the curses and false oaths sworn in the Beit HaMikdash; it goes forth from the Sanctuary to exact retribution from the thief and from the one who swears falsely, lodging inside his house and consuming it, its timbers, and its stones - in the sense of "Your own wickedness will chastise you," for the sin itself generates the destructive force that punishes its perpetrator. The second vision - the ephah, punishment arriving in precise measure, middah keneged middah (measure for measure), which does not proceed from the Sanctuary but from the eye of Hashem roving throughout the earth. Inside it sits "the Wickedness" - the evil itself that measures out to man according to his deeds - and the lead weight cast upon its mouth teaches that when the Jewish people acknowledge the justice of the decree and repent, the mouth of the prosecutor is silenced. From this emerges a great moral lesson: to be meticulous regarding oaths, measures, and weights, and to recognize that every deed returns to its doer in an exact ephah - and that the only way to silence the prosecutor is through the rectification of deeds and teshuvah.