Zakharia 5:6
Konteks5:6 I asked, “What is it?” And he replied, “It is a basket for measuring grain 1 that is moving away from here.” Moreover, he said, “This is their ‘eye’ 2 throughout all the earth.”
Zakharia 6:8
Konteks6:8 Then he cried out to me, “Look! The ones going to the northland have brought me 3 peace about the northland.” 4
[5:6] 1 tn Heb “[This is] the ephah.” An ephah was a liquid or solid measure of about a bushel (five gallons or just under twenty liters). By metonymy it refers here to a measuring container (probably a basket) of that quantity.
[5:6] 2 tc The LXX and Syriac read עֲוֹנָם (’avonam, “their iniquity,” so NRSV; NIV similar) for the MT עֵינָם (’enam, “their eye”), a reading that is consistent with the identification of the woman in v. 8 as wickedness, but one that is unnecessary. In 4:10 the “eye” represented divine omniscience and power; here it represents the demonic counterfeit.
[6:8] 3 tn Heb “my spirit.” The subject appears to be the
[6:8] 4 sn The immediate referent of peace about the northland is to the peace brought by Persia’s conquest of Babylonia, a peace that allowed the restoration of the Jewish people (cf. 2 Chr 36:22-23; Isa 44:28; 45:1-2). However, there is also an eschatological dimension, referring to a time when there will be perfect and universal peace.