5 Then the angel who talked with me came forward, and said to me, “Lift up now your eyes, and see what is this that is appearing.” 6 I said, “What is it?”
He said, “This is the ephah [1] basket that is appearing.” He said moreover, “This is their appearance in all the land 7 (and behold, a talent [2] of lead was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah basket.” 8 He said, “This is Wickedness;” and he threw her down into the midst of the ephah basket; and he threw the weight of lead on its mouth. 9 Then lifted I up my eyes, and saw, and behold, there were two women, and the wind was in their wings. Now they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah basket between earth and the sky. 10 Then said I to the angel who talked with me, “Where are these carrying the ephah basket?” 11 He said to me, “To build her a house in the land of Shinar. When it is prepared, she will be set there in her own place.”
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Zechariah 5:5-11
Commentary on Zechariah 5:5-11
(Read Zechariah 5:5-11)
In this vision the prophet sees an ephah, something in the shape of a corn measure. This betokened the Jewish nation. They are filling the measure of their iniquity; and when it is full, they shall be delivered into the hands of those to whom God sold them for their sins. The woman sitting in the midst of the ephah represents the sinful church and nation of the Jews, in their latter and corrupt age. Guilt is upon the sinner as a weight of lead, to sink him to the lowest hell. This seems to mean the condemnation of the Jews, after they filled the measure of their iniquities by crucifying Christ and rejecting his gospel. Zechariah sees the ephah, with the woman thus pressed in it, carried away to some far country. This intimates that the Jews should be hurried out of their own land, and forced to dwell in far countries, as they had been in Babylon. There the ephah shall be firmly placed, and their sufferings shall continue far longer than in their late captivity. Blindness is happened unto Israel, and they are settled upon their own unbelief. Let sinners fear to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath; for the more they multiply crimes, the faster the measure fills.