Containing and Exporting Wickedness Text: Zechariah 5:5-11
Introduction: Visions of Judgment and Hope
The prophet Zechariah was given a series of eight night visions, and they are not the sort of thing you can digest with a casual glance. They are thick with symbolism, and they are given to a discouraged people, a remnant returned from exile, tasked with rebuilding the temple in a Jerusalem that was a shadow of its former glory. These visions were meant to be a potent encouragement, a divine assurance that God had not forgotten His covenant promises. But we must remember that God's promises of blessing always come with a corresponding promise of judgment. God is not a sentimental grandfather; He is a holy Father. And a holy Father disciplines His children and cleans His house.
The vision just prior to this one was of a great flying scroll, a massive curse going out over the whole land to purge it of thieves and those who swear falsely. It was a picture of God's law acting as a divine disinfectant. Now, in our text, the angel shows Zechariah a follow up vision. It is one thing to deal with individual sinners, but what do you do with the principle of sin itself? What do you do with systemic, organized, institutionalized wickedness? This vision answers that question. It is a strange and memorable picture: a woman, identified as Wickedness, being stuffed into a measuring basket, sealed with a lead lid, and flown off to the land of Shinar, which is to say, Babylon.
This is a vision about the nature of sin, God's judgment upon it, and its final destination. It shows us that God doesn't just sweep sin under the rug. He contains it, He judges it, and He exiles it. And in a glorious, postmillennial sense, it shows us the trajectory of the kingdom of God. As the gospel goes out and Christ's kingdom advances, organized wickedness is progressively contained and removed. It is not that sin vanishes from the hearts of all men overnight, but rather that its ability to organize, to build, and to establish itself is curtailed. The vision shows us that wickedness will have a house, a place of worship, a pedestal, but it will not be in the new Jerusalem. It will be in Babylon, the archetypal city of man, the great symbol of organized rebellion against God.
The Text
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.” So 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 (and behold, a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah.” Then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and threw the lead weight on its opening. Then I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, 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. And I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the ephah?” Then he said to me, “To build a house for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.”
(Zechariah 5:5-11 LSB)
The Measurement of Iniquity (v. 5-7)
The vision begins with the presentation of a common object, an ephah.
"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.' So 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 (and behold, a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah.'" (Zechariah 5:5-7)
An ephah was a standard dry measure, roughly equivalent to a bushel basket. It was a tool of commerce, of daily business in the marketplace. But here, it is "going forth." This is not a static basket; it is an active symbol. The angel says, "This is their appearance in all the land." The word for appearance can also mean "iniquity." The ephah, a symbol of just weights and honest dealings, had become a symbol of the people's sin. Commerce had become corrupt. The very standard of measurement was now a measure of their guilt. Amos the prophet had condemned Israel for this very thing: "making the ephah small and the shekel great and dealing deceitfully with false balances" (Amos 8:5).
When the lead cover is lifted, Zechariah sees a woman sitting inside. The symbolism here is potent. In Scripture, women are often used to represent spiritual realities. Israel is the bride of Yahweh; the Church is the bride of Christ. But on the other side, you have the great harlot, Babylon, and figures like Jezebel, who institutionalized idolatry in Israel. A woman represents a system, a source, a womb of influence. This is not a statement about women in general, any more than a prophecy about a male antichrist is a statement about all men. It is symbolic language. This woman is the personification of a system of rebellion.
Wickedness Contained (v. 8)
The angel does not leave Zechariah guessing as to the woman's identity.
"Then he said, 'This is Wickedness!' And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and threw the lead weight on its opening." (Zechariah 5:8 LSB)
The identification is blunt and absolute: "This is Wickedness." The Hebrew word here, rish`ah, is a feminine noun, which fits the imagery. This is not just any sin; this is the principle of lawlessness, the spirit of rebellion personified. Notice the angel's action. He doesn't negotiate with her. He doesn't try to rehabilitate her. He throws her down, shoves her back into the basket, and slams a heavy lead lid on top. This is a picture of divine judgment. God does not trifle with wickedness. He contains it. He restrains it. The lead weight speaks of a final, heavy, immovable judgment. This is not a temporary time out. This is a decisive act of sovereign power.
This has massive implications for how we view sin. Our therapeutic age wants to understand sin, to counsel it, to find its root causes in societal pressures or unfortunate upbringings. God's approach is different. He identifies it as wickedness, and He shuts it down. For the remnant in Zechariah's day, this was a promise that God was going to deal decisively with the covenantal unfaithfulness that had sent them into exile in the first place. He was cleansing His land, and that meant containing and removing the source of the corruption.
The Unholy Removal Service (v. 9)
The next part of the vision is perhaps the strangest. The means of removing this contained wickedness is revealed.
"Then I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, 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." (Zechariah 5:9 LSB)
Two more women appear, and they are equipped for transport. They have wings, and the "wind was in their wings," indicating supernatural speed and power. Their wings are like those of a stork, which is significant. The stork was an unclean bird according to Levitical law (Lev. 11:19). This is an unclean removal service for an unclean product. God will use unclean instruments, even pagan nations, to accomplish His purposes of judgment. He used Assyria, the "rod of His anger," against Israel. He used Babylon to judge Judah. Here, these two stork-like women are the agents who carry wickedness away.
They lift the ephah "between the earth and the heavens." This is a public spectacle. The removal of wickedness is not done in a corner. It is a visible demonstration of God's judgment, for all to see. He is making a public show of sin's defeat and exile from His holy land. This is what Christ did at the cross, "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him" (Colossians 2:15).
The Final Destination (v. 10-11)
Zechariah, like any good student, asks the right question: where is this thing going?
"And I said to the angel who was speaking with me, 'Where are they taking the ephah?' Then he said to me, 'To build a house for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.'" (Zechariah 5:10-11 LSB)
The answer is the theological climax of the vision. They are taking Wickedness to the land of Shinar. Shinar is the ancient name for Babylonia. It is the location of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:2). It is the archetypal origin of organized, idolatrous, humanistic rebellion against God. It is man's attempt to build a city and a name for himself, to reach heaven on his own terms. Babylon, throughout Scripture, represents the world system in opposition to God's kingdom.
And what are they going to do in Shinar? "To build a house for her." Wickedness is not just being dumped in a landfill. She is being taken to a place where a temple will be built for her. She will be "set there on her own pedestal." This is a picture of enthroned idolatry. Wickedness is being returned to its native soil, its natural habitat. It is being sent to the place where it is not just tolerated, but worshipped.
The message to the returning exiles is this: God is purifying this land, Jerusalem, for His own worship. The organized system of idolatry and rebellion that defiled you is being exiled. It has a home, but its home is not here among My people. Its home is in Babylon. This is a prophecy of separation. God is drawing a sharp line between the holy city and the city of man. This is a process that began with the return from exile, that climaxed at the cross and the destruction of the temple in AD 70, and that continues throughout history as the Church, the new Jerusalem, grows and expands, pushing the organized forces of darkness back to their Babylonian headquarters.
Conclusion: From Babylon to New Jerusalem
This vision is not just for ancient Israel. It is a paradigm for understanding God's work in history. God is in the business of exporting wickedness. The central work of the gospel is to take men who are citizens of Babylon and, by grace, translate them into the kingdom of His dear Son, making them citizens of the New Jerusalem.
Every human heart, apart from Christ, has a little ephah with a woman named Wickedness sitting in it. It is the lawlessness, the self-worship, the idolatry that is native to our fallen nature. But when the gospel comes, God does not simply remodel that little house of wickedness. He performs an eviction. He throws Wickedness out, seals the judgment, and sends it away.
And on a grand, historical scale, this is what Christ is doing in the world. His kingdom advances like a flying scroll, judging sin, and like a heavenly transport, removing organized rebellion. The Great Commission is a command to disciple the nations, to teach them to obey all that Christ commanded. As this happens, as families, communities, and nations are brought under the Lordship of Christ, the "house" for wickedness shrinks. The pedestals for idolatry are overturned. The ephah of lawlessness is sealed and shipped back to Shinar.
Our eschatology should not be one of retreat, where we hunker down and wait for the stork-ladies to airlift us out of a world given over to wickedness. No, our eschatology is one of victory. We are the instruments of the kingdom. We are the ones who, by the preaching of the gospel and the application of God's law, are to be about the business of cleansing the land. We know that wickedness will always have its temple in the city of man, but we also know that the city of man is doomed. The book of Revelation tells us of Babylon's final fall. And it tells us of the triumph of the New Jerusalem, the city where nothing unclean will ever enter. This vision in Zechariah is a glorious preview of that final, wonderful reality.