5:2 flying roll. This strange vision revealed a great scroll, with judgments written on both sides, flying throughout the earth to indicate the whole earth is under “the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13).

5:3 cut off. Those who rejected God’s grace, as shown in the previous visions, continuing in their sins, unrepentant and unforgiven, would be “cut off.” The two sins mentioned in Zechariah 5:4, taking God’s name in falsifying the truth and stealing, involving the central commandment in each of the two tables of the law, in effect stand for breaking any of God’s commands.

5:7 talent of lead. The talent was the largest measure of weight, as the ephah was the largest measure of volume, both symbolizing the system of weights and measures which provides the very heart of the world’s commerce.

5:7 woman. As the circular weight was momentarily lifted from the mouth of the ephah, it revealed a woman evidently seeking to escape the container.

5:8 wickedness. Although commerce (business, trade, finance, shipping, etc.) is not necessarily wicked, it can easily and quickly become such as it degenerates into covetousness and the worship of mammon. Ever since Babel, it has been the cause of most crime and most wars. Its “resemblance” is found “through all the earth” (Zechariah 5:6) and is seen here as a seductive woman attempting to escape her confinement in order to seduce the returned exiles away from their spiritual call to rebuild God’s temple and reestablish His worship in “the holy land” (Zechariah 2:12), persuading them to build instead lives of luxury for themselves (compare Haggai 1:3-11).

5:11 land of Shinar. “Shinar” is Babel, where Nimrod first built his great anti-God empire based upon pantheistic evolutionism and idolatrous covetousness, thence to become the earth’s “mother of harlots” (Revelation 17:5). In the last days, this Babylonian system of anti-God commercialism—perhaps apostate religion and political union of the Gentile nations will swiftly, on “wind-borne wings,” as it were, be carried back to its ancient home in Babylon. Babylon will then quickly be reestablished as the world’s center of government, culture and commerce, the capital of the Beast. See notes on Revelation 17 and 18. Babylon has already been partially rebuilt by the Iraqi government.