Passage of the Day - March 11, 2011

Zechariah 5:5-11

⁵Then 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."

 ⁶I said, "What is it?" And he said, "This is the ephah going forth." Again he said, "This is their appearance in all the land

 ⁷(and behold, a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah."

 ⁸Then he said, "This is Wickedness!" And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and cast the lead weight on its opening.

 ⁹Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and there 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.

 ¹⁰I said to the angel who was speaking with me, "Where are they taking the ephah?"

 ¹¹Then he said to me, "To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal."

I like this quote from the Jamieson-Fausset commentary "For more than two thousand years, ever since the Babylonian exile, the Jews have been free from idolatry; but the full accomplishment of the prophecy is yet future, when all sin shall be purged from Israel on their return to Palestine, and conversion to Christ."  I never thought of that.  This is the "wickedness that was being removed from Israel and left in Babylon.

This relates to what the previous passage was about.  Sometimes God brings us to horrible places so we can leave the horrible contaminants of our lives there.  Sometimes it is refinement, other times it gets so bad God must start with (forgive the imagery) removing the turd from the punchbowl.  This MUST happen when our reputation is affecting His reputation as the Jews reputation was said to be doing in verse 6.  This is very hard to think about and write about, so I will leave it here even though I think I could expound upon it.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
© Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission." (http://www.lockman.org/)