Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/174

 by the altered circumstances tended in a peculiar sense to develop the two transgressions (namely, theft and perjury) which are specified in the preceding vision of the Flying Roll, with which this vision of the Ephah stands very closely related. Idolatry, into which they were so liable to fall, was for ever left behind in Babylon; but a godless com mercialism, with its temptations " to make the ephah small and the shekel great, and to deal falsely with balances of deceit" (Amos viii. 5), eventually becomes not less hateful to God not only because it has too often been supported by theft and perjury, which, as we have seen, are trans gressions of the central commands of both tables of the Law, but because it was destined to develop a new system in which all iniquity would finally be summed up.

(U] In conjunction with the ephah we have the 133, kikar, which the English Version renders " talent." The Hebrew word literally means " a circle," and thus kikar signify that God had measured out to them measure for measure; for, according as they had done by continuing many days in their wickedness, from the day that the kingdom was divided until the day that they were led away captive; and as they had not had one out of all their kings who turned them to good, but, on the contrary, they all walked in an evil way: according, I say, as they had continued long in evil, so they shall be many days in captivity this is measure for measure; therefore the prophet saw an ephah which is a measure."

Among German commentators, Pressel, in his Comtnentar zu Haggai, Sacharja, ttnd Maleachi, is the only one who, as far as I know, has caught what, on mature consideration, seems to me the true significance of the ephah, and he is followed by Dr. C. H. H. Wright.

Lange, in his Bibelwerk, refers somewhat contemptuously to Pressel's view, his great objection being expressed in the words: " Wie wenn etwa von einem heutigen judenviertel die Rede ware, und nicht von der Geheiligten Colonie zu Jerusalem" ("as if the subject dealt with was a modern Jewish quarter instead of the sanctified colony in Jerusalem "). But the answer to this objection is that the present state of the Jewish people as seen " i m heutigen judenviertel" cannot be dissociated from Israel's past or future. That the beginning of the new power of commercialism as associated with the Jewish people can be traced back to the dispersion, and began already to assert itself in Zechariah's time, is a matter of history. Beside this, these two visions in chap. v. do not set forth the "sanctified colony in Jerusalem," but rather show how transgressors shall be "cut off" (or "cleansed away"), and how the evil which is the very embodiment of "wickedness," or "lawlessness," shall finally be banished from the "holy land," so that those who remain after the purifying judgment shall " be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem " (Isa. iv. 3).