Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/175

 lehem, " a circle of bread," is used to denote a round loaf.

The word, as Dr. Wright points out, is not elsewhere found in the signification of a cover, though that is a possible sense. "It is constantly used of a fixed weight, by which gold, silver, and other things are weighed and measured, and is naturally spoken of in such a meaning here in connection with the Ephah, as the latter was the usual measure of capacity. The talent was the largest measure of quantity, and the weight was made of lead as the most common heavy metal, and was used in all commercial transactions for weighing out money."

That a " talent," the other chief emblem and instrument of trade, should have been seen by the prophet as forming the cover of the ephah, is of solemn significance, as will be shown further on.

(c] The " talent," or circular mass of lead, being lifted, the prophet beheld a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah.

" And he said " (i.e., the Angel, as if to call anew the prophet's special attention), "this is the Wickedness" the very embodiment of iniquity, rendered in the Septuagint avopia, lawlessness.