ReDiscover God's word verse by verse chapter by chapter this is real Bible study with teacher Tom Bradford welcome to Torah class this fourth chapter of Zechariah is aimed at encouraging zerubabel the Civic leader of the returned Jews from Babylon in his role as the Persian appointed governor of yud now the chapter before this one did essentially the same as concerned Joshua the religious leader of the returned Jews in his role as the Persian appointed high priest of the revived Hebrew faith community and as the head of the levitical priesthood and then what we need to gather from these two chapters is that while it was the Persian king that appointed these two Judean leaders these two men apparently had inward doubts about whether God approved of them as legitimate and just as clearly the Judean people and here I'm using the terms Jewish and judeans is more oress anonymous had doubts about it as well and inde indeed that Divine validation and encouragement is the focus of chapter three for Joshua and chapter 4 for zerubabel now since the primary mode of communicating these several prophecies that were being given to Zechariah was symbolism then chapter 4 uses a manur and two olive trees as its symbol and as we discussed last week because this is a vision there is no intent for the symbolic elements to accurately represent something real that has or currently is in existence that is the description of the manora is nothing like what we seen before there is no evidence that a manora config configured in this particular way was ever built and used in the temple nonetheless it is immediately understood that is intended to call to mind the temple manora there's nothing to indicate that the olive trees in the vision or anything other than ordinary looking as one would expect even so in chapter 4 verse4 Zechariah says he can't discern the meaning of this symbol and to which the interpreting Angel of the vision more or less says why not implying this ought to be a no-brainer for Zechariah and but since Zechariah didn't get it then neither should we feel as though it ought to be self evident for us great Bible scholars over the centuries have had a field day trying to figure it out so there are various interpretations of it now we ended last time with the 10th verse of chapter 4 so let's reread a portion of Zechariah to lay the groundwork for today's lesson open your Bibles to Zechariah Chapter 4 Zechariah Chapter 4 and we're just going to read from verse 8 to the end of chapter 4 Zechariah Chapter 4 starting at verse 8 this message from Adonai came to me the hands of zerubabel have laid the foundation of this house and his hands will also finish it then you will know that Adonai sa a oat sent me to you for even someone who do doesn't think much of a day when such minor events take place will rejoice at seeing the plum line Plum line in the hand of zerubabel so these seven are the eyes of Adonai that range about over all the Earth and I replied by asking him well what are those two olive trees on the right and the left side of the manora and then I asked the question again what are those two Olive branches discharging gold colored oil through the two gold spouts and he replied don't you know what they are and I answered no my Lord and he said these are the two who have been Anointed with oil they are standing with the Lord of all the land now as we go forward be reminded that just as Joshua represents himself and also symbolically represents the Office of the high priest and of all the priesthood so zerubabel represents himself and also symbolically represents the office of the Civic ruler of the Judean people as well as all the Judean people themselves so the message of verse eight is God is giving this part of the Vision Oracle directly to Zechariah verse N is a statement of y's Divine validation of zerubabel as the god approved leader to complete the temple rebuilding project and that because of the way the Ancients thought of temples being associated not only to a God but also to a King then even though zerubabel was not a king the judeans ought to consider His function and position before God as king like thus just as the first temple was called Solomon's Temple then this rebuilt one should be thought of as zerubbabel's Temple now verse 10 must be approached with a better translation than most Bible versions Supply and I suggest it ought to be the following to get the original and true intent of it across does anyone scorn a day of Small Beginnings when they see the stone of Distinction in the hand of zerubabel they shall rejoice those seven are the eyes of the Lord ranging over the whole earth okay that is no one treats with contempt a day of Small Beginnings no reasonable person who has the goal or hope of seeing something Grand accomplished despises the day when the necessary series of small steps that will be needed to reach that goal begins sometimes the beginning is little more than an inauguration ceremony in this case it is that when building temples Kings customarily lay the first brick so to speak so zerubabel is depicted as holding a plumbob in his hand as the ceremonial beginning of the building process the stone of Distinction more literally reads the tin Stone now what this is talking about is this weighted object attached to the end of a string that allows a builder to align Stones straight up and down not leaning one way or the other and this weighted object is made of tin calling it a stone it's just a euphemistic way of saying it's heavy like a stone because no doubt in centuries prior to using metal the weighted object used was a stone now moving to verse 11 we find that Zechariah is still perplexed over the issue of the symbolic meaning of these two olive trees in his vision it reads I replied by asking him what are those two olive trees on the right and left sides of the monora now recall that there is a bowl sitting above the manora in which oil from the olives is placed that bull acts as a reservoir for the olive oil that is then distributed to each of the seven oil lamps via seven connecting tubes so when trying to comprehend this symble we need to give as much or probably more weight to the olive itself than to the tree that produces it because it's all about the oil that is squeezed from the olives now I think my interpretation of this is validated by what comes next because in verse 12 we read that I asked the question again what are those two Olive branches discharging gold colored oil through the two gold spouts it's all about the oil now as far as the interpreting Angel is concerned Zechariah has asked the same question twice thus the angel responds with the same answer a second time don't you know what it means to which Zechariah replies no well let's review that golden that the golden lampstand the manora represents the presence of God among his people so what do the two branch es with olives that produce the oil then symbolize well here's what the angel says in verse 14 he said those are the two who have been Anointed with oil they are standing with the Lord of all the land now first I question this complete Jewish Bible translation practically all other translations including those of Jewish sources say that these two are standing with the Lord Lord of all the Earth not standing with the Lord of all the land the difference is substantial the word translated as Earth or land is eret and indeed it can be used either way however when we look at the context we see that the word used to declare who exactly it it is that is Sovereign over all the ettes the word word is in Hebrew adone while Lord is not the wrong translation of adone it ought not be capitalized because it is not meant to be used as a proper noun that is it's not the name a name or it's not an official title rather it is meant to be descriptive so I think it would be better to say standing with the master of all the Earth little L Lord means the same thing as Master but Lord is not in common usage in modern times to refer to someone who's in charge someone having power or authority so Masters better therefore what is being stated is that the scope of the master sovereignty is not just the immediate land of yud but rather the entire Known World second looking at the first part of this verse a translation revision is also necessary much better and more literal in verse 14 is this and he saith these are the two sons of the oil who are standing by the Lord the master of the whole earth sons of oil is in Hebrew Ben ichar and before we can understand this we need to know that grammatically is not a general term for oil produced from olives but rather just speaking specifically of fresh oil or new oil and when we back away and we look at the entire context of the books of Hagi and Zechariah as they operate together then we see that one of the major matters being dealt with is that the returned judeans expectations of their fields producing abundantly has been dealt a disappointing blow the crops of every kind have been producing but a fraction of what they should have been the reason lack of consistent rain the reason for the inconsistent rain the leaders and the people have been disobedient by putting their own wants and needs above God's command thus dragging their feet on rebuilding the temple so new or fresh oil is directly associated with a Bountiful Harvest in our context it is symbolic that Divine favor has returned to the land and the judan people because the temple rebuilding project has begun again in determined urgency thus pleasing y bottom line sons of oil is not to be taken literally rather it is yet another expression it more indicates something fruitful abundant actually In this passage it carries a dual meaning has so many Hebrew Expressions do one meaning concerns Bounty and fertility in in this case a newly returned Bounty and fertility of the land and the other meaning is that this concerns two persons or individuals that is two individuals are to be associated with the joy of God's returned presence which has led to this increased crop yield throughout yud which is the reward for rebuilding God's house the temple can we identify these two individuals certainly it's the two that have been the subject of chapters three and four Joshua and zerubabel they are the two olive trees now I want to remind you of something that I will repeat again a few times as we continue in Zechariah every vision every Oracle every prophecy of Zechariah must be taken in the context of the Contemporary world of those returning Jews from Babylon when Zechariah was given and then wrote down all of this prophetic information a modern Bible student no matter where on this planet this student might reside is greatly challenged by this because it attempting to understand these symbols that only have meaning in the context of zerubbabel's time and circumstances that requires much study of those ancient times one cannot merely read the words and then somehow know what the intent is unfortunately especially in the Gentile Christian World in lie of doing the needed research that tendency is to correlate these biblical words and symbols to modern examples of our day the results are interpretations that can be far off the Mark here is yet another example of this phenomenon from one of the greatest B Bible Academic Teams of the past three centuries Keel and delich say this about this passage the two children of oil cannot be the Jews and Gentiles or Israel and the Gentile World in their fruitful Banes because the Candlestick is a symbol of the church see applied through the filter of centuries of constantinian Christian doctrines and through attempting to correlate ancient symbols to more modern things rather than understanding them with their own ancient time and culture then meaning truly becomes distorted if not lost altogether and as a result a Fisher is opened from the underlying Foundation of anti-Semitism of the constantinian church and what comes bubbling up are the streams and streams of erroneous conclusions and statements as the one I just read to you now let's move on to Zechariah Chapter 5 open your Bibles to Zechariah Chapter 5 go read it all again I raised my eyes and I saw in front of me a flying scroll and he said to me what do you see and I replied I see a flying scroll 30 feet long and 15 feet wide and then he said to me this is the curse that goes out over the face of all the land for according to what is written on one side everyone who steals will be swept away and according to what is written on the other side everyone who swears will be swept away I will release it says Adan isot and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name it will stay there inside the house and consume it completely even its Timbers and Stones then the angel speaking with me went forward and said to me now raise your eyes and see what this thing is passing by and I asked what is it and he said this is the epha measure a one bushel dry measure passing by and then he added this is their eye in all the land and next I saw a lead disc lifted up to reveal a woman sitting in the epha and he said this is evil and he threw her down into the EPA and pressed the lead weight over its opening while I raised my eyes I saw two women coming with the wind in their wings for they had wings like those of a stor and they lifted the epha up between the Earth and the sky and I asked the angel speaking with me where are they taking the epha and he answered me to build it a shrine in the land of shanar and when it's ready the epha will be set down there on its base now the opening verse that speaks of zechar IAH lifting or raising his eyes meant to do something again it means to return to looking at a godsent Vision Oracle this time the symbol is a flying scroll now the Hebrew that is translated to scroll is megala now technically speaking a megala is a rolled up not a rolled out scroll so a few Bible versions will call it a roll instead of a scroll now once again the difficult and unique symbolism we find in Zechariah confronts us there is no other place in the Bible nor is there any known non-hebrew document that speaks of a flying scroll however because it is used symbolically and doesn't attempt to picture a real object in the real world then the trick is to sort through exactly what that symbol represents now the size of the scroll plays a large part of understanding what it means the complete Jewish Bible doesn't help us as it uses a measurement that's not literal it gives it to us in feet the literal reading about the dimensions of the scroll is that is 20 cubits by 10 cubits so is this a flying billboard the Scrolls unfurled or is this a flying roll the scroll is rolled up like for storage there are thoughts in both directions but despite the conjectures it seems to me that a vision of a rolled up Scroll that speaks of a rectangular dimensions of 20 by 10 cubits makes little sense this scroll has been rolled out so that its length and width can be seen by Zechariah now equally important to the dimensions of it is is that it's flying in the air now the whole point of this is movement the movement of the scroll Works similarly in meaning to the horse of different colors that roam the Earth the idea is universality comprehensiveness it indicates that the scroll's contents are not just locally effective rather it applies to a large portion of the world and people if not all what's the scroll about well any scroll contains writing it's where covenants are recorded scrolls are important records that are usually placed in libraries back to the dimensions now are these fanciful or meaningful and or do they actually connect to something some commentators think that it is the 2:1 ratio that we ought to pay attention to or that the huge dimensions are just to create an effect of awe in the prophet and then finally to the reader I don't think so when dimensions are stated in such a straightforward manner then we are to take them more literally in order to see what they might correspond to and since verse three tells us this scroll is the curse that goes out and applies to law Breakers then we immediately get it this must be representative of the law of Moses which is more than merely another law code it's also a covenant between God and Israel Zechariah 5:3 then he said to me this is the curse that goes out over the face of all the land for according to what is written on one side everyone who steals will be swept away and according to what's written on the other side everyone who swears will be swept away see just as the overriding context of Zechariah and Hagi is the temple then clearly what comes out of the temple is part of it and at this time in history the temple and its significance was less important to the largest part of Judean Society than it had been before their Exile and we see this reflection Ed by the mere 5% of the Jewish Exiles who decided to come back when given the opportunity they of course had read and heard stories of the temple but had never actually seen it or experienced it because they were either very small children when exiled to Babylon or for the vast bulk they'd been born in Babylon this also means that the law of Moses and its contents was lesser known that's having lesser relevance to the younger generation of the Exiles and because the temple no longer existed then the priesthood essentially no longer existed in any meaningful way according to the Torah the priests were only granted the temple and its grounds to do the their service upon they also had been granted a string of Cities of Refuge to operate but this seems to have faded away over the centuries once in Babylon then priests served no functional purpose thus the law of Moses All That prescribed took a back seat in the minds of the people in its place arose some ad hoc houses of meeting and prayer LED mostly by concerned Layman historically it had never been the job of anyone other than the priests to teach the law of Moses to the people and then to enforce it thus what came from these home fellowship meetings up in Babylon was a mixed bag of those Layman's understanding of the law along with some traditions and Customs they created relative to their current circumstances although no doubt these traditions and C Customs were said to express the intent of the law of Moses it was this innovation of laymen leading in teaching and law teaching the law instead of the priests that evolved into the synagogue system now we are told told that the original Torah had been placed in the Ark of the Covenant but the ark had gone missing when Babylon invaded Judah and so it wouldn't until this day never again be found I doubt it still exists although some claimed to have seen it probably having been melted down for its precious gold no doubt there were copies of the Torah by now that were in the possession of the priest that had gone off to Babylon however in viewing this reality from an overall effect on the people the Law's relevance and its commands for the Exiles in Babylon were in most cases just kind of fading from their minds and their memories they now lived in a society that was governed by a different set of rules and laws operated in a different notion of morality therefore when the Exiles came home in order to get their historic brand of Faith operating again the temple as the center of their faith had to be reinstated if the temple was reinstated then the priesthood had to be reinstated for the temple to operate and in order to run the temple in the priesthood and for zerubabel and Joshua to rule over the people so did the law of Moses have to be reinstated because Temple priesthood and law of Moses all work together to form the core of the Covenant that made Israel uniquely Israel their Covenant relationship with God now Joshua represented the temple in the priesthood zerubabel represented the Civil governance of the people now the flying scroll symbolically represented the Torah and the law of Moses however for the moment the focus is on the curses side of the law for those who break it so a third aspect to the symbolism of the flying scroll is that the flying represented Swift movement such that the provisions of the law would be reestablished and quickly visit the law Breakers let's be clear about this curse aspect of the law because it is so terribly misunderstood within traditional Christianity therefore it is so radically misspoken about the Hebrew word used here for curse is Allah doesn't mean curse in the sense of a Blasphemous word or phrase nor does it mean an expression of anger it is a word that operates within Covenant language and it is part of the terms of a covenant it is that part of a covenant that says what happens when a party to the Covenant breaches its terms the law of Moses Covenant provides for two basic outcomes blessings for obedience to God's commands curses for Disobedience curse is more properly seen as a penalty equivalent to a sentence handed down by a court of law for a violation that is if one obeyed the law of Moses they could expect God's Shalom and fruitfulness in their lives but if they broke a commandment there would be a penalty a prescribed consequence based upon a hierarchy of the seriousness of the sin involved in what is commonly known as a Lex talionis structure that is the punishment is proportionate to the seriousness of the crime that's committed it is no different from most western legal systems in existence today no one has to worry about being punished if they obey the laws of society yet just because there are punishments in these legal systems for breaking the various laws that hardly means that the legal system itself is is only about oppressing and punishing people to make them unhappy slaves to that society's laws constantinian Christianity however has Twisted the meaning of curse for its own purposes saying that the term the curse or the curse of the law as found in the Bible means the law of Moses is no more nor less than a system of Oppression upon people making the law of Moses itself nothing but a needless heavy burden upon the people to appease a God who can never be fully appeased all one has to do is to read the Torah to just dismiss such a slanderous notion now upon the return of the Babylonian Exiles to their former Homeland after 70 years of Exile God then determined it was time for a re-recognition of the authority of the law of Moses within the Judean Community the flying scroll is a visualization of his determination to bring social cohesion and stability to the judeans through the force of that covenant made on Mount Si that by now was 700 years old if I could presume to add a tagline to the symbol of the flying scroll it would be the law of Moses is again in effect everywhere now when in verse two the interpreting Angel asks Zechariah what he sees the main focus is on the flying Scrolls dimensions of 20 cubits by 10 cubits well now that I filled in some background for you it ought to come as no surprise that the porch of Solomon's Temple that lay at the entrance to the holy place was 20 cubits by 10 cubits some of those Bible commentators who do see a connection between the dimensions of the flying scroll and the temple claimed that these Dimensions must represent the holy place that front chamber of the temple Sanctuary this cannot be correct because that is not the dimensions of the original Wilderness Tabernacle front chamber nor that of Solomon's Temple but it is the dimensions of Solomon's porch where those two giant columns one called boas the other called yin were on display and we know this is the case because it's recorded First Kings 6:3 and the porch before the temple of the house 20 cubits was the length thereof according to the breadth of the house 10 cubits was the breadth thereof before the house now this Association of the ulam that's the Hebrew word for this porch and the flying scroll then represent the reinstatement of the very place where the H where the law had been used for centuries to judge cases just as in the small smaller walled Israelite cities when cases would be brought to the elders who sat at the city gates to judge so especially difficult cases that were brought to the priests in Jerusalem to judge were brought to the ulam to that porch now the first crime against the law of Moses that is listed and Zechariah 53 is stealing and it is just what we think think of it taking something that doesn't belong to us it's a crime of human against human the second crime is swearing this does not mean blasphemy it's a legal term it means perjury and while we can in one way see this as an intent to harm a human God more sees it as a crime against him because swearing always involves invoking the name of your God in this case invoking y's name as the guar of your statement so it is not that these two crimes are the narrow limit of what the curse is to affect rather they are just representative of all the crimes of human against human and human against God now the comment that these criminals will be swept away is meant to conjure up the enduring mental picture of the great flood God puts these people in the same category as everyone but Noah and his immediate family and those people were all destroyed by an act of divine wrath in verse four this is further explained I will release it says Adan IA o and it will enter the house of the thief and the house House of anyone who swears falsely by my name it will stay there inside the house and consume it completely even as Timbers and Stones the complete Jewish Bible says I will release it the Hebrew more literally says I will bring it forth the complete Jew Jewish Bible says this is going to happen the Hebrew says this has happened it's already happened more God is not allowing the curse to go out the way w release a lion from a cage that has held this lion back from doing what Lions do he himself has intentionally sent it out to do what he intends to do and when this speaks of the curse entering the house of the thief and the perjurer it means that anyone who commits sins will not go unfound even if one feels safe safe and hidden inside his own home the consequence for their Covenant violation will seek them out and it is assured they will bear the Grievous results and when we move on to the fifth verse of chapter 5 another vision is given this time the vision symbol is of a woman inside of an AA now like the previous vision of the flying scroll the interpreting Angel is involved in gaining zechariah's attention for him to see it and while this apparently comes quickly after the previous action there's no way for sure to know how much time passed the statement of raise your eyes and see what this thing is could easily mean here is another vision and no time at all has passed since the flying scroll vision but we can't know for certain however what the flying scroll explains about what happens to Sinners the next verse beginning with verse five offers another perspective on the matter what we are to notice is that while the epha seems to be the primary Vision object in fact it's what's inside of it it's the point and AA is a means of measurement of dry goods it doubles is the meaning of the container the dry goods are in so saying IFA is like saying bushel we can easily equate bushel and bushel basket as essentially being the same things now to help us visualize it an AA was slightly more or a bit less than the size of a bushel no one knows for sure what might not be so apparent is that an AA was the largest unit of dry goods measurement of volume not weight and use in biblical times when we read of the OM as in counting the r meaning counting the days between the Passover and shabo biblical fees that is said to be the equivalent of 10 apas but omers were simply ritual oriented used only in ritual language and there was no such thing as an actual omized container nor was the r used as a standard measure of dry goods and commerce everything was apha based Zechariah 56 and I asked what is it and he said this is the AA measure passing by and he added this is the eye this is their eye and all the L the complete Jewish Bible therefore incorrectly interprets the sense of the meaning of apha as do many Bible versions it explains that the point of it is its size rather we need to analyze this symbol in the sense of AA more meaning a basket or a container not as a unit of measurement the next verse explains why that is now before we go there what is this strange wording to end this verse it says this is their eye in all the land indeed the Hebrew word translated to IE is a but can this be correct if we keep this as literal as possible then there is no logical connection between a basket and a human eye well the Greek septent created about 250 BC as a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible takes this word differently it takes it to mean their iniquity but the Latin translations read I well I certainly don't know the answer my suspicion is that the word I also at one time had a secondary meaning as appearance that is to the eye what something looked like but then we get to verse seven next I saw a lead disc lifted up to reveal a woman sitting in the AA what a strange sight a lid a lead lid covers a container and within the container sits not grain not some other commodity but rather a woman this is strong evidence that the size of the basket has no meaning because an apha is only about one cubic foot the one we would have to be very tiny to fit in such a small space so here size simply plays no role in the symbol even though size was everything in the matter of the flying scroll there is a woman in a container with a lead lid on top of it what has a lead lid to do with anything why would there be a woman inside a basket that's what we'll explore the next time we meet okay for more teachings of real Bible study and to ReDiscover God's word with Tom Bradford visit Torah class today on the web streaming TV or download the Torah class mobile app