“Then I
turned and raised my eyes, and saw there a flying scroll. And he said to me,
“What do you see?” So I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty
cubits and its width ten cubits.” Then he said to me, “This is the curse that
goes out over the face of the whole earth: ‘Every thief shall be expelled,’
according to this side of the scroll; and, ‘Every perjurer shall be expelled,’
according to that side of it.” “I will send out the curse,” says the LORD of
hosts; “It shall enter the house of the thief And the house of the one who
swears falsely by My name. It shall remain in the midst of his house And
consume it, with its timber and stones.”
Zechariah 5:1-4 NKJV
I
hope at least a few of you remember the cartoon from the sixties called Magilla Gorilla. If not, I am definitely showing my age, but I
recall watching it as a kid and one of the lines used repeatedly by a little
girl in the show was “how much is the
gorilla in the window”? Funny as it
may sound, this cartoon was the first thing that came to mind years ago when I
first discovered this vision of Zechariah and began to study it. Now if that sounds strange, stay with me as I
explain this portion of the Word, which unfortunately, although strangely
relevant to our times seems to have been ignored completely by most of the
“experts” discussing eschatology today.
The
word in the Hebrew for scroll is “megillah”,
which obviously is where I came up with the connection to an old memory of my
youth. When I read this, my first vision
was of Magillah Gorilla flying through the air with his ever present
banana. The reality though, is that we
are told it is a scroll, which is a long sheet of parchment that is rolled up
and placed in an ornate cylinder for safekeeping. Then of course, I looked closer
at the dimensions of the scroll Zechariah saw and was surprised to find that
the size he describes, if rolled up and put in its container would be
approximately 30 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter, which is very comparable to
many ICBM’s around the world today.
Now
if you are starting to believe this is a stretch, stay with me a little longer
as we examine this text a little closer with that possibility in mind. Zechariah goes on to call it a “curse”, which
is present throughout the whole earth, and tells us it will not only enter a
house, but completely consume it, “timber and stones”. So now we have to consider just what
the nature of this curse could be if it is able to do exactly what Zechariah
describes. Since a normal detonation of
a typical explosion only produces power capable of destroying a structure, we
have to ask the question what sort of payload is capable of actually consuming
it. Believe it or not, Zechariah tells
us what it is.
Then
the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, “Lift your eyes now, and
see what this is that goes forth.” So I asked, “What is it?” And he said, “It is
a basket that is going forth.” He also said, “This is their resemblance
throughout the earth: “Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman
sitting inside the basket”; then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he thrust her
down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth. Zechariah 5:5-8 NKJV
Now
before some of you decide to have some fun explaining how a woman could be a
curse, there is something about Hebrew you need to know. In the Hebrew, the word for woman is ish·shä' , but the word used for fire,
especially a sacrificial burnt offering, is ish·shä'.
Confused? I as well, but this
is one of those times when the meaning is determined by the context, and most
of the Hebrew scholars I found believe the meaning here is of fire. I think too, you will agree, that fire seems
to be a better explanation for the type of destruction described. And, as they say on those infomercials, wait,
there’s more.
The
word for basket used here is “ephah”, which
typically describes the baskets commonly used at that time to carry a measure
of grain or other commodities. What is
different here is that Zechariah tells us that not only does it carry the fire,
it is made of lead. In the Hebrew
Masoretic text, we are told the lead disk lifted up is a “talent” of lead which
would be approximately one hundred pounds.
Now if just the lid is that heavy, how heavy is the rest of the
container? Not to mention the most intriguing
question of all; what sort of “fire” needs to be shielded by lead in this day
and age?
Then I
raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women, coming with the wind in
their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up
the basket between earth and heaven. So I said to the angel who talked with me,
“Where are they carrying the basket?” And he said to me, “To build a house for it
in the land of Shinar; when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its
base.” Zechariah 5:9-11 NKJV
Of
course, although these “megillahs” are said to go forth to all the earth,
Zechariah goes on to tell us that the base of operations in the future will be
in the land of Shinar, which is translated as the country of two rivers, or
what later became known as Babylonia. Of
course, as we have already seen, the rebuilt Babylon will be the center of the
coming anti-Christ’s power so it seems to make perfect sense he will have this
sort of weaponry to unleash upon the whole earth. Would he actually use nuclear weapons to
advance his cause? If you look closely
at what is described to occur during that period of time soon to come, I
believe the answer is self-evident.
“And I
will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars
of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before
the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. Joel 2:30-31
NKJV
We
can see the signs of the end all around us today, but believe it or not, 3000
years ago Zechariah saw it too. Imagine
how it must have appeared to him to watch what will unfold in our time, in the
very near future.
Keep
watching.
Iran could have an operational nuke by 2017 end
