Zechariah 5: The Flying Scroll & the Basket
Psalm 5: “Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.
“O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.
“Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.”
The 5th chapter of Zechariah starts out with the prophet receiving from the Lord a 6th vision. A vision which consisted of a flying scroll with a curse on both sides for breaking what amounted to all 10 commandments.
There were 2 of the 10 commandments written on this flying scroll which were the commandments against stealing and swearing falsely; using God’s name in vain. Let’s visit Zechariah 5:1-4.
“Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying scroll! And he said to me, ‘What do you see?’ 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 land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. I will send it out, declares the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. And it shall remain in his house and consume it, both timber and stones.’”
Zechariah was awakened once again and saw this 30’ long by 15’ wide scroll – and not just any scroll; this was a flying scroll.
That written curse pertained not only to the Jews who returned to the Land of Israel from their exile in Babylon; it was and is for everyone according to Zechariah 5:3.
“Then he said to me, ‘This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side.’”
It is interesting to observe that the scroll is flying. As we know, our God has a holy, righteous and perfect purpose for everything He says and does; it is no different here with this flying scroll.
The reason for it flying shows that God’s judgments will be swift in coming to the wicked; past, present and future.
One of these evils, the evil of stealing, was and is an act against our fellow man. The evil act of swearing falsely, or what we know as using God’s name in vain, was and is an action specifically against and directed at the Almighty God.
With these 2 commandments being broken, it is just as if all 10 were broken. However, when it comes to the Law, there is good news. Let’s read and get a grasp of what Galatians 3:10-14 has to say. This is the Apostle Paul speaking.
“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”
Paul is quoting Deuteronomy 27:26. “Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.”
In our Bible study group, as we study the Hebrew Prophets and what they have to say about Israel and the Jewish people, the ugly subject of anti-Semitism often comes up. And by the way: the word anti-Semitism is a very nice-sounding word for ‘Jew hatred.’
First of all, the word anti-Semitism is inaccurate. The Jews are not the only Semitic people. Arabs and other peoples are also Semites.
Secondly, it was a man from Germany by the name of Wilhelm Marr who in 1879 coined that word ‘anti-Semite.’ He was, to put it nicely, an agitator; he was a Jew hater. It was much easier to get more people on his side by using that new word ‘anti-Semitism.’ It sounds so intelligent and so scientific. No matter how hard one tries to sanitize the evil of Jew hatred by inventing a much nicer-sounding word in order to tickle the ears of those foolish and ignorant enough to believe that garbage – it is what it is; Jew hatred.
Anti-Semitism has been a very effective weapon century after century; its only purpose is to destroy a nation and a people chosen by God. The Holocaust was born out of Jew hatred. That is what this particular evil gives birth to.
The passage from Galatians we just went over is one of many where the Replacement Theologians use as evidence for their claim that God is through with the Jew.
According to them, verse 10 shows the Jewish people are dependent on the Torah (the teaching of the Law), and if they weren’t capable of doing everything written in it, then the entire Jewish race is under God’s curse forever. That theology in the original Greek and Hebrew is known as ‘bologna.’
Also, in Galatians 3:11, those same Replacement folks say because the Jews are not 100% obedient to the Law, they are condemned and it is impossible to ever be considered righteous by God.
To teach or believe any of this nonsense is a sin in and of itself.
The good news is most of us in the Body of Christ do not hold those beliefs, and we also know through Romans chapters 9-11 that Israel and the Jewish people will be saved. Praise God!
To keep this 6th vision in perspective and more importantly in its context, stealing and swearing falsely reveals to us, or at the very least suggests to us, that the Jews were guilty of withholding portions that were due from them which were meant for the Levites, as stated in the Book of Nehemiah. They also were holding back the tithes and offerings from the Lord spoken of in the Book of Malachi.
Let’s first look at Nehemiah 13:10.
“I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field.” (You can run from the Lord, but you can’t hide.)
Now let’s read Malachi 3:8.
“Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.”
The message Zechariah was giving to his fellow Jews was quite simple; they were robbing God by neglecting to give Him His due in building His house while they were building their own houses. The oaths taken by the Israelites were broken, and the Torah was pretty much ignored. In other words, they swore falsely when it came to fulfilling their obligations to the God of Israel.
In those first 4 verses of Zechariah 5, the judgment to come upon those who choose to remain unrepentant will be done according to that of a Holy God whose commandments were disregarded and forgotten. They will be facing a punishment that can only be described as terrible; and that’s putting it mildly. Or, they can pay attention to the greatest escape plan of all time known as our Redeemer, Jesus the Anointed One. As the first part of Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”
On that note before we head into the remainder of Zechariah 5, it would be wise to go over what may or may not tie into this minor prophet’s 7th vision.
Last week in our Bible study, I mentioned Allah having no sons, which is true, but he did have daughters. As a matter of fact, this false god had 3 of them.
As we go over this teaching that I had the opportunity to do 4 or 5 years ago, please bear in mind it isn’t meant or intended to be sensationalism or anything like that, and neither is it to be dogmatic to the point of saying this is the only answer to the symbolism in this last part of Zechariah 5.
So, as I go over Allah and his 3 daughters, it is not in stone that they represent the symbolism in this 7th vision. It is just another viewpoint, and it is up to each of us when it comes to any teaching of God’s word to be a Berean; examine the scriptures.
So, let’s get to Allah and his 3 daughters.
Before Muhammad was born into a world of paganism, his father and mother were quite familiar with the deity of Allah. It wasn’t only Allah that was worshipped by these pagan people, as there were many other false gods – hundreds and hundreds, by the way. All of these gods were very well-established at that time.
The question is: who or what is Allah?
First of all, Allah is a lie from Hell itself. This Allah of Islam is often compared as the same or equal to the Judeo-Christian God. Not even close.
When Muhammad was about 40 years old, he had his first visitation from the spirit world. Our Almighty God gave specific instructions to not touch that stuff; and, as always, there are consequences. It is the dark side, and it is without a doubt nothing but pure evil. Look at 1 Chronicles 10:13-14:
“So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.”
There is a biblical way of handling these things which is recorded in 1st John 4:1.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
When Muhammad had those visitations – which by the way, Islam proclaims this particular visiting angel was Gabriel – Muhammad then went into a trance which allowed a spirit or spirits to produce utterances which were written down by Muhammad once he was back in a state of consciousness. He knew the words spoken to him by heart. Those words went on to become the Koran. The word Koran itself means to ‘collect’ or ‘recite.’
The Koran is filled with its fair share of contradictions, which is a nice way to say it is filled with lies.
For example, when it comes to the creation story via the Koran, it states that Allah created everything in the twinkling of the eye. In another part, this so-called ‘holy book’ states creation took 2 days, another part says 4 days, then there is 6 days, or how about in a day equaling a thousand years, and finally maybe it took 50,000 years.
Those errors are just on the subject of creation. Other errors include how Alexander the Great followed the setting of the Sun and discovered it went down into the waters of a muddy spring.
Other errors from the Koran include Mary. According to this unholy book, it states not only is Mary the mother of Jesus, but she is the sister of Moses and Aaron.
Another error puts the Flood at the time of Moses and falsely states that one of Noah’s sons drowned.
These false teachings and other lies are all in the Koran, the Muslims’ holy book. It is a book of lies from the father of lies, Satan. It is not from the angel Gabriel.
Before Muhammad’s time, there were over 300 gods being worshipped in Mecca at the Ka’aba – a building which housed a black meteorite along with the hundreds and hundreds of various gods. It was roughly in the year 630 A.D. People came to the Ka’aba to worship their particular god. One of those man-made gods was Allah, the Moon god.
A point to be made here is our Lord and Savior was resurrected from the dead about 600 years prior to when the lies of the ideology of Islam began.
Muhammad decided that there would be one god, and that would be Allah. And he announced he, Muhammad, was Allah’s prophet. Hence, the crescent moon we’re all too familiar with, which is the symbol of Islam.
Muhammad, the self-proclaimed prophet – a false prophet of course – tried to convince the Jews and Christians whom he frequented on the Arabian Peninsula during his time on the trade route. Since early boyhood, he traveled with the merchant caravans his uncle owned. Muhammad’s parents died when he was a little boy, and it was his well-to-do uncle who raised him.
Muhammad urged the people to follow him and the teachings of Allah. After all, he was a prophet just as qualified as any of the Hebrew prophets in the Bible – according to him. They, of course, rejected him as a true prophet of the one true God, as they knew the scriptures as well as the Hebrew prophets within those writings.
With that rejection, Muhammad turned fiercely against them. History shows us this is when the violence of this ‘peaceful’ religion started. Islam from the beginning was not and never will be a religion of peace.
But, let’s go back to the beginnings of this pagan god, Allah, and start with a very straightforward question. Does Allah have a son? We Christians know without question that Jesus was God’s one and only son.
So, does Allah have a son as the Judeo-Christian God has? No.
Does Allah have a daughter or daughters? And, the answer is… yes.
Allah had 3 daughters. Al-uzza, Al-lat, and Al-Manat.
Remember Salman Rushdie? He was the gentleman Ayatollah Khomeini put a fatwa on, or in simple mobster terms, he put out a hit on Mr. Rushdie many years ago.
Salman Rushdie wrote a novel called The Satanic Verses. In that book, he wrote that the original Koran showed Allah had 3 daughters.
History and its facts show the verses about Allah’s daughters were eventually purposefully deleted from the Koran. But before we move on, let’s get up to speed on Allah’s daughters.
These daughters were widely worshipped. The 3 of them were very popular goddesses in Mecca long before the time of Muhammad. They were at one time referred to as the ‘daughters of Allah’ until those words were deleted by Muhammad.
Al-uzza was the goddess of the morning and evening star, Venus. She was a bloodthirsty goddess which required animal and human sacrifice.
Al-lat was called the ‘mother of the gods’ or ‘greatest of all.’ She was the god of springtime and fertility. She was the Earth goddess who brought prosperity. Her symbol was also the crescent moon of Allah.
The last daughter is Al-Manat. She was known as the goddess of death. She is also connected with the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Remember, Muhammad was born of pagan parents who, like most of the people of that culture, worshipped many idols and were quite familiar with the false god Allah and his daughters.
What I just talked about is strongly denied by Muslims. However, as mentioned earlier, there are historical facts that back all this up.
Let’s get back to Muhammad.
He had to find a way to convince his own tribe, the Quraysh, to follow him and the teachings from Allah.
Muhammad did what cult religious leaders and ideologists usually do; he compromised. He allowed them to still worship the daughters of Allah as these goddesses, as mentioned earlier, were already very well-received by the people.
Muhammad’s goal was to have one god like the Jews and Christians had. But, with that compromise, monotheism was short-lived.
All of what I just mentioned was put in the original Koran. Muhammad had no choice when it came to keeping the pagan Arabian traditions. However, he did succeed in destroying all the other gods and goddesses made from different materials by the hands of man.
So, how did Muhammad overcome this ‘error’ of Allah having daughters? He blamed Satan for putting those words in his mouth. These were the ‘satanic verses’ Salman Rushdie wrote about.
I want to emphasize and re-state that scholars who studied the life of Muhammad from both a historical and biographic perspective back up all of what’s been stated in this teaching.
Islam, the Koran, and Muhammad are plainly and simply just another corrupt cult religion which, in fact, is not a religion but one man’s ideology; and there is a difference between religion and ideology. Let’s look at how ‘Difference between.com’ defines each of these two words.
“Religion is the branch of knowledge that deals with the methodology of worship and the praise of God. And, yes, when it comes to Christianity, we know first and foremost it is a relationship with God’s Son.”
“Ideology deals with the system of ideas at the basis of an economic or political theory. For example, the Marxist ideology deals with the system of ideas at the basis of political theory. In other words, it may be said that ideology has the basis in either economics or politics. This is the main difference between religion and ideology.”
A point of interest here is that Allah’s daughters Al-lat and Al-uzza appear at the top of almost every mosque as well as on the flags of several Muslim countries. The crescent and the star represent them.
A most important question is this: Are the 3 daughters of Allah in the Bible? Let’s see; and, of course, we can all decide for ourselves by consistently and continually examining the scriptures.
Before we finish up with Zechariah’s 7th vision, I would like to quote from David Baron’s book Commentary on Zechariah written in 1918. I’ve quoted him a number of times in this class.
Mr. Baron was born in 1855 in Russia and brought up in a very strict Jewish family. He was extremely well-trained in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
As time went on, he eventually became a believer in Messiah. He also founded a ministry where he explained Christianity to Jews as well as educating Christians regarding Israel. Keep in mind, Israel wasn’t born again as a nation until 1948; Mr. Baron died in England in 1926. He was a wonderful servant of the Lord who left behind a great organization named the ‘Hebrew Christian Testimony of Israel,’ along with many other publications and books.
I bring this all up to share a quote from his book which deals with the last part of Zechariah 5. Also, at the end of this teaching, there will be another quote from someone a few of us are familiar with, the late Jack Kelley. His comment also concerns those last few verses from Zechariah 5 and that 7th vision.
So, here’s Zechariah 5:5-11, and then we’ll read that comment from David Baron.
“Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, ‘Lift your eyes and see what this is that is going out.’ And I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘This is the basket that is going out.’ And he said, ‘This is their iniquity in all the land.’ And behold, the leaden cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the basket! And he said, ‘This is Wickedness.’ And he thrust her back into the basket, and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening. Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, two women coming forward! The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. Then I said to the angel who talked with me, ‘Where are they taking the basket?’ He said to me, ‘To the land of Shinar, to build a house for it. And when this is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its base.’”
Here’s that comment from Mr. Baron:
“In the land of Shinar was the first attempt made, before mankind was yet dispersed, to array a world-empire against God. And so it is the appropriate symbol of the anti-theistic or anti-Christian world, which, by violence and falsehood, and sophistry, wars against the truth.”
The key words here are ‘wars against the truth.’ That has Satan written all over it. He has been at war with God which was the cause of his fall from Heaven. And spoiler alert…God already has the victory! Amen?
Now, let’s get to what we believers know as the opposite of truth when compared to the Judeo-Christian God. I am speaking of Allah, Muhammad and Islam. A false god, a false prophet and a false ideology.
Of course, our God is not Allah; our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God of the Jew and the Christian. He is God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Muhammad, as you can discover by doing the research, and his bringing forth Islam, was born in and through lies, violence, theft, and murder, which are the ways of Satan. Here’s proof directly from the Son of God in John 8:44:
“The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Islam has not changed except for the fact it is even more widespread today than ever before. We see and read about the explosions of buildings which are usually places of worship for the Christian and the Jew. These attacks are nothing but 100% evil and filled with hate.
Look at Europe today. The ideology of Islam is at work in its thirst to rob, murder and destroy just as their father Satan directs them to do. France, Germany, etc., are seeing this so-called ‘peaceful’ ideology killing the infidel, robbing citizens of their rights, and destroying and burning down churches by the thousands. Thousands!
However, in spite of all that’s going on through the violence and terror of Islam, there is good news.
We witnessed communism collapse when that wall went down which, praise God, allowed the gospel to get a foothold in those countries. Prayers were being answered, and many came to Christ through the persecution by communism. That same good news has been entering into the Muslim countries where young people are receiving visions and having dreams of Messiah. Persecution is what births being set free from the bondages of the evil enslavement of Islam. Pray for the men and woman in those countries who are under tremendous persecution and are coming to Christ in droves.
Another bit of good news: Islam, with all of its violence and hatred, will one day be overcome by the name above all names, Jesus Christ. When our King of kings and Lord of lords comes to reign, it will be Him sitting on the throne, not some piece of metal or stone or whatever which is made by mans’ hands, including the crescent of the moon known as Allah.
We can take hope in Matthew 24:14:
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
On that note, I would like to repeat Zechariah’s 7th vision; and then we’ll go over what the late Jack Kelley wrote on his ‘gracethrufaith’ website back in 2006 concerning that vision. Once again, here’s Zechariah 5:5-11.
“Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, ‘Lift your eyes and see what this is that is going out.’ And I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘This is the basket that is going out.’ And he said, ‘This is their iniquity in all the land.’ And behold, the leaden cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the basket! And he said, ‘This is Wickedness.’ And he thrust her back into the basket, and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening. Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, two women coming forward! The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. Then I said to the angel who talked with me, ‘Where are they taking the basket?’ He said to me, ‘To the land of Shinar, to build a house for it. And when this is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its base.’”
I came across Jack Kelley’s teaching this past week. Here is what he wrote on this very subject:
“Yes, I believe the anti-Christ will be a theistic leader. After all, his goal is to be worshiped as God. I also think he could turn out to be Islamic.
But there’s an interesting polarization shaping up among Christian scholars, separating those who’ve always held that the Catholic Church would emerge as the one-world religion of the end times (with a European anti-Christ) from those who remember that the Roman Empire also had an Eastern component, much of which is Islamic today. They contend that the ruler spoken of in Daniel 9:26 who will emerge from the old Roman Empire could as easily come from the Middle East as from Western Europe.
Some believe that after the faithful are taken in the Rapture, the remnant of Catholicism won’t have as much trouble as one might expect in merging with Islam, especially if they’re helped along by a few apparitions. And I’ve read that more Moslems who convert wind up in the Catholic Church than any other denomination. There must be some level of comfort between the two.
Connecting the woman of Revelation 17 and the woman of Zechariah 5, both of whom personify wickedness, provides an additional clue. In Revelation 17:9 we’re told the woman sits on seven hills, thought by most to be a reference to Rome. In Zech. 5:9-11, the woman is being moved to a place which will have been prepared for her on the plains of Shinar, an obvious reference to Babylon, in the heart of Islamic territory.
Will the center for the one-world religion be moved from Rome to Babylon at the End of the Age? By comparing the two passages, some are seeing just that.” (End of quote)
Now, as mentioned at the start, this is another view, opinion or whatever. There is a lot of stuff out there pertaining to prophecy, and a lot of it is just plain false for whatever the reason.
The purpose of sharing this particular view was, first of all, to give some additional insight about Allah, Muhammad and Islam that some of us may be unfamiliar with, as well as sharing what is accurate and factual until Allah’s daughters are intertwined within Zechariah’s vision.
As I went over this study from a few years ago, from a biblical standpoint it has more questions than answers. When it comes to biblical prophecy and the symbolism within it, there are a lot of experts out there that can and do miss the mark. This teaching is no different. The obligation everyone in the Body of Christ has is to be diligent in connecting the dots with what scripture has to say—which, of course, is the final authority.
However, the question remains: Who is the woman in the basket? Does she represent the coming Holy Roman Empire that some say is going to rise again? Is it the Catholic Church? Is it a world system like the U.N.? Or is it Islam that the woman in the basket represents along with the 2 women taking the basket to the land of Shinar known as Babylon?
This is what drives us to keep studying, keep digging and to keep asking questions. And most importantly, to act on Proverbs 2:3-5 which speaks the following:
“And if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”
For myself, do I believe that Zechariah’s vision is without question Allah’s daughters and can’t possibly be anyone or anything else? Of course not. It is food for thought, and I hopefully and prayerfully will never pass any teaching on as being the gospel without the backing of God’s word. And this teaching does not have that, nor do I pretend it does. It is just another point of view on the complex subject of eschatology, and I’ll leave it at that.
Let’s leave with a blessing from Numbers 6:24-26.
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”