5:1 VA ASHUV VA ES'A EYNAI VA ER'EH MEGILAH APHAH
וָאָשׁוּב וָאֶשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאֶרְאֶה וְהִנֵּה מְגִלָּה עָפָה
KJ (King James translation): Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll.
Sar Shalom (modern Jewish translation): Then again I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, a flying roll.
And now the link to the other EPHAH, when we get to it in verse 6, will make much more sense.
I apologise, but I am trying not to laugh as I type up the KJ and Sar Shalom translations, both of which offer "flying roll" - the messenger, or perhaps Ha Satan, has thrown a very large bagel at him. With or without cream cheese? With or without lox? Is this the Biblical equivalent of "rotten tomatoes"?
A Megilah is the Biblical equivalent of a book, and anyone who has sat in shul on Purim or Shavu'ot will be familiar with them: Megilat Ester (Esther) read on the former, Megilat Rut (Ruth) on the latter. And of course the rolled-up Torah scroll is also technically a Megilah, all of them from the root GAL meaning "round", from which we also get the twelve-stones-in-a-circle shrine of Gil-Gal, and the place of the round skull on the summit of Mount Mor-Yah, Gulgolet, or Gulgot-Yah (Golgotha). Torah scrolls, being rather large, always have two handles; most other Megilot tend to have just one.
Why Ha Satan, or perhaps the messenger, has "thrown the book at him" is something we shall simply have to wait to learn. But in the meanwhile we can note that it is not simply a Megilah, but a MEGILAH APHAH.
A Megilah is the Biblical equivalent of a book, and anyone who has sat in shul on Purim or Shavu'ot will be familiar with them: Megilat Ester (Esther) read on the former, Megilat Rut (Ruth) on the latter. And of course the rolled-up Torah scroll is also technically a Megilah, all of them from the root GAL meaning "round", from which we also get the twelve-stones-in-a-circle shrine of Gil-Gal, and the place of the round skull on the summit of Mount Mor-Yah, Gulgolet, or Gulgot-Yah (Golgotha). Torah scrolls, being rather large, always have two handles; most other Megilot tend to have just one.Why Ha Satan, or perhaps the messenger, has "thrown the book at him" is something we shall simply have to wait to learn. But in the meanwhile we can note that it is not simply a Megilah, but a MEGILAH APHAH.
MEGILAH APHAH: Note that this is an APHAH with an AYIN (ע); what comes up in verse 6 is an EPHAH with an Aleph (א), and I will complete the explanation of this when I get there. For the moment, note that there either is no root Ayin-Peh-Hey in Yehudit, or perhaps there is a borrowing of a known Syriac root, understood to describe any form of luxuriant growth, and probably the source of the "foliage of trees" of Psalm 104:12, though that is spelled Aramaically as Ayin-Peh-Aleph (עֳ֝פָאיִ֗ם). Daniel 4, verses 9, 11 and 18 all have APHYEH (עָפְיֵ֤הּ) for "foliage", clearly the same word, but with a Yehudit Hey rather than that Aramaic Aleph (which is odd, because Daniel is usually the other way around).
Which then leads me to rethink my previous paragraph, and to re-check that root, and wonder, maybe... MAGAL... from the root NAGAL, nothing to do with scrolls at all, or only as yet another piece of word-play. Jeremiah 50:16 uses it to mean "a sickle" or "a reaping-hook", which ties in with "foliage" much better... and then look at the context, Babylon, "each man shall turn back to his people, everyone shall flee to his own land". And then, four hundred years before Zechar-Yah, the prophet Yo-El (Joel), chapter 4:13, the only other instance of this word in the Tanach, and he says:
Which then leads me to rethink my previous paragraph, and to re-check that root, and wonder, maybe... MAGAL... from the root NAGAL, nothing to do with scrolls at all, or only as yet another piece of word-play. Jeremiah 50:16 uses it to mean "a sickle" or "a reaping-hook", which ties in with "foliage" much better... and then look at the context, Babylon, "each man shall turn back to his people, everyone shall flee to his own land". And then, four hundred years before Zechar-Yah, the prophet Yo-El (Joel), chapter 4:13, the only other instance of this word in the Tanach, and he says:
Swing the sickle, For the crop is ripe; Come and tread, For the winepress is full. The vats are overflowing! For great is their wickedness.
More on that "wickedness" at verse 8. But now we know. This isn't a flying bagel at all, though Prophets are always throwing the "good book" at somebody for something; this is a threshing or reaping sickle, being swung into action at harvest time - a perfect metaphor to encourage the leadership to fulfill the covenant, to bring the Messianiac seeds to ripeness and harvest a new golden age.
And now the link to the other EPHAH, when we get to it in verse 6, will make much more sense.
BN (BibleNet translation): Then again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, behold, a sickle raised for harvesting.
5:2 VA YOMER ELAI MAH ATAH RO'EH VA OMAR ANI RO'EH MEGILAH APHAH ARKAH ESRIM BA AMAH VE RACHVAH ESER BA'AMAH
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי מָה אַתָּה רֹאֶה וָאֹמַר אֲנִי רֹאֶה מְגִלָּה עָפָה אָרְכָּהּ עֶשְׂרִים בָּאַמָּה וְרָחְבָּהּ עֶשֶׂר בָּאַמָּה
KJ: And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.
BN: And he said to me, What do you see? And I answered, I see a sickle raised for harvesting, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.
Far too large even for a baguette, let alone a bagel! Far too large for a sickle either, actually. And if it's flying, he can't measure it that precisely anyway, only make an estimate. Twenty cubits is three and one third reeds, or twenty times 17.5 inches, which is about 30 feet, unless he's using the royal cubit, which is slightly more; so about the size of a passing comet, possibly (I am merely attempting to gaze into a crystal ball and make a horoscopal prophesy)?
5:3 VA YO'MER ELAI ZOT HA ALAH HA YOTS'ET AL PENEY CHOL HA ARETS KI CHOL HA GONEV MI ZEH KAMOHA NIKAH VE CHOL HA NISHB'A MI ZEH KAMOHA NIKAH
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי זֹאת הָאָלָה הַיּוֹצֵאת עַל פְּנֵי כָל הָאָרֶץ כִּי כָל הַגֹּנֵב מִזֶּה כָּמוֹהָ נִקָּה וְכָל הַנִּשְׁבָּע מִזֶּה כָּמוֹהָ נִקָּה
KJ: Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.
Sar Shalom: Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole land: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off on the one side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off on the other side according to it.
ALAH: Since when is an ALAH "a curse"? Well, yes, it is ocasionally used with that meaning, in Judges 17:2 and Hosea 4:2, and the precise opposite, to swear an oath in the name of the deity, using the Hiphil form in 1 Kings 8:31, but on each occasion this is really an ALIYAH in its final form, having "gone up" to land, capital, Temple and altar, the only place left to "go up" to is the deity himself, in the heavens, and that is what each of these imprecations is doing. Which of course is then interesting in exactly the same way that the two EPHAHS are interesting, because the other thing that "goes up" to the deity in the heavens is an OLAH, a sacrifice - but that too would be spelled with an Ayin, not an Aleph.
It may also not be a coincidence that אָלָה is how you would write down the name of al-Lah in Yehudit, and the same word, differently pointed, spells ELAH, the terebinth oak of Genesis 35:4 and Judges 6:11, and a variant name for the deity himself throughout the Book of Daniel (2:20, 3:28, 6:8 et al), though Daniel sometimes adds the standard Aramaic Aleph, or other variants, as the three examples I have deliberately chosen will illustrate.
I am still playing "seer", searching for meaning as I cut and paste and transliterate to create this page, reading this book as I do so for the first time ever. So I am remembering that YHVH placed his rainbow in the skies (Genesis 9:12) as a mythological symbol of future peace, harmony and fertility, where this is presenting the opposite, a symbol of the bad that will happen if humans do not follow the standards set by No'ach, and which were the reason for his being saved. What - other than a flying bagel - might serve as such a symbol?
KOL HA GONEV MI ZEH: "Anyone who steals from this". But this what? This reaping sickle? This ALAHor OLAH or ELAH? This "imprecation"?
NIKAH: Perhaps the answer lies in that key word - key for this verse anyway. But how the translators get it become a CHEREM, a "cutting off", is beyond me. Quite the opposite, indeed. The root is NAKI, which means "clean" or "pure" or "innocent", and is used regularly throughout the Tanach for the acquittal of a man from his crimes or his sins or even his illnesses (Numbers 5:19), or its opposite (1 Kings 2:9, Jeremiah 30:11 et al).
NISHB'A: In the active form this means "to swear an oath", as in Be'er Sheva, the Well of the Oath. But this is passive - so is it about having false oaths sworn on their behalf, even forced on them, the way, say, Marrano Jews were obliged to convert in Catholic Europe, or is it about their own insincerity in swearing such an oath? And anyway - what oath?
And perhaps there is yet another word-play, as with EYPHAH and ALAH, and actually this is not from the root SHAV'A at all, but from the identical-without-pointing SAV'A, which would again take us into the harvest, because SAV'A means "abundance", even "satiation" - and in such common use I feel absolutely no need to back the statement with a reference.
And note that, if my reading is correct, Ha Satan is here to represent the adversarial side, that of the ALAH, but the messenger is the one who shows and explains the ALAH; so they are not symbols of Good versus Evil, but adversarial forces drawing the human back and forth between his good and his evil inclinations - the two sides being physically described in this verse - and so, yes, the influence is Zoroastrian, but the theology is already proto-Judaism.
BN: Then he said to me, "This is the instruction from the deity that is going out across the face of the whole land: that any man who steals so much as a splinter from that sickle shall be purged by one side of its blade, but any man who is satisfied with it shall be rendered pure by its other side...
The "one side" being the sharp, cutting edge, the other smooth and harmless. My translation is long-winded, but I think this is closer to the meaning than either of the above - and yes, I have varied my translation of NIKAH on each occasion, to make the distinction clearer: both will be purified, but one by death, the other by sustained life. "Accept YHVH in full and with sincerity and you will be rewarded; do otherwise, and you will face the consequences"! In other words, "get off your cowardly backsides, and finish rebuilding the Temple." He is definitely throwing the "good book" at them! And, as we shall see in the next verse, these are all, as always, metaphors.
5:4 HOTSE'TIHA NE'UM YHVH TSEVA'OT U VA'AH EL BEIT HA GANAV VE EL BEIT HA NISHB'A BISHMI LA SHAKER VE LANEH BETOCH BEITO VE CHILATO VE ET ETSAV VE ET AVANAV
הוֹצֵאתִיהָ נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת וּבָאָה אֶל בֵּית הַגַּנָּב וְאֶל בֵּית הַנִּשְׁבָּע בִּשְׁמִי לַשָּׁקֶר וְלָנֶה בְּתוֹךְ בֵּיתוֹ וְכִלַּתּוּ וְאֶת עֵצָיו וְאֶת אֲבָנָיו
KJ: I will bring it forth, saith the LORD of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.
BN: "'I will unsheathe it,' says YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, 'and it will enter the house of the thief, and the house of he who swears falsely by my name; and it will hover in the midst of his house, and consume it with its timber and its stones.'"
HOTSE'TIHA: Bring what forth? Given the Toraic occasions when NIKAH is used, is it a "plague" of some sort, a flu virus, or an outbreak of the buboes? But we need to track down the allusion with caution, because, for example, there is a detailed description, amounting to a medical encyclopaedia, of the plague of leprosy and how to deal with it, in Leviticus 13, and it too concludes with the victim either being purified, or not - but it (see verses 58 and 59) has them as TAHAR or TAM'E, and that is not the same as the NAKI that Zechar-Yah is using: the Levitical is about ritual purity, the state of the body, where NAKI is clearly mental and moral.
On the other hand, that form of purity has been in evidence before, in Zechar-Yah 3:5, when the Kohen Gadol was being returned from his "filthy garments" of verse 4 to a state of purity, by being dressed in the proper manner - "HA TSANIPH HA TAHOR".
On the other hand (Jewish arguments always require at least three hands), the very next chapter (Leviticus 14) does what Zechar-Yah has just announced, inflicting the plague on the houses, rather than the people, affecting the timber and the stones. Verse 37, for example:
KJ: Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth.
OPHERET: Word-games and still more word-games! Still more Alephs versus Ayins.
APHAR with an Aleph (א) means "whitish", and is used for "dust" as well as "ashes" (Numbers 19:9, 2 Samuel 13:19), but so is APHAR with an Ayin, as here (cf Numbers 19:17); and in Job 30:19 and 42:6 the two are used together (actually in Numbers 19, as per my links, the two are used virtually together).
And that APHAR is also the root of the name EPHRAYIM, one of Yoseph's sons, but also the name of the northern kingdom that long ago disappeared into the history of conquered peoples. EPHRON with an Ayin, on the other hand, was the Hittite from whom Av-Raham purchased the Cave of Machpelah at Chevron, King David's first capital. EPHRON may have been the Phoenician god Phoroneus originally, but in the Yehudit lexicon he is "a young calf", though whether a bull-calf or the offspring of a gazelle, a stag, depends entirely on context - available for sacrifice at the Temple altar anyway, if only it were built!
YOSHEVET BETOCH: This is the Ephah with an Aleph, not the Eyphah with an Ayin. It is not obvious how a woman could sit in the midst of this measure, though there is often a woman depicted on images of the horoscopal constellation Libra, the goddess of Justice herself seated in the midst of the scales of Justice - "just weights, just balances", as Mosheh insists in... guess what, the very same verse, Leviticus 19:36 that had the Ephah and the Hin!
KJ: And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.
And he shall examine the affliction, and, behold, if the affliction in the walls of the house shows itself to have hollow streaks, either greenish or reddish, and if it appears to be embedded inside the wall...
The Kohanim listening to this should have known chapters like Leviticus 14 off-by-heart, because they are the Levites whose duties are being listed. They will understand that the allusion is to the deity giving the Law to Mosheh on Mount Sinai, and their responsibilities towards that Law.
So we can now affirm our assumption that this entire vision is really addressed to the leaders not the populace, and especially to the Kohanim (Zeru-Bavel after all gets praised, while gently encouraged), whose "wickedness" he commented on at the very start? And therefore the "house" is also the Temple, in process of restoration, not yet dedicated, but already threatened with a repeat of destruction if former habits are resumed (as of course they will be).
So we can now affirm our assumption that this entire vision is really addressed to the leaders not the populace, and especially to the Kohanim (Zeru-Bavel after all gets praised, while gently encouraged), whose "wickedness" he commented on at the very start? And therefore the "house" is also the Temple, in process of restoration, not yet dedicated, but already threatened with a repeat of destruction if former habits are resumed (as of course they will be).
5:5 VA YETS'E HA MAL'ACH HA DOVER BI VA YO'MER ELAI SA NA EYNEYCHA U RE'EH MAH HA YOTS'ET
וַיֵּצֵא הַמַּלְאָךְ הַדֹּבֵר בִּי וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי שָׂא נָא עֵינֶיךָ וּרְאֵה מָה הַיּוֹצֵאת הַזֹּאת
KJ: Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth.
BN: Then the messenger who was speaking inside me went outside, and said to me, "Look up now, and see what this is that is going out."
Another comet flying by? Another giant scroll, pulled from his bag like a magician's stage-box? A giant sickle? The kindergarten technique again. And now, says the Mal'ach, put your hand back into the box, and see what you pull out this time. A white rabbit, maybe? The crowds in the music-hall are loving it! I am not sure the dignitaries at the shrine, if that is the location and the audience, will be quite so amused.
5:6 VA OMAR MAH HI VA YO'MER ZOT HA EYPHAH HA YOTS'ET VA YOMER ZOT EYNAM BE CHOL HA ARETS
וָאֹמַר מַה הִיא וַיֹּאמֶר זֹאת הָאֵיפָה הַיּוֹצֵאת וַיֹּאמֶר זֹאת עֵינָם בְּכָל הָאָרֶץ
KJ: And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth.
BN (rejected translation): And I said, "What is it?" And he said, "This is the eyphah going forth." And moreover he said, "This is how they will appear throughout the land."
EYPHAH: With an Aleph (א), not the Ayin (ע) that we had with the APHAH of verse 1; but obviously he is playing word-games (KJ declines to translate it; most translators sadly do the same). But we cannot take that option.
What, then, is an EYPHAH? First, it is not the question "where?", though the word for "where", which is EYPHO, is written exactly the same, unpointed. An EYPHAH, which is usually pronounced EE-FUH, is a measure of grain, made up of three SE'OT, or ten OMERIM (see Exodus 16:36), and an OMER is what Jews count (yes, we are harvesting once again; it appears to be the leitmotif of this chapter), one per day, marking thereby the 49 days between Pesach and Shavu'ot like a prisoner keeping a wall-calendar. Grain needs a sickle if you are going to harvest it - see verse 1.
Note, before we go on, that HA EYPHAH is "the", meaning "one", but EYNAM is plural.
According to Josephus (Antiquities 15.9.2) (I am quoting Gesenius' explanation of this, and Gesenius then insists that Josephus, not unusually, has got it wrong) "an ephah was equal to the Attic medimnus, or six Roman modii, which is 15/16ths of a Berlin modius, about 2600 cubic inches French). More usefully, look at Exodus 16:18, and especially 32, which may well be the key allusion here; and for broader interest, Judges 6:19, Ruth 2:17.
But then there is the double measure (EYPHAH VE EYPHAH) of Deuteronomy 25:14 (I pointed out above the seeming conflict of the singular and the plural), for which we need to remember Proverbs 20:10, though that is itself an allusion back to Deuteronomy 25, but verse 15 now; and paralleled previously in Leviticus 19:36 (this all sounds terribly abstruse and complex, but to an audience of trained priests, it should be as simple and straightforward as a Math teacher going through the seven times table).
Stay with that Leviticus reference for a moment. "A just eyphah and a just hin" is what it says. The two sides again (the word-games are also two-sides all the time: this meaning or that meaning, this spelling or that spelling, this sound or that sound). But which two sides? The sharp sickle-blade that kills, or the smooth edge that purifies? EYPHO, as pointed out above, also means "where"; HIN, which is indeed a measure, is also the root for "here", as in HINEH and HINENI. "Where - here." I am reminded yet again of Rabbi Hillel's triad, the third part: "and if not now, when?". Zechar-Yah may be playing kiddie-games in his performance, but the text is decidedly grown-up.
As to the origin of the word, there is an equivalent in the Egyptian, still in use in the Coptic of today, and it is the same root as their word for "to count" - but I don't have the capacity to type Coptic, so you will have to go to Gesenius, or conduct your own search. Take a look at Amos 8:5 as well; Amos was around at the same time as Hoshe'a (Hosea) and First Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah).
ARETS: Up until now he has been using ARETS to mean Planet Earth, but this seems to intend just the Erets Yisra-El (KJ disagrees).
BN (slightly extended translation): And I said, "What is it?" And he said, "This is the measuring-line that I spoke about before, going out to count the human Omer in the land." And in addition he said, "This is how its two sides will appear throughout the land, the where? and the here."
5:7 VE HINEH KIKAR OPHERET NIS'ET VE ZOT ISHAH ACHAT YOSHEVET BETOCH HA EYPHAH
וְהִנֵּה כִּכַּר עֹפֶרֶת נִשֵּׂאת וְזֹאת אִשָּׁה אַחַת יוֹשֶׁבֶת בְּתוֹךְ הָאֵיפָה
KJ: And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.
BN: And behold a talent of lead rose up; and this - a woman sitting in the midst of the eyphah.
VE HINEH: Coincidence that the alluded-to HIN becomes an immediate HINEH? Probably, but worth pointing it out anyway. Given all the shaman-tricks, I can easily imagine him using his voice to hin-hin-hint at the allusion, just in case his listeners were the sort that didn't ephah get these things (that's either "either" in Cockney, or ever in Estuary, as you prefer). Similarly, I can imagine him pulling a coin from his pocket at this precise moment, with an overstated magician's wave of the fingers first and the full ham of showing it - that hyphen before "a woman" serving as a dramatic pause.
KIKAR: These are all the images of a vision, so self-evidently they have a symbolic as well as, perhaps, a literal reason for being used. At its most basic, a KIKAR is any globe or circle (Exodus 29:23), but Nehemiah 12:28 will use it, admittedly three-quarters of a century later than this, possibly for the general countryside, more likely for that area south of the Dead Sea through which whatever was left of the river Jordan flowed down to the Red Sea - the same appears in Genesis 13:10 and 19:17 as well as 2 Samuel 18:23, so most likely it was a standard name for that region.
But all that is geography, with KIKAR the common wod for "a plain"; Zechar-Yah, however, is playing with weights and measures, and there a KIKAR is a "talent" (cf Exodus 38:24/25), equal to approximately three thousand sanctuary shekels. The coin was made of gold in 1 Kings 9:14 and 10:10, the two-talent coin was made of silver in 2 Kings 5:5, 5:23 et al.
If this were modern currency, here in Britain, the woman in the midst of the KIKAR would be the queen. And just for the intellectual interest, LIBRA are the scales, the £-sign comes from the L that begins the word (Libra = "pound" in Latin), and the LB for weights (the ones with ounces, before kilos were adopted instead) from the first and third letters.
KIKAR: These are all the images of a vision, so self-evidently they have a symbolic as well as, perhaps, a literal reason for being used. At its most basic, a KIKAR is any globe or circle (Exodus 29:23), but Nehemiah 12:28 will use it, admittedly three-quarters of a century later than this, possibly for the general countryside, more likely for that area south of the Dead Sea through which whatever was left of the river Jordan flowed down to the Red Sea - the same appears in Genesis 13:10 and 19:17 as well as 2 Samuel 18:23, so most likely it was a standard name for that region.
But all that is geography, with KIKAR the common wod for "a plain"; Zechar-Yah, however, is playing with weights and measures, and there a KIKAR is a "talent" (cf Exodus 38:24/25), equal to approximately three thousand sanctuary shekels. The coin was made of gold in 1 Kings 9:14 and 10:10, the two-talent coin was made of silver in 2 Kings 5:5, 5:23 et al.
If this were modern currency, here in Britain, the woman in the midst of the KIKAR would be the queen. And just for the intellectual interest, LIBRA are the scales, the £-sign comes from the L that begins the word (Libra = "pound" in Latin), and the LB for weights (the ones with ounces, before kilos were adopted instead) from the first and third letters.
Given the prohibition of graven images in the Mosaic code (Exodus 20:3), does the appearance of a woman in the middle of the Kikar not constitute another "abomination"?
OPHERET: Word-games and still more word-games! Still more Alephs versus Ayins.
APHAR with an Aleph (א) means "whitish", and is used for "dust" as well as "ashes" (Numbers 19:9, 2 Samuel 13:19), but so is APHAR with an Ayin, as here (cf Numbers 19:17); and in Job 30:19 and 42:6 the two are used together (actually in Numbers 19, as per my links, the two are used virtually together).
And that APHAR is also the root of the name EPHRAYIM, one of Yoseph's sons, but also the name of the northern kingdom that long ago disappeared into the history of conquered peoples. EPHRON with an Ayin, on the other hand, was the Hittite from whom Av-Raham purchased the Cave of Machpelah at Chevron, King David's first capital. EPHRON may have been the Phoenician god Phoroneus originally, but in the Yehudit lexicon he is "a young calf", though whether a bull-calf or the offspring of a gazelle, a stag, depends entirely on context - available for sacrifice at the Temple altar anyway, if only it were built!
And then there is OPHIR, for the enigmatic details of which see my link, but very much associated in the Biblical mind with the gold that Shelomoh (Solomon) sent boatloads of sailors to bring back from the eastern lands for the ornamentation of the First Temple.
And finally OPHERET, the word used here, which really is "lead", from its whitish colour.
Where is Ha Satan through all of this? And doing what? Or is Zechar-Yah, with all these clever allusions and stage-tricks, playing all the roles himself?
5:8 VA YO'MER ZOT HA RISH'AH VA YASHLECH OTAH EL TOCH HA EYPHAH VA YASHLECH ET EVEN HA OPHERET EL PIYHA
וַיֹּאמֶר זֹאת הָרִשְׁעָה וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ אֹתָהּ אֶל תּוֹךְ הָאֵיפָה וַיַּשְׁלֵךְ אֶת אֶבֶן הָעֹפֶרֶת אֶל פִּיהָ
KJ: And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.
BN: And he said, "This is Wickedness". And he cast her down into the midst of the eyphah; and he cast the weight of lead upon its mouth.
Sixty years from now, and a mere five hundred miles by boat from the Yehudan coast to Strongyli, its easternmost point, Hellenic Greece will enter its golden age of theatre, led in tragedy by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, in comedy by Aristophanes; golden ages do not happen unless there has been a silver, and before that a bronze age. Are we witnessing something of a bronze age of Yehudit theatre too? I am thinking back to my commentary on the Shimshon (Samson) legends in The Book of Judges (chapter 16), where the telling of the tale seems to be pantomime, a narrator and comic actors delivering it both aurally and visually, with the great joke at the end of them literally bringing the house down. The Kindergarten teaching techniques here, the magician with his box of tricks - are we perhaps in similar realm, Zechar-Yah surrounded by actors playing the Messenger, Ha Satan, the Woman named Wickedness, et cetera? I suggested above that he was playing all the roles; in classical Greek theatre it was a Chorus plus three - click here for detail, and note after the highlighted part that they too were presented as part of religious ritual, not secular entertainment. Again I am making guesses as I go along. Again, we shall have to wait and see.
Samech break
5:9 VA ES'A EYNAI VA ER'EH VE HINEH SHETAYIM NASHIM YOTS'OT U RU'ACH BE CHANPHEYHEM VE LA HENAH CHENAPHAYIM KE CHANPHEY HA CHASIYDAH VA TIS'ENAH ET HA EYPHAH BEYN HA ARETS U VEYN HA SHAMAYIM
וָאֶשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאֵרֶא וְהִנֵּה שְׁתַּיִם נָשִׁים יוֹצְאוֹת וְרוּחַ בְּכַנְפֵיהֶם וְלָהֵנָּה כְנָפַיִם כְּכַנְפֵי הַחֲסִידָה וַתִּשֶּׂאנָה אֶת הָאֵיפָה בֵּין הָאָרֶץ וּבֵין הַשָּׁמָיִם
KJ: Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven.
BN: Then I looked up, and saw, and, behold, two women came out, and the wind was in their wings - for they had wings like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up the eyphah between the Earth and the heavens.
SHETAYIM NASHIM: Why not SHETEY NASHIM?
YOTS'OT...CHANPHEYHEM: He gets the feminine correct on Yotsot, but Chanpheyhem should be CHANPHEYHEN. And are they really wings (and do the "wings" in a Yehudit theatre allow the same word-play, so that the two women can make their appearance, winged or otherwise, even as he describes them?). Persian angels indeed - click here! The transition phase in European Art, from human-looking angels to cherubs as babies (with nappies or without) but adult faces, involved angels with beautifully drawn birds' wings, fully-feathered.
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| Guido Reni, The Coronation of the Virgin (National Gallery, London) |
And if this is not pantomime-theatre, if this is not metaphorical poetry, what else can we say about these lines except to recommend a psychiatrist and encourage regular attendance.
5:10 VA OMAR EL HA MAL'ACH HA DOVER BI ANAH HEMAH MOLCHOT ET HA EYPHAH
וָאֹמַר אֶל הַמַּלְאָךְ הַדֹּבֵר בִּי אָנָה הֵמָּה מוֹלִכוֹת אֶת הָאֵיפָה
KJ: Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah?
BN: Then I said to the messenger who was speaking inside me, "Where are they taking the eyphah?"
MOLCHOT: An aural pun, homophonic, on MAL'ACH, the "messenger" - the first from HALACH = "to go", the second from LA'ACH = "to depute". It isn't actually grammatically correct, so it has to be a word-game (it should be HOLCHOT). (And remember that the third of the Prophets of this epoch, seventy years later in the time of Ezra and Nechem-Yah, will be named... MAL'ACHI (מַלְאָכִֽי).
5:11 VA YO'MER ELAI LIVNOT LAH VAYIT BE ERETS SHIN'AR VE HUCHAN VE HUNIYCHAH SHAM AL MECHUNATAH
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי לִבְנוֹת לָה בַיִת בְּאֶרֶץ שִׁנְעָר וְהוּכַן וְהֻנִּיחָה שָּׁם עַל מְכֻנָתָהּ
KJ: And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.
BN: And he said to me, "To build herself a house in the land of Shinar. And when it is ready, she shall be set there in her own place."
SHIN'AR: The land of the Tower of Bavel (Babel) - see Genesis 11 - but also the land of Babylonian captivity from which these Yehudim have only just returned. The implicit threat is that this will be the repeat-result if the Yehudim do not pursue the standards set by No'ach, the minimum standards for all of humanity defined in the No'achide Laws.
MECHUNATAH: Her base paralleling the "base" of the Temple, the foundation-stone "shown" previously.
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