The True and Faithful Witness

Sixth Vision: The Flying Scroll

Zechariah 5:1–4 

Covenant Curse: By identifying the scroll Zechariah saw as a “curse” (Zech. 5:3), the angel tells us it is a covenant document, the Lord’s treaty given through Moses.

It is the execution of this curse sanction of the old covenant that is portrayed in Zechariah 5:1-4 (see Deut. 28:1–68; 29:16–28; cf. 27:11–26; Lev 26:3–39)

Meredith G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 178. 

  I looked up again, and I saw, and look!—a flying scroll! 2 And he asked me, “What are you seeing?” And I said, “I am seeing a flying scroll twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.” 3 And he said to me, “This is the curse going out over the surface of the whole earth. For everyone who steals has gone unpunished according to it, and likewise everyone who swears falsely has gone unpunished according to it. 4 ‘I have sent it out,’ declares Yahweh of hosts, ‘and it will go into the house of the thief and into the house of the one swearing falsely by my name, and it will spend the night in that house and will destroy it, with its timber and its stone.’ ” Zech. 5:1–4  The Lexham English Bible

The King of Glory, enthroned above the ark of the covenant scroll, would maintain the sanctity of his holy house and land according to the covenant’s stipulations, cleansing them of all that failed to satisfy its demands, punishing all such according to its sanctions. “According to it … according to it” (Zech. 5:3), they must be cut off.

Then said he unto me, this is the curse,... So the law of Moses is called, because it has curses written in it, Deut. 27:15–26 and 28:15–26 and 29:19, 20 and 30:19. which curse is not causeless, but is according to law and justice; it is from the Lord, and is no other than the wrath of the Almighty; and, wherever it lights, it will remain and continue for ever. Vitringa, on Isa. 24:6. says, this is the curse which Isaiah there prophesies of, which had its accomplishment in the times of Antiochus; but there the prophet is speaking, not of the land of Judea, but of the antichristian states.

 That goeth forth over the face of the whole earth; over the whole land of Judea, and the inhabitants of it, for their breach of the law, contempt of the Gospel, and the rejection of the Messiah; and which had its accomplishment when wrath came upon them to the uttermost, in the destruction of their nation, city, and temple; and is the curse God threatened to smite their land with, Mal. 4:6 and this curse also reaches to the whole world, and the inhabitants of it, who lie in wickedness; and to all sorts of sinners, particularly those next mentioned: 

for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side, according to it; as it is written and declared on one side of the roll: and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it; as is written and declared on the other side of the roll; which two sins of theft and false swearing, the one being against the second, and the other the first table of the law, shew that the curse of the law reaches to all sorts of sins and sinners; to all who do not keep it in every respect; and, indeed, to all but those who are redeemed from it by the blood of Christ; and that it is proportioned according to a man’s sins: and those two are particularly mentioned, because they are sins which prevailed among the Jews at the time Christ was on earth. Theft did, both in a literal and figurative sense, Matt. 23:14 KJV; Rom. 2:21; Luke 11:52; John 10:8, 10 and so did vain swearing, Matt. 5:33–36 and 23:16–22.

John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 6, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 701.

Here was a judgment cloud moving over the land, the winged cloud identified with the cherubim, the cloud-chariot on which the divine warrior-judge advances over the earth (Psa. 18:9–15, 10–16; 104:3)

 Hence the flying scroll not merely symbolizes the standard of the covenant judgment and its angelic agents, it also represents a Parousia of the covenant God and Judge himself. It images an anathema advent of the Lord of hosts riding through the heavens in the midst of his vehicular angel agents.

Zechariah 5.1ff. warns those restored from the Babylonian exile of a future recurrence of national cutting off. Israel would again forfeit, this time beyond recovery, their national election to the heritage of the typological kingdom offered in the blessing sanctions of the old covenant.

In that respect, they would be disowned and suffer dispossession and dispersion as the vengeance of the covenant Lord, a coming of the wrath of God upon them to the uttermost (cf. 1 Thess. 2:16). This fate foretold in Zechariah 5 overtook the old order in 70 A.D., the doom Jesus announced in language recalling Zechariah 5 “Your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt 23:38).

Clearly pointing to the fall of old covenant Israel as the (at least) initial fulfillment of the flying scroll judgment is the interpretive recasting of the sixth vision in Zech. 13:2–9, the parallel to Zechariah 5 in the matching chiastic structures of the two parts of the book. There again we read of a judgment affecting “all the land” (Zech.13:8), and again of a cutting off: “two parts therein shall be cut off and perish” (Zech. 13:8). 

And connected with this judgment is the prophecy of the messianic shepherd’s rejection and the scattering of his followers (Zech. 13:7; cf. Matt 26:31–2; Mark 14:27). The cutting off befalls the generation that knew not the hour of its messianic visitation. In its leadership and as a whole it was a generation of thieves and perjurers. They turned the house of God into a den of thieves (Jer. 7:11; Matt 21:13) and bore false witness against the Son of God. Refused and cast out by them, the vindicated, exalted Messiah-Prince sent the Roman legions as his army to destroy their temple-city, pouring out on their abominable apostasy the desolations foretold in covenant sanctions and prophetic visions (Deut. 9:26–7).  

Meredith G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 179-184.

the allusion in Mark 11:17 to Jeremiah also supports the idea of the disqualification of the Temple, for in its context the Jeremiah text predicts not a reform or cleansing of the Temple but its destruction. According to Jeremiah, the Temple in Jerusalem, like the earlier shrine at Shiloh, will be demolished (Jer. 7:12–14).

Consequently, those readers who have not really grasped the significance of Jesus’ suffering messiahship and the true nature of the kingdom—that is, those readers who expect Jesus to inaugurate the kingdom of God in a manner resembling that of a warrior-king—will, like the characters of the disciples in Mark’s Gospel, have to revise their expectations.

Paul Brooks Duff, “The March of the Divine Warrior and the Advent of the Greco-Roman King: Mark’s Account of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem,” Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992): 69-71. 

Thus Paul could later look back on the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ in the light of divine warrior imagery. For instance, in Colossians 2:13–15 he culminates his argument with divine warrior language: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2:15 NIV). In Ephesians 4:8 he cites an OT divine warrior hymn (Ps.68) and so casts the ascension as a triumphal parade: “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.” (NIV) Thus the divine warrior theme is pressed into service in the NT to describe Jesus’ victory over Satan on the cross.

Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 213.

 

Job 16:19 

      19       Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, 

         and he who testifies for me is on high.        

The parallelism now uses the Aramaic word “my advocate”—the one who testifies on my behalf. The word again appears in Gen 31:47 for Laban’s naming of the “heap of witness” in Aramaic—“Sahadutha.”

Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible, Second Edition. (Denmark: Thomas Nelson, 2019).

WITNESS

New Testament

μάρτυς mártus; gen. márturos, masc.–fem. noun. A witness. One who has information or knowledge of something, and hence, one who can give information, bring to light, or confirm something (Matt. 18:16; 26:65; Mark 14:63; Luke 24:48; Acts 1:22; 5:32; 7:58; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19; Heb. 10:28). 

It denotes that the witness confirms something, though in many cases that witness may have been bribed or otherwise persuaded to make a false statement (Acts 6:13). In the sense of a simple confirmation (2 Cor. 1:23); of the Apostle’s faithfulness and spiritual integrity (Rom. 1:9; Phil. 1:8; 1 Thess. 2:5, 10; 1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 2:2). 

Heb. 12:1 refers to the “cloud of witnesses” is mentioned. This may refer to them as spectators at a race, but seems to imply that they also testify, whether by word or deed, regarding the race they themselves have run.

Peculiar to the NT is the designation as mártures (pl., witnesses) of those who announce the facts of the gospel and tell its tidings (Acts 2:32; 3:15; 10:39, 41; 13:31; Rev. 11:3). Also mártus is used as a designation of those who have suffered death in consequence of confessing Christ (of Stephen, Acts 22:20; of Antipas, Rev. 2:13; see Rev. 17:6. These verses, however, should not be understood as if their witness consisted in their suffering death, but rather that their witnessing of Jesus became the cause of their death). The Lord Jesus in Rev. 1:5 is called “the faithful witness,” the faithful one (see Rev. 3:14)

Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000). 

John 8:5–7

5 Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.(those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth, (Jer. 17:13.) 

7 But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”(The first stones were to be thrown by the witnesses Dt 17:7)

New American Bible, Revised Edition. (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011).

WITNESS

Old Testament

Noun: עֵד (ʿēd), GK 6332 (S 5707), 69×. ʿēd, usually translated “witness,” is a legal term that derives from a verb meaning “to repeat, do again.” In the OT, a witness is someone who is able to repeat to others something he has observed firsthand. His testimony is legal and is used to confirm a fact.

But ʿēd is found more commonly among judicial proceedings. Deuteronomy requires the testimony of more than one “witness” to establish guilt (Deut. 19:15), especially in capital cases (Deut.17:6; cf. Num. 35:30), in which the “witnesses” are to cast the first stones (Deut. 17:7). 

God’s love for truth and justice is displayed in the OT demand for witnesses to be faithful (Prov. 14:5) and truthful (Prov.14:25). The ninth commandment forbids bearing false “witness” (Exod. 20:16; cf. 23:1; Deut. 5:20). Elsewhere, the law requires that the defendant’s penalty be meted out to the “witness” if the witness is found to be false (Deut. 19:16–19). 

Yahweh hates a false “witness” (Prov. 6:19) who mocks justice (Prov.19:28), speaks deceit (Prov.12:17), and lies (Prov.14:5). A false “witness” will not go unpunished (Prov.19:5, 9), but will perish (Prov.21:28).

God, who sees all things, is the ultimate witness. He is the “true and faithful witness” (Jer. 42:5), convicting people of their sin (Jer. 29:23; Mal 3:5) and confirming their integrity (1 Sam. 12:5; Job 16:19).

William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 796.

Job 16:18–21 (MSG)

THE ONE WHO REPRESENTS MORTALS BEFORE GOD

               “O Earth, don’t cover up the wrong done to me!

                 Don’t muffle my cry!

                 There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me,

                 in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name—

                 My Champion, my Friend,

                 while I’m weeping my eyes out before God.

                 I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God

                 as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor.

As I watched in the night visions, 

    I saw one like a human being 

    coming with the clouds of heaven. 

    And he came to the Ancient One 

    and was presented before him. 

    To him was given dominion 

    and glory and kingship, 

    that all peoples, nations, and languages 

    should serve him. 

    His dominion is an everlasting dominion 

    that shall not pass away, 

    and his kingship is one 

    that shall never be destroyed. Dan. 7:13–14