What Does Zechariah 5:8 Mean in the King James?
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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Wickedness is named, put inside a measured vessel, and physically closed beneath lead.
THE MEANING
Wickedness is not an abstract label here: it takes a body, enters a measured vessel, and is closed beneath lead. The weight on its mouth makes restraint concrete while leaving the thing itself present inside the ephah. The image speaks now: naming harm and containing it are distinct realities.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The image undoes the belief that naming harm means it is already overcome: the naming comes before the physical act of containment.
THE ROOT
הָרִשְׁעָה
ha-rish'ah
GROWS FROM
רשע
To act wickedly; the word family also names wickedness and the person marked by it.
This root names both a condition and the person characterized by it, so wickedness can appear as an embodied presence rather than an idea. The ephah and lead closure make that presence visible and bounded.
ALSO GROWS
rasha: A wicked or guilty person
רָשָׁע
The root can name a person as well as a condition, fitting the vision’s presentation of wickedness as a body.
resha: Wickedness or wrongdoing
רֶשַׁע
This noun names the condition that the vision identifies and places inside the ephah.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes destructive power visible by giving it a body or container that can be restrained.
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.THE THREAD
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.The same רשע root family appears in Zechariah’s “wickedness” and Psalm’s “ungodly.” Psalm traces that root through counsel, a way, and a seat, showing how wickedness can take shape in a person’s path while Zechariah shows it confined in the vision.
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