What Does Zechariah 5:7 Mean?
And behold, a round disc of lead was lifted up, and this is a woman settling in the midst of the ephah.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.THE KEY
The lifted weight reveals that what the measure contains is pictured as a person, seated at its center.
THE MEANING
The scene makes hiddenness physical: a woman sits in the center of a measured vessel beneath a lifted weight of lead. What is inside can be seen and named; the following verse names it wickedness and lays the weight over the opening again.
THE ROOT
נִשֵּׂאת
nissa’et
GROWS FROM
נשא
lift, carry, bear
“lifted up” in this verse is nissa’et. English “lifted” suggests only a change of position, while נשא holds lifting and carrying in the same root. The weight is raised, but its burden remains part of what the image makes visible.
ALSO GROWS
massa: burden, load; also an oracle
מַשָּׂא
The root’s sense of carrying makes the lead register as weight, not just movement.
nasi: prince, chief; one elevated
נָשִׂיא
The same root can describe a person raised up, while here an object is lifted to reveal the person within.
THE PATTERN
What is enclosed does not stay hidden when its covering is lifted; what appears can then be named.
Even darkness does not darken from you; the night lights up like day, and darkness is as light to you.For there is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, and nothing hidden that will not be known.And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.The Hebrew verb behind “lifted” here is נָשָׂא (nasa), also rendered “borne” in Isaiah 53:4. The root holds elevation and carrying together: the lead is raised, yet its weight remains part of the image.
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