What Does Zechariah 5:9 Mean?
Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, two women came out, and breath was in their wings, for they had wings like the wings of the stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and heaven.
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
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.THE KEY
The same Hebrew verb lifts both the seer’s eyes and the ephah, binding what is seen to what is being carried.
THE MEANING
The lifted gaze and the lifted ephah share one motion: what comes into view is also in transit. Wind fills the wings as the ephah hangs between earth and heaven, carried through the whole span rather than resting at either end.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂא
nasa
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
Lift, carry, bear.
The same verb appears first in the seer’s raised eyes and again in the women’s raised ephah, joining perception to transport. Its branch מַשָּׂא (massa, burden) keeps the image tactile: what is lifted is still borne as a load, suspended rather than erased.
ALSO GROWS
massa: Burden, load; also an oracle.
מַשָּׂא
This branch makes the lifted ephah a carried burden, not merely an object raised into the air.
nasi: Prince, leader; one elevated.
נָשִׂיא
The root’s reach from carrying to elevation echoes the verse’s movement upward between earth and heaven.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
ruach
Wind or moving air; breath and spirit as animating movement.
רוּחַ (ruach, wind/breath/spirit) is the force in the wings, while the same word can name breath and spirit elsewhere. The word holds moving air and animating presence together beneath the single English rendering.
ALSO GROWS
ruachot: Winds; spirits.
רוּחוֹת
The plural keeps moving air and spirit within the same word-family, as the wind gives visible motion to the wings.
ruchi: My spirit; my breath.
רוּחִי
This suffixed form shows the word can name an animating presence as well as a gust of air.
THE PATTERN
Unseen movement becomes visible through the wings, wind, or burden it carries.
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you on the wings of eagles, and brought you to myself.He lays the beams of his upper rooms in the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he walks upon the wings of the breath.The breath blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so is everyone who is born of breath.THE THREAD
He feeds his flock like a shepherd, gathers the lambs in his arm, carries them against his chest, and gently leads the ones who nurse.Both verses use נשא (nasa, lift/carry/bear): Zechariah’s ephah is carried between earth and heaven, while Isaiah’s lambs are carried close in the shepherd’s bosom. The same verb holds both the distance of transport and the nearness of care.
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