5
Zechariah 5-Whore of Babylon’s TEMPLE
One of the most mysterious prophetic books in the Bible is the book of
Zechariah. The imagery and language in Zechariah is difficult to understand and
yet it provides important Biblical prophecies.
Such as the vision of the woman in the basket which theologians have
attempted to interpret.
The woman is none other than the Whore of
Babylon and the prediction is that she will have a building or temple in Shinar
or Babylon that is the Vatican in Rome that we will examine in further
detail. The passage names her
Wickedness and also makes indirect reference to her coming judgement.
We are in an exciting
time in end time Bible Prophecy, with the explosion of information and research
that can literally be conducted at the touch of a mouse, and online
concordances and Bible’s, the deeper mysteries of the Word of God are able to
be deciphered including the one of Zechariah’s vision of the woman in the basket. Zechariah’s
book was written in 520-518 BC after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians
under the reign of Darius.
Vision of the Woman in a Basket
Zechariah 5:5 records:
5 Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, “Lift
your eyes now, and see what this is that goes forth.”
The word for
goes forth in the original Hebrew is yatsa and it also means exit. Zechariah is told to look at what is about to
exit, depart the land.
Zechariah 5:6 continues:
The
word for basket used is ephah,
which was not only a basket but a basket of measurement. We see in Daniel
5:25-26, Daniel interpret the writing on the wall in the Kingdom of Belshazzar,
the son of Nebuchadnezzar and tell him that he is numbered and weighed and God
is putting an end to his kingdom.
We see the set of balances in Revelation 5:6 and measurement of wheat
depicting the judgement of God of famine onto the earth. I have also written in previous articles that
the significance of being numbered is always negative and when one has a number
versus a name they are numbered for death, such as those who take the mark of
the Beast or the Antichrist who is given a number for a name because he is
numbered for death from his birth.
This is why the woman is in the ephah,
it is a basket of measurement or judgement by God. The ephah going forth means both that this is
about to exit as well as judgement is decreed on what is in the basket.
The passage
continues, He also said, 7 “This is their resemblance throughout the earth:
Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket9
The woman is sitting on this basket. The KJV renders it, “and
this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.”
In Egypt the
Queen of Heaven is shown sitting in a basket. According to historian Max Dashu,
“This ties in with a lot of the basket ceremonies that women were doing in the women’s
mysteries in the Greek world.” In other
civilizations we see the Queen of heaven wearing a basket headdress. It was in part over the worship of the Queen
of Heaven that God’s judgment came onto Israel and they were taken into
captivity by the Babylonians. Consider this passage from Jeremiah 44:15-23:
15 Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to
other gods, with all the women who stood by, a great multitude, and all the
people who dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying: 16 “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you! 17 But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth,
to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as
we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of
Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble.
18 But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and
pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been
consumed by the sword and by famine.” 19 The women also said, “And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out
drink offerings to her, did we make cakes for her, to worship her, and pour out
drink offerings to her without our husbands’ permission?”
20 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people—the men, the women, and all
the people who had given him that answer—saying: 21 “The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the
streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and
the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them, and did it not come into His mind? 22 So the Lord could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you committed. Therefore your
land is a desolation, an astonishment, a curse, and without an inhabitant, as it is this day. 23 Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned
against the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord or walked in His law, in His statutes or in His testimonies,
therefore this calamity has happened to you, as at this day.”
Along with
Baal worship, the worship of the Queen of Heaven was clearly identified and
condemned.
Zechariah 5:7
reads, “Here is a lead disc lifted up,” This is to show
the significance of the lead disk. and this is a woman sitting
inside the basket”; we have already determined this is the Queen of Heaven who
Israel sinned against God with Zechariah 5:8 continues, “then he said, “This is Wickedness!”
Spiritual
adultery is wickedness. This is a violation of the first commandment that one
should have any other gods before the God of Glory. The woman represents false
religion i.e. idolatry that takes one from the true God and which Israel sinned
with and committed the sin that God hated and judged.
The verse
continues. “And he thrust her down into
the basket, and threw the lead cover[over its mouth. “
Notice it is the angel who pushes the woman down into the basket
and takes the lead disk and covers it so that she will not escape from the
basket. Removing it far from Israel the
lead disc representing the weight of her evil or its measurement that is judged
in the ephah. The disc also acts to
separate her from the land of Israel in which she has no part.
Zechariah 5:9 next describes:
9 Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women, coming with the wind in their wings; for they had wings
like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and
heaven.
The two women
would represent Israel’s Northern kingdom- Samaria is
Oholah, and Southern Kingdom-Judah -Jerusalem is Oholibah
of Ezekiel 23 and both are identified as spiritual harlots.
This was the
sin that brought God’s judgement and these two women represent the judged land.
This was in contrast to the woman in Revelation 12 who also represents Israel,
but she represents the believing and obedient remnant. She is clothed with the
sun and moon beneath her feet and wears a garland of 12 stars. She also delivers a male child. She is given the wings of a great eagle that
she might flee into the wilderness to escape the fiery red dragon with seven
heads and ten horns. An eagle while an
unclean bird is also the one of the largest and most powerful birds of prey.
These two women have the wings of a stork which is an unclean bird but
also one that glides in the air and cannot fly very far, this would suggest no
rush in getting it to its destination, but they are heavy birds with huge wing
spans so the women with the wings of a stork would be some spectacle in the air
and also be able to sustain the weight of the basket. It also represents the uncleanness of the
unrighteous of Israel and Judah for worshipping the Queen of Heaven.
God had judged Israel for its sin of
spiritual adultery and the north and south of Israel, which had been judged
represented now by the two women with the wings of a stork are departing along
with the mother of harlots who’s judgement is yet future.
Notice the
basket is lifted “between heaven and earth” which is in he air and she is part of the
demonic spiritual world which works in the air. Ephesians 2:2 confirms, “in which you once walked according to the
course of this world, according to the prince of power of the air, the spirit
who now works in the sons of disobedience.”
Zechariah
5:10 tells us where the basket is going it reads:
10 So I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they
carrying the basket?”11 And he said to me, “To build a
house for it in the land of Shinar;[c]when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base.”
They were taking the basket to
Babylon to build a house, dwelling or a place for it. The word in the Hebrew
bayith also means temple, dungeon, prison.
They were taking her to a specific temple or house as a place for her. This
is where she would reside until we see her in Revelation 17 and 18 emerging
with the Beast of Revelation.
From the time of the Kingdom period
in Israel, worship of her would spread to all the lands, and literally become a
world religion. Depictions of her adapted to the various places, cultures and
time periods. She would be worshipped in
Greek and Roman society. When Constantine ended persecution of Christians and
adopted Christianity, she would merge with the faith and become part of it.
According to historian Max Dashu, the
“greatest competitor to Christianity was the Magna Mater, which was extremely
popular and widespread and had roots in all the countries along the empire.” In
Christianity she became Mother Mary. Although nowhere in Scripture exonerates
Mary to any level of worship, in Catholicism she is raised to the importance of
Christ Himself and as intercessor. She would be prayed to as one would pray to
God the father. She would retain her
Babylonian role as the Queen of Heaven. The house that was built for her would
be the Vatican.
Before we look at the Vatican in
relation to Revelation 17 and 18, which is in Rome, we will first look at the
Scripture and how we know the city referred to is Rome.
Rome, which is symbolized by Babylon and is going to usher in the Tribulation.
This is an excerpt from the free online version of my book Whore of Babylon in Bible Prophecy: A Book of
Revelation Mystery Revealed
To Continue Reading see the articles below
Whore
of Babylon All Your Questions Answered, Free version of the Whore of Babylon in
Bible Prophecy" A Book of Revelation Mystery Revealed.
5-Zechariah
5 Predicts Whore of Babylon's Temple 6-The
Little Horn of Daniel Points to Revived Roman Empire 7-The
Seven Heads on the Beast of Revelation
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