translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: ZEC

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “twenty cubits…ten cubits” (so NAB, NRSV). These dimensions (“thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide”) can hardly be referring to the scroll when unrolled since that would be all out of proportion to the normal ratio, in which the scroll would be 10 to 15 times as long as it was wide. More likely, the scroll is 15 feet thick when rolled, a hyperbole expressing the enormous amount and the profound significance of the information it contains.


text: The Hebrew word translated “curse” ( אָלָה , ’ alah ) alludes to the covenant sanctions that attend the violation of God’s covenant with Israel (cf. Deut 29:12, 14, 20-21 ).


text: See the note on the expression “angelic messenger” in 1:9 .


text: Heb “[This is] the ephah.” An ephah was a liquid or solid measure of about a bushel (five gallons or just under twenty liters). By metonymy it refers here to a measuring container (probably a basket) of that quantity.


label: NET textual note

text: The LXX and Syriac read עֲוֹנָם (’ avonam , “their iniquity,” so NRSV; NIV similar) for the MT עֵינָם (’ enam , “their eye”), a reading that is consistent with the identification of the woman in v. 8 as wickedness, but one that is unnecessary. In 4:10 the “eye” represented divine omniscience and power; here it represents the demonic counterfeit.


text: Heb “house” (so NIV, NRSV, CEV).