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Zechariah 5:1

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Behold a flying roll - This was twenty cubits long, and ten cubits broad; the prophet saw it expanded, and flying. Itself was the catalogue of the crimes of the people, and the punishment threatened by the Lord. Some think the crimes were those of the Jews; others, those of the Chaldeans. The roll is mentioned in allusion to those large rolls on which the Jews write the Pentateuch. One now lying before me is one hundred and fifty-three feet long, by twenty-one inches wide, written on fine brown Basle goat-skin; some time since brought from Jerusalem, supposed to be four hundred years old.

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Hitherto all had been bright, full of the largeness of the gifts of God; of God‘s favor to His people; the removal of their enemies; the restoration and expansion and security of God‘s people and Church under His protection; the acceptance of the present typical priesthood and the promise of Him, through whom there should be entire forgiveness: the abiding illumining of the Church by the Spirit of God. Yet there is a reverse side to all this, God‘s judgments on those who reject all His mercies. Augustine, de Civ. Del. 17:3. Ribera: “Prophecies partly appertain to those in whose times the sacred writers prophesied, partly to the mysteries of Christ. And therefore it is the custom of the prophets, at one time to chastise vices and set forth punishments, at another to predict the mysteries of Christ and the Church.”

And I turned and - Or, “Again I lifted up my eyes” Genesis 26:18; 2 Kings 1:11, 2 Kings 1:13; Jeremiah 18:14, having again sunk down in meditation on what he had seen, “and behold a roll flying;” as, to Ezekiel was shown “a hand with a roll of a book therein, and he spread it before me.” Ezekiel‘s roll also was “written within and without, and there was written, therein lamentation and mourning and woe” Ezekiel 2:9-10. It was a wide unfolded roll, as is involved in its flying; but its “flight signified the very swift coming of punishment; its flying from heaven that the sentence came from the judgment-seat above” (Ribera).

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are rolls, in which God has written the great things of his law and gospel; they are flying rolls. God's word runs very swiftly, Ps 147:15. This flying roll contains a declaration of the righteous wrath of God against sinners. Oh that we saw with an eye of faith the flying roll of God's curse hanging over the guilty world as a thick cloud, not only keeping off the sunbeams of God's favour, but big with thunders, lightnings, and storms, ready to destroy them! How welcome then would the tidings of a Saviour be, who came to redeem us from the curse of the law, being himself made a curse for us! Sin is the ruin of houses and families; especially the doing hurt to others and false witness. Who knows the power of God's anger? God's curse cannot be kept out by bars or locks. While one part of the curse of God ruins the substance of the sinner, another part will rest on the soul, and sink it to everlasting punishment. All are transgressors of the law, so we cannot escape this wrath of God, except we flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us in the gospel.
Ellen G. White
Education, 144

The accounts of every business, the details of every transaction, pass the scrutiny of unseen auditors, agents of Him who never compromises with injustice, never overlooks evil, never palliates wrong. Ed 144.1

“If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice, ... marvel not at the matter: for He that is higher than the highest regardeth.” “There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.” Ecclesiastes 5:8; Job 34:22. Ed 144.2

“They set their mouth against the heavens.... And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?” “These things hast thou done,” God says, “and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes,” Psalm 73:9-11; 50:21. Ed 144.3

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