6. We should notice this expression, 'This is their appearance in all the earth'; so in chapter 4:10, and in Revelation. The anointed ones stand before 'the Lord of the whole earth.' The four chariots of horses are the four spirits, etc., 'before the Lord of the whole earth,' so in verse 3, 'This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth.' I apprehend that the evil in verse 3 marks unrighteousness towards man and God—individual wrong doing. I apprehend this is the abiding principle of divine, righteous judgment when He takes it, for even then the Lord, acting on that which belonged to the Jews, the sinner dying a hundred years old shall be accursed, but the exercise of it will remove them systematically. Chapter 4 is the recognition in the Jews of the principle to which the believing Remnant had borne witness, during the power of evil (as noticed in Revelation). Here is the principle of moral evil which was the real character of the world individually. The ephah and the woman I believe to be the burying the union of the Church in the world. The ephah was the largest measure, and I believe the all-rapacious character of evil is meant in it, and the Church is brought into it. The ephah is their resemblance, but this is wickedness, and it is bound down forever then however (0 Lord, what are our sins!), and built and set in the land of desolation and confusion, out of which the Jews are brought. However, I am sure there is much more in this that I do not understand yet.
I think, too, there must be observed an analogy between the actual efficient power in the previous chapter, the candlestick and the olive trees, and the formal professing Church, the woman in the world, and the two women. I have sometimes thought that, as the removing judgment, the former part of the chapter took the two Tables as against the Jews—the latter, the removal of the useless form (wickedness) of the professing Gentile Church now simply buried in the world. I suspect, however, that the putting the woman into the ephah is putting the Jewish Remnant completely into the world, and settling it in the power of Babylon in that day, as it showed the moral of the previous captivity. There the providence of God was not the least surrendered, and those who, out of the midst of the power of Babylon, came with gifts, and remembered despised Jerusalem (and an unbuilt house) it should be for a memorial to them and a crown. The Branch should be raised up. He should build the Temple, etc.