lehem, " a circle of bread," is used to denote a round loaf.[1]
The word, as Dr. Wright points out, is not elsewhere found in the signification of a cover, though that is a possible sense. "It is constantly used of a fixed weight, by which gold, silver, and other things are weighed and measured, and is naturally spoken of in such a meaning here in connection with the Ephah, as the latter was the usual measure of capacity. The talent was the largest measure of quantity, and the weight was made of lead as the most common heavy metal, and was used in all commercial transactions for weighing out money."
That a " talent," the other chief emblem and instrument of trade, should have been seen by the prophet as forming the cover of the ephah, is of solemn significance, as will be shown further on.
(c] The " talent," or circular mass of lead, being lifted,[2] the prophet beheld a woman[3] sitting in the midst of the ephah.
" And he said " (i.e., the Angel, as if to call anew the prophet's special attention), "this is the Wickedness" the very embodiment of iniquity, rendered in the Septuagint avopia, lawlessness.
- ↑ Ex. xxix. 23; I Sam. ii. 36.
- ↑ According to Pressel and Dr. Wright the woman was sitting (as it were, enthroned) in the ephah carrying the kikar, or talent of lead (the emblem of the means by which her traffic is carried on), in her lap. They render the 7th verse thus: " And behold a talent of lead was being lifted up (i.e. carried), and I saw, and this was one woman sitting (or as she sat ) in the middle of the ephah." But, though this is a possible though somewhat forced rendering of the verb nxiyj (which is the Niphal participle fern, of NJ), it seems to me clear from the 8th verse that the "talent" formed the cover. The impression left on the mind by reading the narrative of the vision in the original is certainly that there is an attempted escape on the part of the woman from the ephah, and that the Angel casts the talent on the mouth of the ephah with a view to secure her, that she may be safely carried to the land of Shinar. It is for this reason, I suppose, that it may serve as a cover, or circular lid apart from its emblematic significance as the instrument of trade that a talent of lead, consisting of a large, circular, undefined mass, is seen in the vision, instead of one of gold, or of silver, which in size would be very much smaller.
- ↑ hshah achath literally, "one woman." The words, "and this is one woman," are those of the Interpreting Angel, who proceeds in the next verse to describe her character.
