If you thought Ezekiel's visions were far-out, read this from Zechariah. He's been talking with an angel while being shown different visions. This is from chapter 5:
I looked up again, and I saw a flying scroll. "What do you see" the angel asked. I replied, "A flying scroll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide." The angel explained, "That is the curse which goes out over the whole land. For everyone who has stolen, as is forbidden on one side of the scroll, has gone unpunished; and everyone who has sworn falsely, as is forbidden on the other side of it, has gone unpunished. YHWH declares; I sent it forth and the curse shall enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My Name, and it shall lodge inside their houses and shall consume them to the last timber and stone. The angel tells Zechariah to look up and see the other object that is approaching. "This tub that is approaching, this is their eye in all the land." A disk of lead was lifted revealing a woman seated inside the tub. "That is Wickedness"; and thrusting her down into the tub, he pressed the leaded weight into the mouth of the tub. Two women came soaring with the wind in their wings- they had wings like those of a stork -and carry off the tub between earth and sky. They took it to build a shrine for it in the land of Shinar, a stand will be erected for it, and it shall be set down there upon the stand.
A Cubit is a measure of approximately 18 inches. That scroll is about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. It is the curse that infests liars, cheaters and thieves who think they've "gotten away with it" - they haven't been caught or punished, yet. It consumes them, timber and stone. That tub being used as 'their eye' in all the land makes me think of a satellite or the famous 'all seeing eye' until we find the wicked woman inside. Is that Ishtar or perhaps alluding to Mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots; the woman who rides the beast, controlling governments. It takes a covering of lead to keep her inside.
The Land of Shinar was a general geographic term for what is today Iraq, known in ancient times as Mesopotamia. There, two of the greatest of ancient empires, Assyria and Babylon, were centered and this is where a shrine to wickedness is kept.
For an example, in today's world, there is the Shrine of Sayidda Zeinab - (quote) ... an Iranian-style mosque and shrine in southern Damascus, Syria. The mosque dates from the 1990s, but was built on a pre-existing shrine. It attracts Shia Muslim pilgrims from Iran and around the world who care far less about its blue-tiled architecture than about it's the shrine of Sayidda Zeinab, daughter of the Shia martyr Ali and granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. (end quote)
Could this be the foreshadowed shrine of wickedness? hmmm... Islam opposes Yah's Instructions in righteous living. Arabs are the descendants of Esau... Mystery Babylon will be remembered and judged. Shinar is the name given, in the earliest Hebrew records, to Babylonia, later called Babel, or the land of Babel. In Genesis 10:10 it is the district wherein lay Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, cities which were the "beginning" of Nimrod's kingdom. In 11:2 Shinar is described as the land of the plain where migrants from the East settled, and founded Babel, the city, and its great tower.
There is also a replica of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon today. The original was taken by archaeologist over a century ago and is in Berlin. I find it interesting that Babylon is being rebuilt and has been submitted to the UN World Heritage Center for consideration.
I don't think we've heard the last of the Tub of Wickedness.
