God’s Word for You

Zechariah 5:9-11 Wings and faces of angels

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, July 18, 2022

9 Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and I saw two women coming toward me. The wind was in their wings, and they had wings like the wings of a stork. They lifted up the basket between earth and sky.

The Hebrew word for stork is ḥasida, “faithful one.” The ancients probably gave this name to this huge wading bird because it is famous for monogamous, often lifelong, mating. While the stork is on the list of unclean birds (Leviticus 11:19; Deuteronomy 14:18), this is probably because shore birds (including the stork) tend to eat unclean animals such as frogs and small reptiles as well as many ceremonially unclean water creatures such as octopus and crayfish. But just as an unclean mule or donkey can be used for a holy purpose such as conveying the King of the Jews into Jerusalem (Zechariah 9:9), so also angels might be depicted with the wings of a stork. In the ancient world, the stork had the largest wingspan, even bigger than that of eagles. It is a fairly well-known fact that the 1884 photographs of storks by German photographer Ottomar Anschütz inspired the wing design of late 19th-century gliders leading up to the invention of the airplane.

The name ḥasida, “faithful one,” also suggests the titles of our faithful God, whose grace and power have removed sin. This is reinforced by Zechariah’s observation that the wind was in their wings, which almost seems like an unnecessary comment except that the Hebrew word for wind is also the word for the Spirit of God. The persons of the holy Trinity work in perfect agreement, harmony and unity, to remove sin from the sinful.

This is the only place in the Scriptures where angels have the faces of women, “she-angels,” as it were (Winter’s Tale IV:4). In other places, angels appear to be men, such as in Genesis 19:1 and 19:12, or even young men, such as the angel at the empty tomb of Christ: “a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side of the tomb” (Mark 16:5). Here, the faces of women serve the same purpose as female prison guards. When the condemned is removed from the court, there is no implication of impropriety or sexual abuse, even though angels do not have sexual urges and do not marry (Matthew 22:30).

About Angels

Angels are servants of God. They often go without treatment in our Catechism classes except in passing; they aren’t mentioned in the creeds apart from the affirmation that God is the Creator of “all things, seen and unseen” in the Nicene Creed. They are not described in any further detail in our Lutheran Confessions any more than rivers or horses. They are part of God’s creation. They did not exist prior to the creation, for only the Triune God existed then, outside of time and the creation (John 1:1-3). They were created sometime during the creation week. They are spiritual beings; and they are personal beings. By this we mean that they do not have a physical form, and are called spirits (Hebrews 1:14), but they are individual beings with personality and voice. This is confirmed by their various titles, sometimes signifying angels and sometimes not, such as when they are described as the sons of God (Job 2:1, but not Genesis 6:2, 6:4); watchmen (Daniel 4:13, but not Song of Solomon 5:7), powers (Colossians 1:16, Daniel 4:35, but not Judges 1:35), and even men of God (Judges 13:6, but not Deuteronomy 33:1). Angels carry out God’s will at all times, including the defense and protection of God’s people. They bear the spirits of the dead to heaven (Luke 16:22). Angels are:

1, Unchangeable (they do not grow in body or number (Luke 20:35-36).
2, Immortal (Luke 20:36).
3, Indivisible and invisible, for they are spirits (Hebrews 1:14).
4, Illocal (they do not take up space the way a body does) yet they occupy a definite space. Pseudo-philosophical questions such as how many angels might dance on the head of a pin are foolishness that detract from the word of God. Angels have whatever appearance God requires of them, but as far as the living are concerned, no appearance at all. Sometimes they are visible to one being but not to another at the same time (Numbers 22:23-33).
5, They cannot die or be completely destroyed (Luke 20:36)
6, They are capable of rapid movement and agility (Matthew 4:5,8). They appear to be able to change their location without time or delay regarding their movement (but they can be delayed for other reasons, Daniel 10:13).
7, They are powerful. Their power is limited only by the will of God. We do not see angels performing miracles or raising the dead (1 Samuel 28:13, which cannot be the work of a demon), but only carrying out the tasks God assigns them.
8, They have knowledge surpassing human knowledge (2 Samuel 14:20)  but they also depend on the revealed knowledge from God (1 Peter 1:12).
9, They have a will, the ability to grasp or move objects such as the stone of Christ’s tomb (Matthew 28:2) or the hands of Lot and his family (Genesis 19:10) or to strike a man such as the sleeping Apostle Peter (Acts 12:7).
10, Finally, angels have holiness (Genesis 1:31; Mathew 25:31).

10 Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the basket?” 11 He said to me, “To the land of Shinar, to build a house for it. When it is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its foundation.”

Shinar was the old name for Babylon, where the Tower of Babel was built and the first great world-wide sin was collectively committed so that God put an end to their work (Genesis 11:2, 7). This is key to our understanding of why the wickedness of false teaching among the people of Judea was carried away to that place. Israel had only just returned from their exile to Babylon, and now a portion was being returned there, with a reminder of that earlier time. “Because of this wicked teaching,” Luther writes about the false teachers among the Jews, “they were to be exiled out of the true Jerusalem of the communion of God and be brought to Babylon, that is, scattered among all the Gentiles and languages—as we see it fulfilled. And Christ himself says in Luke 21:24 that they were scattered and led captive among all the Gentiles. For why should the prophet otherwise have mentioned the land of Shinar, where the languages were first confused and scattered into all the world?” (LW 20:245).

The house and its foundation show the hardening of these false teachers, who reject the word of God and of Christ, and build on a rock that is not Christ (Matthew 7:24) but is a foundation of their own works and opinions, apart from God (Romans 10:3). In that faraway land, they make a mockery of the true Church of God.

• There is someone sitting as if a teacher, but it is the Wicked woman in her basket, and not Christ.
• She pretends to sit in some sort of judgment, but she herself is counted and judged (the basket is an ephah).
• She wants to speak with authority, but nothing she says is from God.
• She has been carried away to her own place, not the presence of God. Her place of judgment is a prelude to hell.

God’s judgment is for his glory, and for our comfort. Remember that Peter says in his second Epistle that God is the one who judged the fallen angels, and also the ancient world in the flood, and the cities where Lot lived, but the same God also rescued some from the flood, and rescued Lot and his children from the destruction of Sodom, and he will rescue us from this world of sin and bring us home safely to heaven (2 Peter 1:1-9). Just as he holds the unrighteous for the day of their judgment, so also he preserves us for the day of our resurrection, glorification, and triumphant ascension into Paradise, brought to our eternal home through faith in Jesus Christ, and carried on the wings of angels.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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