3 Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.
(Chapter 5, verses 1 onwards) Then I turned and lifted up my eyes, and behold, a flying scroll! And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.” Then he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. I will raise up, says the Lord of hosts, and it will come to the house of the thief and to the house of the one who swears falsely in my name, and it will remain in the midst of his house and consume it and its wood and its stones. LXX: And I turned and lifted up my eyes and saw a flying sickle. And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a flying sickle, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide. And he said to me: This is the curse that goes out over the face of all the land: because every thief will be punished from this until death, and every perjurer will be crucified from this until death. And I will bring it, says the Lord Almighty, and it will go into the house of the thief, and the house of the one who swears falsely in my name, and it will rest in the midst of his house, and it will consume him, and his wood, and his stones. Turning, the prophet said, to another vision, and lifting my eyes from joyful and fortunate things to sadder things, I see a flying scroll that is called Megella in Hebrew, and it is translated as διφθέρα by Aquila and Theodotion, and as κεφαλὶς by Symmachus, meaning, chapter, according to what we read in the psalm: In the chapter of the book it is written about me (Ps. XIX, 8); or according to the Seventy, δρέπανον πετόμενον, meaning, a flying sickle. For all the things that he had seen above, the construction of the temple, the coming of the Lord Savior, the liberation of the people from Babylon, had been proclaimed. Therefore, so that his heart would not be lifted up with the Apostle (to whom the angel of Satan had been given to buffet him), he also sees the things that are sad, so that whatever had increased in arrogance from the revelation of good things, may decrease from the threat of sad things. Moreover, a flying scroll is shown, in which all sins are written down, so that each person may receive according to their works, whether good or evil, as Daniel says: Thrones were set up, and books were opened. But if we take the sickle, as the LXX translated it, let us take the example from the Apocalypse of John, in which it is written: And the angel answered, and said to him who sat on the horse: Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of thy vineyard, for the grapes thereof are ripe (Apoc. XIV, 18). For sickle, in Deuteronomy we read arrows and sword: I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh (Deut. XXXII, 42). And because God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;). The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished And in Jeremiah we read: How long will you cut with the sword, or the sword of the Lord? How long will you not rest? Return to your sheath (Jer. XLVII, 6). This sword is not only called a sickle, which cuts hay, straw, and thorns; but it is also called an axe of trees, which will cut down those who have not made themselves worthy of the fruits of penance. And about whom John the Baptist proclaimed: Behold, the axe is laid to the roots of the trees: every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matt. III, 10). This volume, in which the sins of everyone are described, or rather, the sickle that cuts down the sins of all, is sent into the vineyard of Sodom, of which it is written: Our enemies are foolish; for their vineyard is the vineyard of Sodom, and their offspring is from Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, and their clusters are bitter. The fury of dragons is their wine, and the incurable madness of asps. (Deuteronomy XXXII, 31 ff.) This sickle measures twenty cubits in length and ten in width, in a number joined together that is sad for the afflicted. For the Lord corrects in order to improve. In the twentieth, which is made up of two decades, harsh and difficult things are announced: in the tenth, that is, one decade, better and prosperous things are revealed: for Israel is taught through all kinds of scourges and punishments. At the same time, let us warn those who think small crimes like theft and perjury, that the curse which is written in the book and (by Al. a) with a sickle, be brought upon the house of the thief and perjurer, and let it remain in it, and consume all its wood and stones. But if there is such a threat of punishment for what is considered lesser offenses (such as theft and perjury), what shall we say about fornication, adultery, homicide, sacrilege, and all other crimes numbered among the works of the flesh by the Apostle (Galatians 5)? It has been said that the length of twenty cubits and the width of ten cubits correspond to the age of our Lord and Savior, that is, the number thirty. This is not for the Father to judge anyone, but all judgment has been given to the Son, and he will judge the world (John 5).
[AD 420] Jerome on Zechariah 5:1-4