Zechariah 5:1

As to the suggestion you made in your letter that we should examine together the nature of an oath extorted by force, I beg of you, do not let our discussion turn crystal-clear matters into murky ones. If a servant of God were threatened with certain death, so that he should swear to do something forbidden and wicked, he still ought rather to die than to swear, so as not to commit a crime in fulfilling his oath. But in this case, … it was only the persistent shouting of the people that was forcing the man not to any crime but to what could be lawfully done, if it were done. And … the only thing to fear was that a few violent men, mingled with a crowd of mostly good ones, might seize the occasion to start a riot, under pretence of virtuous indignation, and might break out into some accursed disturbance to satisfy their passion for robbery. And when even this fear was unfounded, who would think that perjury could be committed even to avoid certain death, much less loss or some kind of physical injury? That individual called Regulus had never heard what the holy Scriptures say about the wrongfulness of a false oath. He had learned nothing about the sickle of Zechariah, and obviously he had not sworn to the Carthaginians by the sacraments of Christ but by the filthiness of demons. Yet he did not so fear certain torture and a horrible sort of death as to take his oath under compulsion, but he went to meet them to avoid perjuring himself, because he had sworn on oath of his own free will.

"They sank in the depth like a stone." Why "did they sink in the depth like a stone"? Because they were not the kind of "stones which sons of Abraham could be raised up" but the kind which love the depth and desire the liquid element, that is, who seize the bitter and fluid desire of present things. Whence it is said of these: "They sank like lead in very deep water." They are serious sinners. For iniquity is also shown "to sit upon a talent of lead," as Zechariah the prophet says: "I saw a woman sitting upon a talent of lead, and I said, 'Who is this?' And he answered, 'Iniquity.' " Hence it is, therefore, that the unjust "sank in the depth, like lead in very deep water."

(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.

Then I turned, and lift up mine eyes, and looked,.... The prophet turned himself from looking upon the candlestick and olive branches, having had a full and clear understanding of them, and looked another way, and saw another vision: and behold a flying roll, a volume or book flying in the air; it being usual for books, which were written on parchment, to be rolled up in the form of a cylinder; whence they were called rolls or volumes.

As the previous visions intimated God's favor in restoring the Jewish state, so this vision announces judgment, intimating that God, notwithstanding His favor, did not approve of their sins. Being written on both sides, "on this and on that side" (Zec 5:3) [VATABLUS] connects it with the two tables of the law (Ex 32:15), and implies its comprehensiveness.