Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 5:4

"I will cause it to go forth, saith Jehovah of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name; and it shall abide in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof." — Zechariah 5:4 (ASV)

I will bring it forth - Out of the treasure-house, as it were; as he says, He bringeth forth the wind out of His treasures (Jeremiah 10:13; Jeremiah 51:16); and, Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up among My treasures? (Deuteronomy 32:34). To Me belongeth “vengeance and recompense” (Deuteronomy 32:35). And it shall remain, literally, “lodge for the night,” until it has accomplished that for which it was sent, its utter destruction.

Lapide comments: “So we have seen and see in our day powerful families, which attained to splendor by plunder or ill-gotten goods, destroyed by the just judgment of God, so that those who see it are amazed how such wealth perceptibly yet insensibly disappeared.” (Compare to Chrysostom, On the Statues, 15, no. 13, p. 259).

The Oxford Translation states: “Why doth it overthrow the stones and the wood of the swearer’s house? In order that the ruin may be a correction to all. For since the earth must hide the swearer, when dead, his house, overturned and become a heap, will by the very sight be an admonition to all who pass by and see it, not to venture on the like, lest they suffer the like, and it will be a lasting witness against the sin of the departed.”

Paganism was impressed with the doom of one who consulted the oracle whether he should perjure himself for gain. “Swear,” was the answer, “since death awaits the man who keeps the oath as well; yet Oath has a son, nameless, handless, footless; but swift he pursues, until he grasps together and destroys the whole race and house.” “In the third generation, there was nothing descended from him,” who had consulted about this perjury, “nor hearthstone reputed to be his. It had been uprooted and effaced.” A pagan orator relates, as is well known, that “the perjurer does not escape the vengeance of the gods, and if not himself, then the sons and whole race of the perjured fall into great misfortunes.” God did not leave Himself without witness.

Lapide further states: “The prophet speaks of the curse inflicted on the thieves and false swearers in his own day; but a fortiori he includes that which came upon them for slaying Christ. For this was the greatest of all, which utterly overthrew and consumed Jerusalem, the temple, and polity, so that that ancient and glorious Jerusalem exists no longer, as Christ threatened. They shall lay thee even with the ground, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another (Luke 19:44). This rests upon them these “1800” years.”