Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 5:7

"(and, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead); and this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah." — Zechariah 5:7 (ASV)

And behold, a talent of lead was lifted up—the heaviest Hebrew weight, elsewhere of gold or silver. The golden talent weighed 1,300,000 grains, and the silver 660,000. Here, being lead, it is obviously an undefined mass, though circular, corresponding to the Ephah. The Ephah too was the largest Hebrew measure, whose capacity cannot now, with certainty, be ascertained. Both probably were, in the vision, ideal.

Theodoret says: “Holy Scripture calls the punishment of sin lead, as being by nature heavy. This the divine David teaches us: mine iniquities are gone over my head: as an heavy burden, they are too heavy for me (Psalms 38:4). The divine Zechariah sees sin under the image of a woman, for most evils are engendered by luxury. But he sees the punishment, like most heavy lead, lying upon the mouth of iniquity, according to a Psalm: all iniquity shall stop her mouth (Psalms 107:42).” Ambrose (on Psalms 35:0, n. 9, Opp. i. 769) states: “Iniquity, as with a talent of lead, weighs down the conscience.”

This is a woman—Literally, “one woman,” all sin being concentrated and personified in one, as he goes on to speak of her as the personified wickedness. The sitting may represent her abiding, tranquil condition in her sins, according to the climax in Psalms 1:1-6: and has not sat in the seat of the scornful (Psalms 1:1); and, you sit and speak against your brother (Psalms 50:20). (Lap.), “not standing as by the way, but sitting, as if of set purpose, of custom and habit.” “Whoever has peace in sins is not far from lying down in them, so that, oppressed by a spirit of slumber, he neither sees light nor feels any blow, but is kept down by the leaden talent of his obduracy.”