A CORD OF MEASURE — literally 'a rope, a measurement': the surveyor's tool for measuring an AREA (a city's width and length, as here) rather than for laying one straight builder's line. ⚠ It is a different word from the qav Zechariah used just one chapter earlier — 'a measuring line stretched out over Jerusalem' for REBUILDING (1:16, see qav) — and the difference matters: chapter 1 promises the surveyor's cord of construction; chapter 2 sends it out to actually measure the city, only to discover the answer makes the whole project pointless (Jerusalem will outgrow any wall a fixed measurement could build, 2:8). Chevel is also the ordinary word for a rope and, elsewhere, for a tribal territory's allotted portion of land — one rope-word for measuring, and for inheriting. → first discussed at Zechariah 2:5