Zechariah 1
McGeeCHAPTER 1THEME: Apocalyptic visions: of riders under myrtle trees; of four horns; of four smiths
Zechariah 1:1
APOCALYPTIC VISIONSThe first six chapters are messianic and millennial. In this section is the record of ten visions, and Zechariah was given all of those ten visions in a single night. I would say that this was a good night’s work, by the way! INTRODUCTION AND MESSAGE OF WARNINGThe first verse serves as an introduction to the Book of Zechariah. “In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius” gears this prophetic book into the reign of a gentile king because this is the period of the return of a remnant of Israel back to their land after the seventy-year captivity in Babylon. There is no king in either Israel or Judah now. The line of David is off the throne, and the Times of the Gentiles are in progress. “The second year of Darius” is the same year in which Haggai prophesied. They prophesied to the same people during the same period of time. Haggai began in the sixth month of that year, and Zechariah began two months later. It is the year 520 B.C. Haggai was given a prophecy in September, October, and December, but none in November. So this man Zechariah was given a prophecy in November, the month Haggai missed. “Came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah.” This is the same expression that Haggai used. In other words, Zechariah is speaking by the same authority that Haggai spoke. This same phrase occurs fourteen times in this book. Since the Book of Zechariah has fourteen chapters, it occurs on the average of once every chapter. As you can see, this is another book which places a great emphasis on the Word of God. Now the second verse begins the message of warning which God has given Zechariah. Speaking by the same authority that Haggai did, the Word of the Lord, he is warning the returned remnant not to follow in the footsteps of their pre-Captivity fathers.
Zechariah 1:2
Zechariah is telling them that the reason they had been in captivity was that “The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers.” They had sinned against God, and he is warning them against making the same blunder, the same mistakes.
Zechariah 1:3
“Thus saith the LORD of hosts.” That title for God has become almost a cliche for us; in fact many of the titles of God are almost meaningless to us, although we use them a great deal. What does “the LORD of hosts” really mean? It occurs fifty-two times in this book, which indicates its importance. The word hosts is derived from the Hebrew tsaba (plural: tsabaoth), meaning “service” or “strength” or even “warfare.” The way it is used here “implies the boundless resources at His command for His people’s good.” That is Dr. Fausset’s definition, and I can’t improve on it. In the New Testament it says, “He is rich in mercy” (see Eph_2:4), and “He has all power” (Mat_28:18).
So what do you need today, my friend? Do you need a little mercy? Well, he has an abundance of it. He is rich in it, and He can extend mercy to you. My, how we all need it! He is the Lord of Hoststhat title occurs three times in this verse and again in the fourth and sixth verses. “Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you.” You see how He is extending mercy to them.
Zechariah 1:4
This is God’s very practical warning. He is saying, “Your fathers paid no attention to the prophets whom I sent to them. I sent Hosea. I sent Joel. I sent Amos. I sent to them Isaiah and Jeremiah. I sent all of these prophets, but your fathers did not listen to them nor heed their message. That is the reason they went into captivity.” Now God asks a question
Zechariah 1:5
The voices of the former prophets are no longer sounding. Jeremiah and Isaiah and Hosea and Joel and Amos are gone. They are dead, and their voices are silent. And, by the way, “your fathers, where are they?” Well, they are buried down yonder in Babylon. That is the wrong place for an Israelite to be buried because he wants to be buried in his own land. Even old Jacob down in the land of Egypt made Joseph take an oath that he would not bury him there in Egypt.
He said, “I want to be taken back up yonder and be buried with my fathers.” And that is where his body is todaythere in Hebron. The hope of the patriarchs and the godly Israelites was to be in their land at the time of the resurrection of the dead. If you have ever been to Jerusalem, you know that before the Eastern Gate, down through the Valley of Kidron and all up the side of the Mount of Olives are graves of Israelites. The Arabs mutilated a great many of them, but they are being restored by Israel. They want to be buried in that location because they expect to see the Messiah come to the earth at that place. And, personally, I believe that they will be raised from the dead when Christ returns to the earth to establish His Kingdom.
Let me remind you that at the time of the Rapture the Lord Jesus will not come to the earth. Rather, He will call His own out of the earth and will meet them in the air. At that time He will not come to establish His Kingdom upon the earth. First the world will go through the Great Tribulation period, and then Christ will come to the earth to reign personally here. So you see that there would be no point in raising the Old Testament saints (both Jews and Gentiles) before the Tribulation because they would just have to stand around and wait until the Tribulation was over so that they could enter the Kingdom. Therefore, you can see that God’s question through Zechariah is very pertinent: “Your fathers, where are they?” They are buried down by the canals of Babylon, which is a bad place to be when your hope is in the land of Israel.
Zechariah 1:6
“Did they not take hold of your fathers?” means “did they not overtake your fathers?” The judgment for their sins overtook them. “And they returned and said, Like as the LORD of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.” They were finally willing to admit that the judgment which had come to them was just and righteous on the part of Godbecause He had warned them but they had not listened to Him. This concludes the practical section. I don’t mean that the next section is impractical; I simply mean that it deals with the visions which Zechariah had.
Zechariah 1:7
TEN VISIONSWhile most expositors and commentators say that there are eight visions here, we will make a further division, as you will see. VISION OF RIDERS UNDER MYRTLE TREESThe first vision is that of the horses and riders under the myrtle trees. Since the Hebrew months do not begin with January, the eleventh month would be equivalent to our FebruaryFebruary 24, 520 B.C. We will see the significance of this in a few minutes. Now let’s get the background before us. Five months prior to this vision, the Lord had appeared to Haggai and had given him a message of challenge for the remnant to resume the rebuilding of the temple. And the work of building the temple was begun. Then two months before Zechariah’s vision, the prophet Haggai had delivered a very sharp message to the priests because they were impure and yet were expecting God to bless them. Also, his message had been directed to the people because of their delay in building and their hesitation in moving forward with it. At this time Haggai also had told them about the coming destruction of gentile world power before God would establish His Kingdom here upon the earth. He had told them that the one who would rule would be the Messiah and that He was coming from the line of Zerubbabel, who was the civil ruler of Jerusalem at this time and was in the royal line of King David. Now it was during this time, while the temple was being rebuilt, that Zechariah was given ten visions.
Zechariah 1:8
“I saw by night"he doesn’t say, “I dreamed by night.” You may get the impression that because Zechariah had these visions at night that they were dreams, but he makes it clear that they were visions, not dreams. He was wide awake, and I don’t think that any tranquilizer or sleeping pill could have put him to sleep on that night! Many people differ with me in my stand that God does not speak through dreams or by visions in our day. I don’t try to correct them when they say to me, “I saw a vision last night.” I simply ask them if they saw the vision in a dream. If they did, I know immediately that God has not given them a message but that the dream was caused by something they ate for dinner the evening before, or it came out of some experience they had. In sleep the mind is unlatched or released, and it generally wanders back over some experience that produces the dream. Therefore, I think we can be sure that God does not speak to us in dreams. Notice that Zechariah said, “I saw.” It is important to understand how God revealed Himself to this prophet at this time. “Behold"Zechariah introduces his vision in a dramatic way. Frankly, I think the translator should have put an exclamation mark after that word. Behold means “to look.” “Look! There’s a man riding upon a red horse!” “A man riding upon a red horse.” Who is this man? He is the Lord Jesus Christ before His incarnation. You may ask how I know that. Well, He is identified as the “angel of the LORD” in verses Zec_1:11 and Zec_1:12. In the Old Testament the angel of the LORD is designated as God. Therefore, the angel of the LORD in the Old Testament is the Lord Jesus Christ of the New Testament. He is the angel of the Presence; He is Jehovah Himself, the Messiah. Here in Christ’s preincarnation Zechariah sees Him watching over this world. Now, it is true that Satan is called the prince of this world, that is, of this world systemthe carnality of this world today is all under Satan’s controlbut God has not given up this earth to Satan. Even at this very moment, the Lord Jesus Christ is standing in the shadows, keeping watch over His own. Here in Zechariah’s vision it is the nation of Israel in particular over which He is watching. What a comfort it is to know that, out of all the galaxies about us which cannot be numbered for multitude, the God of the universe is watching, keeping watch over His own. What a message this vision has for us. Zechariah will give many messages of comfort, and certainly this is one of them. Notice that the man is riding “upon a red horse.” What is the significance of the color red? Well, red speaks of blood and bloodshed; in the book of Revelation it speaks of bloodshed in war. But for this one who is riding the red horse, it speaks of His own blood that was to be shed. He is watching over this earth because He would die and shed His blood for the human family on this earth. What a picture we have here! “Behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.” It does not say that there were riders on the horses, but I feel that we can rightly assume that each horse had a rider. Here is an instance where God has not given us complete information, but we assume that the riders are angelic beings under Christ’s command whose business it is to watch over this earth and report their findings to Him. I believe that the colors of the horsesred, sorrel (called speckled in the King James Version), and whiteall have significance. I haven’t seen the word sorrel since I was a boy in West Texas and Southern Oklahoma when horses were the means of transportation. I can remember when I saw my first automobile in Springer, Oklahoma. We stood and looked at it for two hours. Can you imagine going to a parking lot today and looking at a car for that long? Well, we did. A doctor owned it, and everyone in that little town in which I lived came out to look at the car. It was fearful to behold and an unusual contraption. Nobody thought it could ever supplant the horse in our day of muddy roads. I remember well the sorrel horses; they were spotted, brownish orangeI always though of them as a dirty yellow. You might not like that description if a sorrel horse is your pet, but as a boy that is the way they looked to me. As I said, I believe there is a significance in the colors of the horses. Red horses would be symbolic of warfare. White horses would probably represent victory, symbolic of the fact that the one riding the horse is marching to victory. The sorrel is a mixture of the other colors. “He stood among the myrtle trees.” The myrtle tree is what we here in California call the laurel tree. We find it down in the desert regions. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company has planted them all along their tracks in the Palm Springs area so that the sand won’t cover the tracks. In the land of Israel, which apparently is their native habitat, there were many myrtle-covered valleys. The myrtle is considered sort of a badge of Israel. You see, certain trees and plants represent the nationthe olive tree, the fig tree, the myrtle tree, the grapevine all have their significance.
In Isa_41:19 (literal translation mine), God says, “I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, and the myrtle, and the olive, and I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together.” And in Isa_55:13 He says, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle: and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off.” In modern Israel the tremendous planting of treesand most of them are myrtlecould have real significance. It is interesting that myrtle branches together with palm branches were used in the ritual of constructing booths in the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. In fact, the name myrtle is the Hebrew hadhas, from which the name of Esther, hadhassah, is derivedso that a girl named Esther and another girl named Myrtle actually have the same name, referring to the myrtle tree. “The myrtle trees that were in the bottom"what does he mean by “the bottom”? It means down in a valley. The grove of myrtle trees would be in a valley where there was a water supply. The myrtle trees in the valley may be representative of Israel, for she was certainly down in a valley at this time. Before we leave this verse, let me say that the rider on the red horse is a picture, I believe, of the Lord Jesus just waiting for the day to come when He will take over this earth. And in the meantime He is patrolling the earth, watching over it. And I assume that the riders on the other horses are created intelligences, supernatural beings, or angels, who are there with Him.
Zechariah 1:9
“Then said I, O my lord, what are these?” That is the same question we have; so let’s listen. He says that he will show us what these things are
Zechariah 1:10
“To walk to and fro” means that they were patrolling the earth.
Zechariah 1:11
“All the earth sitteth still, and is at rest” means that there was peace on the earth at this time. That sounds good because during five thousand years of recorded history, there have been only about two hundred years of peace. Man is a fierce, warlike creaturethere is war in his heart. So a period of peace sounds wonderful. But what kind of peace was it? Well, it was the kind of peace that does not last very long.
Zechariah 1:12
“Against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years"that is, for seventy years now Jerusalem has been lying in ruin, debris, and ashes. But the remnant of Israel which has returned to the land is beginning to rebuild. The cry is, “How long will it be before God is going to bring real blessing to us?” God will make it clear that He is displeased with the nations which are at peace and ignore Jerusalem’s plight. God is jealous for Jerusalem, and all the nations of the world are indifferent to it. God returned to Jerusalem with mercies, and the nations have a responsibility also. But the nations are at peace, although they won’t be at peace very long. My friend, this has application to our present world situation. The world can never have permanent peace until the Lord Jesus is reigning in Jerusalem because He is the Prince of Peace. In the meantime, the peace which He offers is peace with God because of sins forgiven. If we are right with God, we can have peace with our neighbors and even peace among nations. But the so-called civilizednot Christiannations are the ones that have carried on two world wars in this century. It is interesting that during World War II when some of our United States troops were fighting in the South Pacific, they expected to find on many of the little islands headhunters and cannibals, but instead they found Christian churches and Christians who received them joyfully.
The so-called heathen were at peace, and the so-called Christians were at war! The world cannot have peace apart from Christ. Jerusalem is the key to world peace. In Zechariah’s day the world was trying to have peace and ignore Jerusalem. This was during the world domination by Media-Persia. You remember that Babylon had put down both Egypt and Assyria; then Media-Persia had put down the Babylonian Empire and was reigning all the way from the Indus River to the Mediterranean Sea and all the way from the snow of the mountains around the Black Sea and Caspian Sea to the burning sands of the Sahara Desert. Their dominion brought a brief period of peace to the world. But it wouldn’t be long until Alexander the great would come out of the West and upset the apple cart again. Peace could not be permanent because the city of Jerusalem was the key to peace.
Zechariah 1:13
Notice that they were good words and comforting words, words that were helpful to the remnant. During this time Haggai was pronouncing judgment, but not Zechariahhe was giving God’s message of comfort.
Zechariah 1:14
“I am jealous for Jerusalem.” God’s jealousy is not a human sort of jealousy that might be just a flare of bad temper. But men’s jealousy, which is a burning passion for that which is their own and is dear to them and may be taken away from them, may be similar to the jealousy of God. “I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.” Jerusalem is His city, and the Israelites are His people. He is fully aware of the worldwide woe of oppressed Israel even in our day, and He is exceedingly jealous for His people. I believe that in time God is going to move on their behalf. The world then and now is ready to forsake them.
Zechariah 1:15
“I was but a little displeased,” that is, God’s chastisement was intended for a brief period, but the nations of the world wanted her annihilation.
Zechariah 1:16
“I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies.” God had come back to deal with His people in mercy. The Scriptures tell us that He is rich in mercy. “A line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem.” There are those who believe that this “line” stretching forth upon Jerusalem means that there would be a great building boom in Jerusalem, that it would expand and become a great city in that day. I think that is probably true. But in the Scriptures, whenever we find a man with a measuring rod or a measuring line, it means that God is getting ready to move directly in that particular case. In this case, Israel had just returned from the seventy-year captivity, and God is turning to His people again, turning to those who have returned to Him. All the nations of the earth are to understand that there will never be peace on earth until there is peace in Jerusalem. That is the key to peace on this earth. Haven’t we seen this demonstrated again in these last few years? Haven’t the events since Israel became a nation again rather indicated that? That little nation found out how few friends she really had in the world at the beginning of the oil crisis. The nations which they thought were their friends fell away like dead flies because they wanted oil more than they wanted the friendship of Israel.
But, of course, modern Israel has not returned to God in spite of the fact that there is a great building boom over there today. They have returned back to the land and have begun rebuilding the cities, and Zionism is very much a reality, yet they are actually still scattered throughout the world in disbelief. And they are still suffering persecution. The peace of Jerusalem is the key to world peace. You can see this by checking back in the history of the past. It is certainly true that Jerusalem is crucial in the prophecies of the future: “For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it” (Psa_132:13-14). Also, “Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved” (Psa_78:67-68). God says that Jerusalem is the spot He loves. I must confess that I do not love Jerusalem as it is today. I must be very frank to say that it is not an attractive place to me. But God is going to make it a wonderful place some day. Although the judgment of God is upon Jerusalem even in this day, God still loves it.
Zechariah 1:17
This looks into the future so that these people can recognize that they are working in the plan and program of God which extends into the future. Allow me to make an application for Christians today. Are you and I working in something that has eternal value? What are you doing today? What value will it be ten years from today? A hundred years from today? A million years from today? Are you and I actually working in the light of eternity? We should keep that in mind.
Zechariah 1:18
VISION OF FOUR HORNSThis is the second vision given to Zechariah. I consider the vision of the four horns as one vision, and the vision of the four carpenters as another vision. Most expositors combine them and consider them as a single vision, but I do not interpret them that way. Zechariah sees four horns, and these four horns are the ones that scattered Jerusalem and Judah and Israel. They scattered both the northern and the southern kingdoms. A horn represents a gentile ruler. We find this in Dan_7:24: “And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise …” Again, in Rev_17:12: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.” I think you can see from these other references that horns represent gentile world powers. So these four horns which Zechariah saw represent four gentile world powers. Well, who are they? The four gentile powers that scattered Israel are: Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome. The interesting thing is that in the next vision God makes it very clear that these four horns will be dealt with.
Zechariah 1:20
THE VISION OF FOUR SMITHSIn our text they are called carpenters, but they are actually skilled workmen or artisansor they can be called smiths because a smith is a trained workman. “Then said I, What come these to do?” That is, “What are these skilled workmen doing here?” “And he spake, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to fray [terrify] them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles [nations], which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.” This is, without doubt, one of the most remarkable prophecies we have in the Scriptures. Who are the four smiths? There have been many suggestions. Jerome and Cyril and Calvin considered them symbolic of the supernatural means which God uses. Well, I don’t quite agree with that. The smiths or artisans are workmen which build up something. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Merrill Unger for his interpretation, which I consider to be the correct one. (By the way, Dr. Unger’s book on Zechariah is the finest I have seen.) Since the four horns are symbolic of four successive world empires spanning “…the times of the Gentiles …” (Luk_21:24), the four smiths must also represent four successive powers used by God to terrify and to cast down the enemies of God’s people Israel. Now let me quote Dr. Unger from Unger’s Bible Commentary: Zechariah (p. 40): In line with Daniel’s great prophecies concerning “the times of the Gentiles” (Dan_2:31-45; Dan_7:2-13) three of the horns in turn and under the punitive hand of God become smiths, while the fourth and last horn is cast down by the world-wide kingdom set up by the returning Christ, coming to dash to pieces His enemies who are at the same time His peoples’ enemies (Psa_2:1-12). Thus the first horn (Babylon) is cast down by Medo-Persia, the second horn. The second horn (Medo-Persia), accordingly, in turn becomes the first smith. The second horn (Medo-Persia) is cast down by the third horn, and thus becomes the second smith. The third horn (Macedonian Greece), is in turn cast down by the fourth horn (Rome), which thus becomes the third smith. The fourth horn (Rome), the most dreadful of all, does not become a smith but in its revived ten-kingdom form of the last days is destroyed by the fourth smith, the millennial kingdom set up by the returning “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev_19:16). The interesting thing is that if you study the history of Rome, you will see that Rome was not destroyed by an outside power. In fact, according to prophecy, the Roman Empire will come back together again. It never did dieit just fell apart because of the internal corruption of the kingdom. There is one who is coming, the Antichrist, who will restore the Roman Empire. He will be a world dictator. Who is going to put him down? Christ will put him down when He returns to the earth. Therefore, Christ is represented by the fourth carpenter or smith. He is the One who will put down the Roman Empire when He comes at the end of the Great Tribulation period. My friend, I hope this enables you to see how important it is to study the entire Word of God, because “…no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation …” (2Pe_1:20)that is, it is not to be interpreted by itself. It must be fitted into God’s tremendous program that reaches on into eternity. It is interesting that, when the Lord Jesus came to earth the first time, He had the title of the Carpenter of Nazareth. And He is coming again someday as a carpenter to put down this world dictator and establish His Kingdom here upon this earth with Jerusalem as its center. Someone has expressed it in these words: Then let the world forbear their rage, The Church renounce her fear; Israel must live through every age, And be the Almighty’s care. Author unknown Before we leave this chapter, I would like to call your attention to the fact that great prominence is given in each of the ten visions to these truths: (1) that God is not through with the nation Israel; and (2) when God says Israel and Judah and Jerusalem, He means exactly those geographic locations. The modern cult which teaches that Great Britain and the United States are the “ten lost tribes” is entirely wrong. I suppose that it helps our national pride to believe that we might be the “chosen people.” However, the only way God chooses people today is in Christ. It makes no difference who you are, what your color is, or what your station in life happens to be, if you are in Christ, you are chosen and accepted in the Beloved. Unless we are in Christ, it makes no difference to what nation we belongright now it wouldn’t be helpful even to belong to the nation of Israel. We are looking for a “…city …whose builder and maker is God” (Heb_11:10), and it is coming from God out of heaven someday. That is our hope. But God is going to make good His promises to Israel. He will be faithful to them. If you could persuade me that He is going to be unfaithful to the nation Israel, then I do not know on what basis I could believe that He is going to be faithful to the church. But God is faithful, both to us and to Israel.