Zechariah received eight apocalyptic visions in one night (1:7). As the text will show, they concerned God's purpose for the future of Israel, particularly Jerusalem, the seat of the Davidic dynasty and the site of the temple, and Judah. None of them was fulfilled in Zechariah's day. The broad theme of this section is the coming of the King. The purpose of these visions was to encourage the returnees to persevere in their work of rebuilding the temple.
Certain features mark each of these eight visions: an introduction, an explanation of what the prophet saw, his request for clarification of its meaning, and the elucidation. Oracles accompany three of the visions making their messages clearer (1:16-17; 2:6-13; 4:6-10).32
". . . The arrangement of the visions follows a chiastic pattern [abbccbba]. The first and last bear a strong resemblance to one another, the second and third, sixth and seventh are pairs, and the fourth and fifth, with their assurance of God-given authoritative leaders, form the climax. All eight visions are meant to be interpreted as one whole, for each contributes to the total picture of the role of Israel in the new era about to dawn."33
AThe horseman among the myrtle trees (1:7-17)
BThe four horns and the four smiths (1:18-21)
CThe surveyor (ch. 2)
DThe cleansing and restoration of Joshua (ch. 3)
D'The gold lampstand and the two olive trees (ch. 4)
C'The flying scroll (5:1-4)
B'The woman in the basket (5:5-11)
A'The four chariots (6:1-8)
This first vision emphasizes that God was lovingly jealous of His chosen people and would restore them even though they were troubled at present and the nations that oppressed them were at ease (cf. Habakkuk). In the vision an angelic patrol reported on the state of the whole earth. This vision presents hope for dispersed and downtroden Israel.34
The second vision builds on the concept of comfort promised in the first vision (vv. 13, 17). Here we learn how God will execute His anger against the nations that excessively oppressed His people. The nations will meet with retribution. Israel will triumph over her foes.
1:18 Zechariah then saw another scene in his vision.46He observed four animal horns. Presumably they were on living animals since they could feel terror (v. 21), though there is no mention of animals. Horns were a common figure for power in biblical and ancient Near Eastern iconography (e.g., Deut. 33:17; Ps. 18:2; 75:10; 89:17; Dan. 7:24; 8:20-21; Rev. 17:12).
1:19 In response to the prophet's request for an interpretation, the assisting angel explained that they represented the powers that had scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Assyria took Israel into captivity, and Babylonia destroyed Jerusalem and took the Judahites captive. So perhaps the fact that there were four horns symbolizes that they represented nations from the four corners of the world, the totality of opposition. Another view is that they stand for Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome (cf. Dan. 2; 7).47
1:20 Then the Lord showed Zechariah four smiths (Heb. harashim, lit. workers in metal, craftsmen). Either the Lord Himself pointed them out or the Lord did so through Zechariah's guiding angel.
1:21 Again in answer to the prophet's request for interpretation, the angel repeated that the horns represented the powers that had scattered the Israelites. Then he added that the four artisans had come to terrify these horns and to overthrow them for attacking Israel and scattering the Israelites. These smiths evidently carried hammers with which they threatened to smash the horns. Probably the kingdoms of Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and Messiah are in view. Each of these kingdoms destroyed the preceding one, Medo-Persia having defeated Babylonia (cf. Dan. 2:34-35, 44-45).
Another less likely view is that they describe kingdoms that had already destroyed Israel's enemies. A third possibility is that they will all appear in the future to take vengeance on Israel's end-times enemies.
"Several features are noteworthy in this vision: (1) God takes account of every one that lifts his hand against Israel; (2) He has complete knowledge of the dejected condition of His people and the extent of their injury; and (3) He has already provided the punishment for every foe of His chosen ones."48
"As little as horns can hold their own before powerful smiths, so little can God's enemies lastingly prevail over God's people."49
In the first vision (1:7-17) God promised comfort to Israel. In the second (1:18-21) He explained that He would bring this comfort by punishing the nations that had afflicted Israel. In this third vision (ch. 2) He guaranteed the future prosperity and expansion of Israel. Jerusalem has a divine protector. As will become clear, this future blessedness must extend beyond the restoration period to messianic times.50This third vision has a counterpart in vision six (5:1-4) in that they both deal with measuring, dimensions, and Jerusalem. This vision stresses the importance of Jerusalem, and vision six pertains to law within Jerusalem. This vision pictures Jerusalem in millennial glory.51
The Lord explained that Joshua and his friends were men who had prophetic significance (v. 8). As will become clear, Joshua, Israel's high priest, represents Israel in this vision, specifically Israel in her divinely appointed role as a kingdom of priests (Exod. 19:6).64In this vision and the next, Israel's standing before God and her resources are in view. This vision presents Israel's restoration as a high priestly nation.
The vision has two parts: a symbolic act (vv. 1-5) and accompanying promises (vv. 6-10).
This vision would have encouraged the two leaders of the restoration community, Zerubbabel and Joshua, by reminding them of God's resources, and it would have vindicated these leaders in the eyes of the Israelites. Chapter 3 brought Joshua forward to encourage him, and chapter 4 does the same to Zerubbabel. The chapter contains the vision (vv. 1-5), two oracles concerning Zerubbabel (vv. 6-10), and the interpretation of the vision (vv. 11-14). It presents Israel as the light of the world under Messiah, her king-priest.83
". . . after Israel as the priestly nation of God has been cleansed from all defilement and has entered into the restoration of her priestly calling, then she is prepared to fulfill God's original purpose in her as the bearer of light and truth to all the surrounding nations in their idolatry and paganism."84
"Vision five forms a matching pair with vision four, both in terms of its juxtaposition to it and its subject matter. Both deal with cultic persons or objects (the high priest and the menorah respectively), both mention historical persons contemporary to the prophet (Joshua and Zerubbabel), both refer to temple building, and both reach their climax on a strong messianic note."85
The priests and the kings in Israel were responsible for justice in the nation (cf. Deut. 17:9; 2 Sam. 15:2-3), though neither group could prevent wickedness from proliferating. The sixth and seventh visions deal with the removal of wickedness. This sixth one deals with the elimination of lawbreakers, and the next one with the removal of wickedness from the land. What God promised in the preceding two visions required the purging predicted in these two visions.
"At this point the series of visions takes a sharp turn from that which heretofore has been comforting, to a stern warning that the Lord (Yahweh) is a holy God and cannot brook evil."97
". . . before the blessing of the first five visions will be actualized, there will intervene in the life of the nation a period of moral declension and apostasy. God must and will purge out all iniquity, though He has promised untold glory for the godly in Israel."98
5:1 The next thing Zechariah saw in his visions was an unrolled scroll flying through the air. This was a scroll that contained writing, the equivalent of a modern book.
5:2 He replied to the interpreting angel who asked him what he saw that he saw a flying scroll that was 20 cubits long and 10 cubits wide (30 feet by 15 feet).99The scroll was open and large so people could read it easily. During the restoration period the returnees demonstrated an increased interest in the Mosaic Law, which was written on scrolls (cf. Neh. 8). No one could plead ignorance because the scroll in Zechariah's vision was large enough for all to see.
5:3 The angel explained that the scroll represented the curses that God had decreed against the Israelites who stole and who swore falsely in the Lord's name (v. 4; cf. Deut. 28). According to what God had previously written in the Law, those who stole and profaned His name would die, thus purging the land of sin.100Writing was on both sides of the scroll, as it had been on the stone tables that contained the Ten Commandments (Exod. 32:15). On one side there was a curse against Israelites who broke the eighth commandment (Exod. 20:15), and on the other side was a curse for breaking the third commandment (Exod. 20:7). These two commandments, from the first part of the Decalogue and the second part, which Zechariah's contemporaries were apparently breaking frequently, probably represent by synecdoche the whole Law (cf. James 2:10).101
5:4 Yahweh then promised to cause His curse to seek out the guilty and to bring judgment on them. He personified the curse and pictured it going throughout the land, even into homes, to seek out law-breakers. God's Word still had its ancient power even in post-exilic Judaism. Even the privacy of their homes would not afford protection from the judgment that the Lord would send on those of His people who broke His law.
In spite of the glorious promises of the future just revealed in the previous visions, the Israelites needed to realize that sin would still bring inevitable divine punishment on them. They needed to remain pure so they could avoid the Lord's curses and enjoy His promised blessings (cf. 2 Cor. 7:1).
"It is striking that this vision plays down any human activity."102
"This whole passage is very valuable as a commentary on the nature of Christ's rule in righteousness in the millennial period as well as the severity of His dealing with sinners once the day of grace is ended and the day of wrath and judgment is ushered in with the opening of the seven-sealed roll of Revelation 5:1-9, losing the seals, trumpets, and bowl judgments that dispossess Satan, demons, and the wicked men from the earth preparatory to the advent of the King of kings and Lord of lords to establish His rule and kingdom."103
The preceding vision described the future removal of individual sinners from the land through divine judgment, and this one pictures the eventual removal of all wickedness from the future "holy land"(2:12; cf. 3:9).
"In line with the scope of all eight of Zechariah's night visions, the fulfilment [sic] of this likewise extends into the millennial kingdom. Nevertheless the immediate application of the vision to the prophet's time and to the conditions then prevailing is plain."104
5:5 The angelic guide next proceeded to instruct Zechariah to view something else that was happening in his vision.
"So little is human nature capable of readily appropriating divine revelation that it is not only necessary for God to let the necessary visions appear but also to stimulate the recipient's attention step by step lest, overcome by the power of the heavenly, he fail to appropriate all that God desires to offer."105
5:6-7 The prophet asked what he saw was, and the angel replied that it was an ephah, a basket that held about a half bushel (or five gallons) of dry (or liquid) material (cf. 1 Sam. 1:24; Ruth 2:17).106The angel lifted up the lead cover on top of the basket and revealed a woman sitting inside. A lead cover would be heavier than the customary stone cover and would guarantee that what was inside would not get out. Either the ephah was oversized, like the flying scroll, or the woman was a miniature in Zechariah's vision. Probably God used an ephah in the vision simply because it was a standard container that people used to carry things in, similar to a barrel.107
"The woman, made visible by the lifting of the lead cover, is still, like the evil she represents, mostly hidden from sight."108
The angel further explained that this is what the ephah and its contents would resemble as they went forth in all the land.
"As in the preceding vision, the earth (ha'arets) designates not merely Palestine, although this is the primary reference, and the removal of godless commercialism is first and foremost from the land,' which will then be in reality the Holy Land' (Zech. 2:12 [16]); but more broadly the term points to the entire millennial earth."109
5:8 The angel explained that the woman represented wickedness. He picked her up, threw her down into the middle of the basket, and shut the lead cover over her (cf. 2 Thess. 2:6-8). Obviously some conflict was involved; "Wickedness"did not want to be restricted. Probably Zechariah saw a woman, instead of a man, because the word "wickedness"in Hebrew is feminine. Here the woman represents the sum total of Israel's sins, wickedness being the opposite of righteousness (cf. Prov. 13:6; Ezek. 33:12).110
5:9 The prophet next saw two other women flying through the air with stork wings. Perhaps they were women and not men because of the motherly attention they brought to their task.111Storks are strong, motherly birds capable of carrying loads a long distance in flight. The word "stork"(Heb. sida) means "faithful one."These women would faithfully carry the ephah and its contents to God's appointed destination.112They lifted up the basket into the air flying off from earth to heaven with the divine assistance of the wind (Spirit, Heb. ruah).
"The removal of Wickedness, like the removal of Joshua's filthy garments (3:4), was an act of free grace on the part of the covenant-keeping (hasid) God."113
5:10-11 When Zechariah asked the angel where the two flying women were taking the basket, his interpreter responded that they were taking the woman to the land of Shinar (Babylonia, cf. Gen. 10:10; 11:2; 14:1, 9).
"Shinar, besides taking the theme of Babylon as antagonist back to the very beginning (Gen. 10:10), creating thereby a kind of historical inclusio,' lends a more trans-historical sense to the message."114
These two women with storks' wings were God's agents carrying out His will (cf. Ps. 103:11-12; Jer. 32: 39-40; Ezek. 36:25). At the appointed time the woman Wickedness would set atop a pedestal as an object of worship, an idol (cf. Rev. 17-18).
"Thus where Judah had been exiled was a fitting place for wickedness to be worshipped, but not in the land where God had placed hisname. The idolatry of Babylon must once and for all be separated from the worship of the God of Israel."115
"We understand the passage to speak of the heaping up of the full measure of Israel's sins prior to the time of God's separation of the wicked from the midst of the righteous remnant of the last days."116
"The two cleansing acts of this chapter are complementary, like the two goats on the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16, of which the first must give its blood as an expiation before the Lord, while the second carries away the guilt of the people, and the impurity springing from it, to the region of the impure desert-demon. The cleansing judgment, despite the terror, is a benefit to the land, which is thus purified and fitted to receive the blessing pictured in the former visions."117
There are several similarities between this last vision and the first one (1:7-17) indicating a return to ideas introduced at the beginning of this chiastic series of revelations. Again there is a group of horses of various colors, but their order and colors are somewhat different. Zechariah mentioned a rider in vision one but no chariots, but in vision eight chariots without horsemen appear. There is a similar emphasis on the fact that Yahweh controls history and subdues the nations that oppress Israel.
"This last of the eight [visions] shares so much in common with the first that the two, at least, must be viewed as book ends enveloping the whole series."118
6:1 The next thing Zechariah saw in his night visions was four chariots coming out from between two bronze mountains.119Chariots were instruments of judgment, and bronze is a color that often carries this connotation in Scripture (cf. Exod. 27:2; Num. 21:9).120Bronze was used to defend against attackers (Isa. 45:2; Jer. 1:18), so perhaps impregnability is also in view.121Perhaps the mountains represent the gateway to heaven from which these agents of judgment come.122Another view is that they were Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives with the valley between being the Kidron Valley.123A third possibility is that they are the two parts of the Mount of Olives that will split apart when Messiah returns to the earth (cf. 14:1-8). Nevertheless they are "bronze."
6:2-3 The two horses pulling the first chariot were red. Black horses pulled the second chariot, white horses the third, and dappled horses the fourth. All of them were strong. These horses evidently represent angels who facilitate the work of other angels, represented by the chariots (cf. v. 5). The colors of the horses may symbolize various aspects of judgment, perhaps war and bloodshed in the case of the red horse, famine and death for the black, victory and triumph for the white (cf. 1:8; Rev. 19:11, 14), and plague and disease for the dappled (spotted; cf. Rev. 6:1-8).124
6:4-6 In response to the prophet's request for interpretation, his angel guide explained that the chariots represented the four spirits (winds, Heb. ruhoth) of heaven (i.e., angels), which were going forth having been in the presence of the Lord of all the earth (cf. 4:14). They were His messengers, the executors of His will (cf. Ps. 104:4). The chariot with the black horses went north from Jerusalem, the direction from which most of Israel's enemy invaders descended on the Promised Land (e.g., Babylonia; cf. Jer. 1:14; 4:6; 6:22; Ezek. 1:4). The chariot with the white horses went out next and evidently followed the previous one north. The one with the dappled horses headed south. Egypt lay to Israel's south, and it was another implacable enemy. Presumably the red horses went in the same direction.
Because of the geography of Palestine all of Israel's enemies came against her from the north or from the south; the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the Arabian Desert on the east prohibited major foreign invasions. Since the chariots went in compass directions we should probably understand their judgment to be universal (cf. 2:6; Jer. 49:36; Ezek. 37:9; Rev. 7:1). They went north and south out of Palestine, but they executed judgment in every direction. The total picture is of God executing His judgments against all nations that oppose Israel.
6:7 When these horses went out from between the bronze mountains they were eager to patrol the earth; they were anxious to carry out these judgments. The Lord gave them permission to patrol it, so they did.
"From first to last (cf. 1:10) the affairs of the nations are under God's direction, not man's. It is this certainty that makes prophecy possible."125
6:8 The Lord then called out to Zechariah that the horses that had gone out into the north had appeased His wrath in the land of the north. This probably represents judgment on Babylon specifically, but it probably hints at the total destruction of all enemies of Israel.
