Zechariah 1:20

1:18-21 The enemies of the church threaten to cut off the name of Israel. They are horns, emblems of power, strength, and violence. The prophet saw them so formidable that he began to despair of the safety of every good man, and the success of every good work; but the Lord showed him four workmen empowered to cut off these horns. With an eye of sense we see the power of the enemies of the church; look which way we will, the world shows us that; but it is only with an eye of faith that we see it safe. The Lord shows us that. When God has work to do, he will raise up some to do it, and others to defend it, and to protect those employed in doing it. What cause there is to look up in love and praise to the holy and eternal Spirit, who has the same care over the present and eternal interests of believers, by the holy word bringing the church to know the wonderful things of salvation!

And the Lord showed me four carpenters. To saw and cut in pieces the four horns; or rather "four blacksmiths" (y); these horns were horns of iron; so the word is rendered a "smith" in 1 Samuel 13:19 and indeed it signifies both a worker in wood and a worker in iron; and who are sometimes distinguished by what they work in, whether wood or iron; see Isaiah 44:12 .

The Jews say (z) these four carpenters are Messiah ben David, Messiah ben Ephraim, Elijah, and the priest of righteousness; or, as elsewhere (a), Elijah, the King Messiah, Melchizedek, and he that was anointed for war; though Kimchi much better interprets them of the kings, the princes above, who preside over kingdoms, that is, the angels; and so Jerom and Theodoret; who have been sometimes employed in the destruction of the enemies of God's people, or in preventing them doing the mischief they otherwise would; and even the several monarchies themselves have been the means of destroying each other; so the Babylonians were destroyed by the Medes and Persians; the Persians by the Grecians; the Grecians by the Romans; and the Romans by the Goths, Hunns, Vandals, &c. in the western part of the empire; and by the Saracens and Turks in the eastern part of it: and they may be applied to the apostles of Christ, who were chiefly mechanics, mean and illiterate persons, yet workmen in the Gospel, that need not to be ashamed; and who were sent by Christ into the four parts of the world, to spread his Gospel, set up his interest, and pull down the kingdom of Satan: and since the Jews make the Messiah himself one of these carpenters, they have no reason to upbraid or be offended at Jesus our Messiah being a carpenter, and a carpenter's son, as in Matthew 13:55 and Kimchi owns that their ancient Rabbins explain this verse of the days of the Messiah. (y) "fabros ferrarios", Pembellus, Sancti

And the LORD showed me four {s} craftsmen. (s) These craftsmen or smiths are God's instruments, who with their mallets and hammers break these hard and strong horns which would overthrow the Church, and declare that no enemies' horn is so strong, but God has a hammer to break it in pieces.

The Lord; Jehovah, who before is the Angel, i.e. Christ, he is the eternal One, the great God. Showed me; both proposed the thing to be seen, and gave eyes to see and discern it. Four carpenters; known by their garb and tools to be carpenters, or smiths, as the Hebrew bears it. The Lord; Jehovah, who before is the Angel, i.e. Christ, he is the eternal One, the great God. Showed me; both proposed the thing to be seen, and gave eyes to see and discern it. Four carpenters; known by their garb and tools to be carpenters, or smiths, as the Hebrew bears it.

20 . the Lord ] Jehovah, from whom the whole series of visions proceeded, Zechariah 1:7 . four carpenters ] Rather, artificers, or workmen; ( smiths , R. V.). The word is used of working in wood, but also in metals and in stone. Isaiah 44:12-13 ; 2 Samuel 5:11 . There is no ground for the idea that these artificers represent angelic ministries. They rather indicate generally the various human agencies, corresponding in number and variety to the enemies of Israel, by the instrumentality of which those enemies should be overthrown. “Comparat gentes, quæ infestæ fuerant Judæis, cornibus: postea comparet fabris alios hostes, quorum manu et opera utitur Deus ad frangendos conatus eorum omnium, qui molesti erunt ecclesiæ.” Calvin.

20. four carpenters—or "artificers." The several instrumentalities employed, or to be employed, in crushing the "Gentile" powers which "scattered" Judah, are hereby referred to. For every one of the four horns there was a cleaving "artificer" to beat it down. For every enemy of God's people, God has provided a counteracting power adequate to destroy it.

Verse 20. - Four carpenters; craftsmen ; Revised Version, smiths , in which case "the horns" would be made of iron. The word is applied to workers in wood, stone, and metal; therefore an ambiguous rendering seems most suitable here. LXX., τέκτονας ; Vulgate, fabros. They represent the human agencies employed by God to overthrow the powers hostile to the Church. Their number is the same as that of the "horns," thus showing their adequacy for the work which they have to execute. It is quite unnecessary to attempt to identify the four "craftsmen." Some take them to be Zerubbabel, Joshua, Ezra, and Nehemiah; or Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Cambyses, and Alexander the Great; or the four evangelists; or generally, angels. We shall be safer if we look upon them merely as God's instruments and servants without further identification. Zechariah 1:20

These are the horns which have scattered - o "The four horns which scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem, are four nations, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Romans; as the Lord, on the prophet's enquiry, explains here, and Daniel unfolds most fully Daniel 2 ; who in the vision of the image with golden head, silver breast, belly and thighs of brass, feet of iron and clay, explained it of these four nations, and again in another vision of four beasts Daniel 7 , lion, bear, leopard and another unnamed dreadful beast, he pointed out the same nations under another figure. But that the Medes and Persians, after the victory of Cyrus, were one kingdom, no one will doubt, who reads secular and sacred literature. When this vision was beheld, the kingdom of the Babylonians had now passed away, that of the Medes and Persians was instant; that of Greeks and Macedonians and of the Romans was yet to come. What the Babylonians, what the Medes and Persians, what the Greeks that is, the Macedonians, did to Judah, Israel and Jerusalem, a learned man acknowledgeth, especially under Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, to which the history of the Maccabees belongs. After the Coming of our Lord and Saviour, when Jerusalem was encompassed, Josephus, a native writer, tells most fully, what the Israelites endured, and the Gospel fore-announced.

These horns dispersed Judah almost individually, so that, bowed down by the heavy weight of evils, no one of them raised his head." Though these were successive in time, they are exhibited to Zechariah as one. One whole are the efforts against God's Church; one whole are the instruments of God, whether angelic or human, in doing or suffering, to repel them. Zechariah then exhibits these hostile powers as past and gone, as each would be at the end, having put forth his passing might, and perishing. They scattered, each in its day, and disappeared; for the next displaced it. The long schism being ended, Judah and Israel are again one; and Jerusalem, the place of God's worship, belongs to Israel as well as to Judah. The explanation of the number four, as symbolizing contemporaneous attacks from the four quarters of the heavens, fails in matter of fact, that, in these later times, the Jews suffered always from one power at a time. There was no such fourfold attack. In Zechariah's time all around was Persian. Osorius: "Those horns, broken by the angels' ministry, portended that no guilt against the church of Christ should be unpunished. Never will there be wanting fierce enemies from east, west, north, or south, whom God will strengthen, in order by them to teach His own.