Zechariah 1:21

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!

Then said I, What come these to do?.... That is, these four carpenters; for, being artificers or workmen, as the Targum renders the word, the prophet concluded there was some work for them to do: And he spake, saying; meaning the angel that talked with him, and interpreted the visions to him: These are the horns which have scattered Judah; not that the carpenters were the horns, for these two are distinct from, and opposite to, one another.

The words should rather be rendered, "these horns which have scattered Judah", as before said, Zechariah 1:19, so that no man did lift up his head; or, as the Targum paraphrases it, "did not suffer" (a man) "to go with an erect stature"; but, through oppression, sorrow, and misery, was obliged to stoop, and bow, and hang down his head: but these are come to fray them; these carpenters are come to frighten the horns, to put terror into those kings and kingdoms; to cast out the horns of the Gentiles; to destroy their kingdoms, and take away their power from them: which lifted up their horns over the land of Judah to scatter it: who make use of their power, and do harm to the people of Israel, and triumph and insult over them; see Psalm 75:4 all which may be applied to the ministers of the Gospel, who are workmen; and whose business it is to fight or terrify the horns, wicked men, even men in power, the enemies of Christ's church and people; by their preaching, which has made a Felix to tremble; by their prayers, which they have been more afraid of than an army of men, as Mary queen of Scots said of the prayers of John Knox; and by their good lives and conversations, which made Herod stand in fear of John the Baptist; nay, even they have been a terror to the devil himself, and have been the means of casting him, and his principalities and powers, out of the Gentile world, and out of both the bodies and souls of men; and of casting down the strong holds of sin, and of breaking in

Then, so soon as I could propose the question, immediately upon sight of the carpenters, said I, Zechariah, What come these to do? he saw they were men, inquires not who they were, but what was their business and design; perhaps it is fittest for us to rest also in the knowledge of what they are to do, and inquire no further who they were. And he spake; the Lord Christ informed the prophet. These are the horns which have scattered Judah: Christ doth in order to satisfy the inquiry first point to the four horns, of which Zechariah 1:18,19 , as if he should have said, Look you, there are four horns which have done mischief to Judah. So that no man did lift up his head; kept them so under, none had either strength or courage to lift up the head, and thus these horns proudly and cruelly destroyed my people. But these, these carpenters, or smiths, are emblems of those instruments God will employ in breaking these destroyers. Here are four carpenters to break the four horns. To fray them; to strike a fear into them first; these kingdoms, signified by horns, shall lose their courage. To cast out the horns; then their authority and power shall be cast out easily. The Gentiles; heathen round about Judea. Which lifted up their horn over, have employed their arms and strength against, the land of Judah, the whole kingdom of Judah, God’s people, to scatter it, to drive them out of God’s inheritance, See Zechariah 1:19 .

21 . he spake ] i.e. the interpreting angel. have scattered ] Rather, scattered, R.V. to fray them ] Either the wild animals bearing the horns, or more probably the nations symbolised by them, are here spoken of as being “frayed,” or “panic-stricken.” In the following word, “to cast out,” the figure of the horns is perhaps resumed. The Third Vision. The man with the measuring line . Zechariah 2:1-13 . (Heb., 2:5–17.) The vision which describes the destruction of her enemies is followed by another, in which the consequent growth and prosperity of Jerusalem are depicted, and which in the largeness of its predictions extends into the more distant future. The prophet sees now upon the stage, or field of view, a young man with a measuring line in his hand, Zechariah 1:1 . He asks him where he is going, and is answered, that he is going to measure Jerusalem, Zechariah 1:2 . Upon this, the interpreting angel quits the prophet’s side and “goes forth” upon the stage in pursuit, as it would seem, of the man with the measuring line, to bid him desist from his purpose.

As he does so, he is met by another angel, to whom he delegates the errand on which he himself had started, and whom he commissions in the hearing of the prophet (thus fulfilling his office as “interpreter” of the visions, and removing the false impression which the man’s answer, Zechariah 1:2 , had created) to go and bid the “young man” cease from measuring, because Jerusalem, in its coming populousness and security, should neither admit of nor require walls, Zechariah 1:3-5 . The exiles still remaining in Babylon are now summoned to leave her, Zechariah 1:6-7 , for God’s judgments are about to fall upon her, Zechariah 1:8-9 ; whereas in Zion, to which they are invited to return, He will dwell, Zechariah 1:10-11 , making it again His portion and His choice, Zechariah 1:12 , extending its blessings to the Gentiles, Zechariah 1:11 , confirming by the happy event the truth of this prediction, Zechariah 1:9 ; Zechariah 1:11 , and manifesting Himself as the Judge of all the earth, Zechariah 1:13 .

21. These are the horns—rather, Those, namely, the horns being distinguished from the "carpenters," or destroying workmen ("skilful to destroy," Ex 21:31), intended in the "these" of the question. no man … lift up his head—so depressed were they with a heavy weight of evils (Job 10:15). to fray—to strike terror into them (Eze 30:9). lifted up … horn—in the haughtiness of conscious strength (Ps 75:4, 5) tyrannizing over Judah (Eze 34:21).

Verse 21. - And he spake. The interpreting angel spake. Which have scattered Judah. The LXX. adds, "and broke Israel in pieces." Did lift up his head. These powers laid Judah prostrate. To fray them. To terrify the powers symbolized by the four horns, and disturb their self-complacent Security (ver. 15). The LXX., mistaking the sense, gives, Τοῦ ὀξῦναι αὐτὰ εἰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν τὰ τέσσαρα κέρατα , "To sharpen them, even the four horns, in their hands." To cast out; to cast down , to overthrow these proud powers. Over ( against ) the land. The nations had treated Judah as a wild bull treats things that oppose him, tossing and scattering them to the wind. Zechariah 1:21

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.