Zechariah 1:21

Then said I, What come these to do? 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 them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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. But when He shall see His work finished, that is, when He shall have cleansed the stains of His own and brought back His Church to her former purity, He will punish those who so fiercely afflicted her."

Spiritually, (Jerome), "those who destroy vices, build up virtues, and all the saints who, possessing these remedies, ever build up the Church, may be called 'builders.' Whence the Apostle says, "I, as a wise builder, laid the foundation" 1 Corinthians 3:10; and the Lord, when wroth, said that He would "take away from Jerusalem artificer and wise man" Isaiah 3:3. And the Lord Himself, Son of the Almighty God and of the Creator of all, is called "the son of the carpenter" Matthew 13:55.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

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).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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 pieces the kingdom and interest of Satan, and of building up the churches of Christ; the work of these spiritual carpenters is to cut down men, comparable to strong, sturdy, and lofty trees, for the pride and haughtiness of their hearts, the stiffness and stubbornness of their wills, and for their show of goodliness and beauty: this is done by the ministry of the word, the cutting doctrines of it, accompanied with the Spirit and power of God; as it is said, "I have hewed them by the prophets, I have slain them by, the words of my mouth", Hosea 6:5 whereas, when before, they grew up and stood on their own bottom, their morality, civility, and works of righteousness; now they are cut down, and die to all these things, as to any hope of salvation by them; and then, as the carpenter smooths and planes a timber he has hewed, and fitly frames it together, and joints it in, and lays it on a good foundation; so do Gospel ministers, as instruments in the hands of God, after hewing and cutting work through the ministration of the law, the killing letter, and which works wrath; speak comfortably to such souls, by directing them to the blood and righteousness of Christ for pardon of sin and justification of life; and ministerially lay them in the spiritual building, the church; or advise and exhort them to submit to the ordinances of Christ, and join themselves to Gospel churches; and, above all things, instruct them to build on Christ, the sure foundation in Zion; and ministerially lay him as the alone foundation to build upon for life and salvation, and not upon any works of righteousness done by them; and put them upon walking according to the line and rule of the divine word, in matters of worship, discipline, and conversation: and as there were in the first times of the Gospel many such builders, and have been more or less since; so there will be many more in the latter day, who will be very successfully employed in building, repairing, and beautifying the church of God; see Isaiah 58:12. Some by the four carpenters understand Zerubbabel, Joshua, Ezra, and Nehemiah; and so, by the four horns, those that opposed them in building the city and temple, as Rehum, Shimshai, Sanballat, and Tobiah; but these seem too inferior governors to be signified by horns; nor did they do what is here ascribed to them; rather their nations, Samaritans, Arabians, Ammonites, and Philistines, are meant.

Geneva Study Bible

Then said I, What come these to do? 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 them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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.

Pulpit Commentary

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

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The second vision is closely connected with the first, and shows how God will discharge the fierceness of His wrath upon the heathen nations in their self-security (Zechariah 1:15). Zechariah 1:18. "And I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold four horns. Zechariah 1:19. And I said to the angel that talked with me, What are these? And he said to me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Zechariah 1:20. And Jehovah showed me four smiths. Zechariah 1:21. And I said, What come these to do? And He spake to me thus: These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no one lifted up his head; these are now come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations which have lifted up the horn against the land of Judah to scatter it." The mediating angel interprets the four horns to the prophet first of all as the horns which have scattered Judah; then literally, as the nations which have lifted up the horn against the land of Judah to scatter it. The horn is a symbol of power (cf. Amos 6:13). The horns therefore symbolize the powers of the world, which rise up in hostility against Judah and hurt it. The number four does not point to the four quarters of the heaven, denoting the heathen foes of Israel in all the countries of the world (Hitzig, Maurer, Koehler, and others). This view cannot be established from Zechariah 1:10, for there is no reference to any dispersion of Israel to the four winds there. Nor does it follow from the perfect זרוּ that only such nations are to be thought of, as had already risen up in hostility to Israel and Judah in the time of Zechariah; for it cannot be shown that there were four such nations. At that time all the nations round about Judah were subject to the Persian empire, as they had been in Nebuchadnezzar's time to the Babylonian. Both the number four and the perfect zērū belong to the sphere of inward intuition, in which the objects are combined together so as to form one complete picture, without any regard to the time of their appearing in historical reality. Just as the prophet in Zechariah 6:1-15 sees the four chariots all together, although they follow one another in action, so may the four horns which are seen simultaneously represent nations which succeeded one another. This is shown still more clearly by the visions in Daniel 2 and 7, in which not only the colossal image seen in a dream by Nebuchadnezzar (ch. 2), but also the four beasts which are seen by Daniel to ascend simultaneously from the sea, symbolize the four empires, which rose up in succession one after the other. It is to these four empires that the four horns of our vision refer, as Jerome, Abarb., Hengstenberg, and others have correctly pointed out, since even the picturing of nations or empires as horns points back to Daniel 7:7-8, and Daniel 8:3-9. Zechariah sees these in all the full development of their power, in which they have oppressed and crushed the people of God (hence the perfect zērū), and for which they are to be destroyed themselves. Zârâh, to scatter, denotes the dissolution of the united condition and independence of the nation of God. In this sense all four empires destroyed Judah, although the Persian and Grecian empires did not carry Judah out of their own land.

The striking combination, "Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem," in which not only the introduction of the name of Israel between Judah and Jerusalem is to be noticed, but also the fact that the nota acc. את is only placed before Yehūdâh and Yisrâ'ēl, and not before Yerūshâlaim also, is not explained on the ground that Israel denotes the kingdom of the ten tribes, Judah the southern kingdom, and Jerusalem the capital of the kingdom (Maurer, Umbreit, and others), for in that case Israel would necessarily have been repeated before Judah, and 'ēth before Yerūshâlaim. Still less can the name Israel denote the rural population of Judah (Hitzig), or the name Judah the princely house (Neumann). By the fact that 'ēth is omitted before Yerūshâlaim, and only Vav stands before it, Jerusalem is connected with Israel and separated from Judah; and by the repetition of 'ēth before Yisrâ'ēl, as well as before Yehūdâh, Israel with Jerusalem is co-ordinated with Judah. Kliefoth infers from this that "the heathen had dispersed on the one hand Judah, and on the other hand Israel together with Jerusalem," and understands this as signifying that in the nation of God itself a separation is presupposed, like the previous separation into Judah and the kingdom of the ten tribes. "When the Messiah comes," he says, "a small portion of the Israel according to the flesh will receive Him, and so constitute the genuine people of God and the true Israel, the Judah; whereas the greater part of the Israel according to the flesh will reject the Messiah at first, and harden itself in unbelief, until at the end of time it will also be converted, and join the true Judah of Christendom." But this explanation, according to which Judah would denote the believing portion of the nation of twelve tribes, and Israel and Jerusalem the unbelieving, is wrecked on the grammatical difficulty that the cop. ו is wanting before את־ישׂראל. If the names Judah and Israel were intended to be co-ordinated with one another as two different portions of the covenant nation as a whole, the two parts would necessarily have been connected together by the cop. Vav. Moreover, in the two co-ordinated names Judah and Israel, the one could not possibly stand in the spiritual sense, and the other in the carnal. The co-ordination of 'eth-Yehūdâh with 'eth-Yisrâ'ēl without the cop. Vav shows that Israel is really equivalent to the Jerusalem which is subordinated to it, and does not contain a second member (or part), which is added to it, - in other words, that Israel with Jerusalem is merely an interpretation or more precise definition of Yehūdâh; and Hengstenberg has hit upon the correct idea, when he takes Israel as the honourable name of Judah, or, more correctly, as an honourable name for the covenant nation as then existing in Judah. This explanation is not rendered questionable by the objection offered by Koehler: viz., that after the separation of the two kingdoms, the expression Israel always denotes either the kingdom of the ten tribes, or the posterity of Jacob without regard to their being broken up, because this is not the fact. The use of the name Israel for Judah after the separation of the kingdoms is established beyond all question by 2 Chronicles 12:1; 2 Chronicles 15:17; 2 Chronicles 19:8; 2 Chronicles 21:2, 2 Chronicles 21:4; 2 Chronicles 23:2; 2 Chronicles 24:5, etc.

(Note: Gesenius has correctly observed in his Thesaurus, p. 1339, that "from this time (i.e., from the severance of the kingdom) the name of Israel began to be usurped by the whole nation that was then in existence, and was used chiefly by the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Deutero(?)-Isaiah, and after the captivity by Ezra and Nehemiah; from which it came to pass, that in the Paralipomena, even when allusion is made to an earlier period, Israel stands for Judah," although the proofs adduced in support of this from the passages quoted from the prophets need considerable sifting.)

Jehovah then showed the prophet four chârâshı̄m, or workmen, i.e., smiths; and on his putting the question, "What have these come to do?" gave him this reply: "To terrify those," etc. For the order of the words מה אלּה בּאים לעשׂות, instead of מה לעשׂות אלּה בּאים, see Genesis 42:12; Nehemiah 2:12; Judges 9:48. אלּה הקּרנות is not a nominative written absolutely at the head of the sentence in the sense of "these horns," for that would require הקרנות האלּה; but the whole sentence is repeated from Zechariah 1:2, and to that the statement of the purpose for which the smiths have come is attached in the form of an apodosis: "these are the horns, etc., and they (the smiths) have come." At the same time, the earlier statement as to the horns is defined more minutely by the additional clause כּפי אישׁ וגו, according to the measure, i.e., in such a manner that no man lifted up his head any more, or so that Judah was utterly prostrate. Hachărı̄d, to throw into a state of alarm, as in 2 Samuel 17:2. Them ('ōthâm): this refers ad sensum to the nations symbolized by the horns. Yaddōth, inf. piel of yâdâh, to cast down, may be explained as referring to the power of the nations symbolized by the horns. 'Erets Yehūdâh (the land of Judah) stands for the inhabitants of the land. The four smiths, therefore, symbolize the instruments "of the divine omnipotence by which the imperial power in its several historical forms is overthrown" (Kliefoth), or, as Theod. Mops. expresses it, "the powers that serve God and inflict vengeance upon them from many directions." The vision does not show what powers God will use for this purpose. It is simply designed to show to the people of God, that every hostile power of the world which has risen up against it, or shall rise up, is to be judged and destroyed by the Lord.