ZECHARIAH LESSON THREE

I HAVE WOUNDED, AND IT IS I WHO HEAL, AND THERE IS NO ONE WHO CAN DELIVER FROM MY HAND. Deuteronomy 32:39


When we left Zechariah at the end of lesson two, he had just begun a long night of amazing visions that will prove to be difficult for him to understand, but are ultimately very encouraging to the people of Israel as they begin to return to the unfinished work of rebuilding their Temple. Zechariah’s first vision of a Man under a myrtle tree with various horses showed him that God was well aware of the sad situation of the Temple, of Jerusalem, and of the people of Israel. Despite the discouraging conditions, God is ready to begin moving through His people again, and more visions are coming to illustrate His concern and His plans. Jeremiah 30:12-17 gives an excellent overview of what God is doing with His people at this time.


THE VISION OF THE FOUR HORNS

Zechariah 1:18-19 says, “Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me, ‘What are these?’ So he answered me, ‘These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.’”

When the Bible speaks of horns, it is generally referring symbolically to strength, power, or authority. It can refer to ordinary individuals, leaders of nations, or nations themselves. Let’s look at the following examples:

1 Samuel 2:1 – “My heart rejoices in the LORD; my horn is exalted in the LORD. I smile at my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation.” This is the grateful prayer of Hannah, responding to God’s graciousness in allowing her to conceive a son.

Job 16:15 – “I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and laid my head (literally “horn”) in the dust.” Here, Job is mourning the loss of family, position, and all wealth.

Psalm 89:24 – speaking of King David, God declares, “My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, and in My name his horn shall be exalted.”

Ezekiel 29:21—“In that day I will cause the horn of the house of Israel to spring forth. . .”

Daniel 7:19 – 27 – This is a lengthier passage but it refers to the final kingdom before the Kingdom of Christ comes. It is described as a beast with ten horns and having a pompous little horn that wages war against the saints and speaks against the Most High God.


Returning to Zechariah’s vision of four horns, we now see that these horns are actually rulers of nations that have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem. Many commentators and teachers identify these four nations with the four kingdoms of Daniel’s revelation: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. I differ slightly in my understanding of them, because Zechariah’s vision specifically includes the scattering of Israel as well as Judah and Jerusalem. History tells us that the following four kingdoms persecuted or scattered Israel, Judah and Jerusalem:

1. Assyria took the northern ten tribes of Israel into captivity in 722 BC under the leadership of King Shalmaneser V.

2. Babylon besieged Jerusalem three times, ultimately destroying the city and the Temple and carrying most of the people captive in 586 BC under the direction of King Nebuchadnezzar.

3. From 204 – 165 BC, the Greek Seleucid Kings ruled over Israel and in 175 BC, Antiochus IV Epiphanes ruled and instigated terrible persecution of the Jewish people. This culminated in the desecration of the Temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar and erecting a statue of Zeus in the Holy Place.

4. The Roman Empire was the fourth kingdom to rule over Israel and in 70 AD, the Roman General Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and deported the Jewish people all over the Roman Empire. They remained scattered until the twentieth century


We see that at the time of Zechariah’s vision, two of these horns had come, but two were future events. I have not included the Medo-Persian Empire as one of the horns that scattered the people of Israel. When Medo-Persia conquered Babylon, the Israelites were already in captivity. It was the Medo-Persian King Cyrus who released the captives and sent them back to Israel with instructions to rebuild the Temple.



The Bible is a most wondrously interconnected Book in which a single message is told over and over through every type of literature by many different people over centuries. As I pondered God’s use of these four horns, I remembered that the Bible speaks of four horns in another place and I want to take a look at these horns because they have application to the situation in Israel in Zechariah’s day as well as to our own situation today. The horns of which I speak are the four horns of the altar in the Temple.

Exodus 38:1-2 tells us that, “He made the altar of burnt offering of acacia wood; five cubits was its length and five cubits its width—it was square—and its height was three cubits. He made its horns on its four corners; the horns were of one piece with it. And he overlaid it with bronze.”

Leviticus 4 gives a more complete description of the Altar of Burnt Offering and how it was used. There were three types of offerings made at the altar. In the Bible, bronze is used as a symbol of judgment, so we see that the Altar was meant to be a place where judgment and atonement of sin occurred. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin, and so a sacrificial animal was offered to serve as a type and shadow of the true Offering yet to come. Some of the blood from the sacrificial animal was applied to each of the four horns. In this type of offering, we see the need for death to self in regard to sin. Our existence is all about God—not about ourselves.

The second type of offering at the Altar was the Whole Burnt Offering. The purpose of this offering was that of total consecration to God. The symbolic offering of the sacrificial animal was to express the worshiper’s total giving of himself unreservedly to God. This is the offering Paul had in mind when he penned Romans 12:1-2.

The third type of offering at the Altar was the Fellowship or Meal Offering. This was meant as a time of fellowship between the worshiper and God together with family and friends who partook of the meat of the sacrifice together. In this we see death to self both in regard to God and to others. There is no “me first” in this offering. The New Testament teaches us that we are one Body with one Spirit, but we cannot achieve this kind of unity except by dying to self in the spirit of fellowship with God and other believers.

How do the horns fit into all of this? Psalm 118:27 says, “God is the LORD, and He has given us light; bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.” It seems that the sacrifice had a tendency to slip off the altar, so the horns were used to tie it in place. We see then, that it will always be our natural tendency to abandon the altar rather than abandon ourselves to God. The cords that held Jesus to His place of sacrifice were nails, but God holds us with something easier. Hosea 11: 4 says, “I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love.” The temptation to flee the altar is based on fear but we know that “perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18

OBSERVATION: Holiness is not attained apart from suffering.

There was another piece of furniture in the Temple that had four horns, and this was the Altar of Incense. The Altar of Burnt Offering was located in the courtyard area as one entered the Temple, but the Altar of Incense was inside the Holy Place directly in front of the curtain dividing the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. This altar also had four horns, but rather than bronze, it was made of gold—the symbol of deity. The blood from sacrificial animals was also smeared on the four horns of this altar and Exodus 30 describes how incense was offered perpetually, night and day, at this altar. Revelation 5:8 tells us that incense is symbolic of prayer. Thus we see the precious picture here of Jesus, God and Man, as the One who ever lives to make intercession for us. And not only this, but He has given us a ministry of intercession. For whom are we to pray most earnestly? Jesus said we are to love and pray for our enemies. The very horns which have gored us and drawn our blood are there as reminders of our duty to intercede. God has allowed those horns to cause us injury because they are the ones for whom we are to pray. Only a righteous man will pray earnestly for an enemy, but his prayer will be heard.

OBSERVATION: The four horns in Zechariah’s vision were used by God to bind Israel to the altar so that they could become the whole burnt offering of consecration to God, and so that they as a nation could bring forth the Atoning Sin Offering to God, and so that through them there could be a peace/fellowship offering that could bless the whole earth in keeping with God’s promise to Abraham.

OBSERVATION: All this suffering and death is necessary because sin is so horrible. Do we ever really understand this?


FOUR CRAFTSMEN Zechariah 1:20-21

The next vision Zechariah sees is that of four craftsmen. He is told that the four craftsmen are coming to terrify the nations that have scattered God’s people. Verse 21 identifies the horns definitely as nations. In Hebrew, the word for craftsman is “charash” and it means “an artisan, engraver, carpenter, or blacksmith.” This gives us the picture of someone who builds or makes things, and would also include the architect and designer of such things.

Many commentators identify the four craftsmen as the nations which, in succession, overthrew the four nations that had scattered Israel. They would include the four nations in Daniel’s vision that succeeded each other in world domination. I agree with most of those connections in principle, but instead of connecting the craftsmen with nations, I connect them with individual rulers of these nations.

I connect the first craftsman with Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king. The Babylonian Empire destroyed Assyria, which had carried Israel captive. Nebuchadnezzar was a great builder, not in a spiritual sense, but very much in the physical realm. Reading the first few chapters of Daniel will confirm his genius and strength as a builder, as well as his pride. It is also apparent in the early chapters of Daniel that God was at work in the life of Nebuchadnezzar.

The second craftsman I believe to have been Cyrus the Great. It was his Medo-Persian kingdom that overthrew Babylon, the second horn that scattered Judah. Cyrus was the one who freed the Israelite captives and sent them back to their own land with instructions to rebuild the Temple of God. Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple, and it was a later Persian ruler who sent Nehemiah back to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

As mentioned before, the third horn of oppression was the Greek Empire in the person of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Judas Maccabeus was the craftsman who worked to overthrow this oppression. He led his family and others in a successful fight to overthrow the Greeks and for a comparatively short time Israelites were allowed to rule themselves. The Temple was cleansed and worship began again (incidentally, it was from this time that Hanukkah began with the purification of the Temple). Interestingly, the name Maccabeus means “hammerer”—thus we see that he was a craftsman.

The final kingdom of oppression against the Jews was the Roman Empire. After their oppression, the Jews were scattered all over the world during the age of the church. Daniel’s visions indicate that the Roman Empire will reunite at the end of the age and will again oppress the Jewish people. This is happening with the rise of the European Union. The nations comprising this entity are increasingly anti-Semitic, and I do not believe it will be many more years before the Man of Lawlessness will be revealed. Babylon is being rebuilt, according to End Time prophecy; the Jews are being regathered in Israel, according to End Time prophecy; and the Roman Empire is rising, again, according to End Time prophecy. The final craftsman who will overthrow the final horn—the reunited Roman Empire—will be Jesus Christ, Who, when He was on earth, was…a carpenter, what else? Isn’t God amazing? All man’s attempts to control our world seem destined to end in chaos, but God has declared the end from the beginning and sees to everything, even the remotest details!


Maranatha –He is Coming!

Lesson Four is scheduled to post in one week. Thanks for reading along!