Lange Commentary - Zechariah 6:1

Lange Commentary - Zechariah 6:1 - 6:8

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Lange Commentary - Zechariah 6:1 - 6:8

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

VISION VIII. THE FOUR CHARIOTS

Zec_6:1-8

A. Four Chariots drawn by Horses of different Colors (Zec_6:1-4). B. Explanation of their Meaning (Zec_6:5-8).

¹And I lifted up my eyes again, and saw, and behold, four chariots came from between the two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass. ²In the first chariot were red horses, ³and in the second chariot black horses, And in the third ⁴chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot speckled bay horses. And I answered and said to the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord? ⁵And the angel answered and said to me, These are the four winds of the heavens, coming forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth. That in which are ⁶the black horses goes forth into the land of the north, and the white go behind them, and the speckled go forth to the land of the south. ⁷And the bay went forth, and desired to go—pass to and fro through the earth; and he said, Go, pass to and fro through ⁸the earth; and they went through the earth. And he called me and spake to me, saying, Behold, these that go forth into the land of the north have caused my Spirit to rest upon the land of the north.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

This vision completes the cycle of the series by returning to the point of departure, using imagery much like that of the first vision, and indicating the complete fulfillment of what had there been pledged. Here it is not horses and riders who serve only as exploring scouts, but chariots of war who actually execute what they are commanded. They go forth not from a grove of myrtles in an open bottom, but from between lofty brazen mountains, an adequate symbol of the strength and permanence of the divinely guarded theocracy. They act in all directions, but especially in those regions whence in the past the most formidable enemies of the kingdom of God proceeded. They put in exercise the various destructive agencies indicated by the colors of the horses,—war, pestilence, mourning, famine,—until the Spirit of God is satisfied with the overthrow. But the destruction of the Lord’s enemies is the triumph of his friends, and in this view the eighth vision appropriately terminates the first series of revelations granted to Zechariah, with a cheering prospect, of which a fuller development is given in the closing chapters of the book.

a. The Symbol of the Four Chariots (Zec_6:1-4). Zec_6:1. Four chariots. … mountains. The prophet in the usual way indicates that another vision is disclosed to him. The four chariots which he sees can scarcely be other than war chariots, and are therefore a symbol of authority and judgment. The article prefixed to two mountains does not necessarily refer to them as already known (so Hengstenberg, who supposes a reference to Psa_125:2, which is certainly far-fetched), but simply defines them as forming the back ground of the scene presented to the prophet. Their ideal character is confirmed by the statement that they are “of brass,’ a manifest symbol of impregnable strength. There is no need, therefore, of referring to Zion and Moriah (Maurer, Umbreit, etc.), or to Zion and the Mount of Olives (Keil, Moore), although the latter may have suggested the symbol. A valley guarded by two brazen hills is not an unworthy image of the resistless might of Him who from such a place sends forth the executioners of his will. The number of the chariots, according to the analogies of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, indicates, like the four points of the compass, universality, a judgment that goes in every direction.

Zec_6:2-3. In the first chariot.…. bay horses. The number of the horses is not mentioned, although the rabbins say there were four to each chariot. The colors are specified, and must be significant. The usual interpretation makes red denote war and bloodshed, black, sorrow and death, white, victory. The fourth color, speckled, commonly derived from a root=hail, and hence rendered, “having hail-like spots,” is explained by Hengstenberg as denoting judgments falling like hail (Rev_8:7; Rev_16:21). but by Keil as indicating famine and pestilence, which is better than to regard it with Henderson, as indicating a mixed dispensation of joy and sorrow, or with T.V. Moore as combining all the others. A more difficult question arises concerning the next word, àֲîֻöִּéí . It is strange to find as epithet of quality in immediate connection with a series referring to color, yet this must be admitted if the word is take in its usual sense, given in the margin of E.V., Vulgate, and by most expositors. i.e., strong. To escape the difficulty, some represent the first consonant, à , as softened from ç , and get çֲîֻöִּéí =bright red (Kimchi, Calvin, Cocceius, Ewald, Köhler). others suppose an error of the transcriber (Hitzig, Maurer, Pressel). But it is better with Fürst (in Lex.) to derive the word in the text from an Arabic root=to shine, whence he obtains the signification, dazzling red. Dr. Van Dyck, in the modern Arabic Bible, renders it by ÔُÚْÑُ =shining red. In any event, the colors of the horses denote the character of the mission on which they are sent. But an elaborate effort has been made by Hoffman, followed by Kliefoth, Wordsworth, and others, to represent the colors as indicating the four great empires of Daniel as instruments of God’s judgments. But this is forbidden by the contemporaneousness of the going forth of the several chariots, by their destination as stated in the text, by the lack of historical verification, and other considerations. See Keil and Köhler in loc. for a full refutation of this apparently plausible view.

b. The Explanation (Zec_6:5-8). Zec_6:5. These are the four winds. Not four spirits, as the text of the E. V. has it, and Henderson and Neumann, for angels are rarely if ever so described in the Old Testament, nor in that case would the appended words, “of the heavens,” have any suitable meaning, nor does the Scripture know anything of four angels par eminence. These winds, the angel said, came forth from standing before the universal Lord, in whose service they were. Psa_148:8. “Stormy wind fulfilling his word.” The agency of the four winds in the work of destructive judgment is seen in Jer_49:36, Dan_7:2, Rev_7:1.

Zec_6:6-7. That in which are, etc. These verses describe the particular regions visited by these divinely appointed messengers. The black went toward the land of the north, which all agree denotes the territory washed by the Tigris and Euphrates. See on Zec_2:6-7. The white go after them, not to the West, as Ewald translates, for then we should expect the East also, which does not occur; and besides, the west to the Hebrews represented only the sea. Better is the ingenious view of Pressel, who, insisting on the force of the preposition, renders “to the land farther behind them.” This is grammatically tenable, and favored by the fact that it brings into view the farther East, the Medes and Persians, as one of the distinct objects of the divine visitation. The land of the south is of course Egypt and Arabia.

Zec_6:7. And the bay went, etc. So far, the prophet seems to have omitted the first chariot, the one with red horses, and in order to make up the number four, to have divided the third team into two, taking its second designation of color, bay, as the fourth. How are we to understand this? Keil, who, however, renders àֲîֻöִéí , strong, regards the problem as insoluble. Hengstenberg affirms that the class mentioned in the seventh verse is in reality the first, and they are called strong, because they really were the strongest of all; but this assumes what is certainly not stated, and cannot be proved. Hitzig and Maurer assume that öֲîִöֻּéí was omitted from Zec_6:6 by mistake, and afterwards erroneously substituted in Zec_6:7 for àֲãîִֻּéí . It is better to interpret the term as Fürst does in Zec_6:3, although even then it remains inexplicable why the prophet should have described the first class not by its own name but by one already appropriated as part of that of the third. It may, however, be safely inferred that while the various colors of the horses had some significance, yet that this was not a matter of very great importance, else the distinctions stated would have been more accurately observed., Certainly the general sense of the vision is plain, whatever view one adopts as to the variations in the description. One point all agree in, namely, that the seventh verse sets forth what was done by the horses of the first chariot. These appear to have been not content like the others with one particular territory, but asked permission to go through the whole earth. And he said, i. e., the Lord of the whole earth, who (ver 5) causes the chariots to go forth.

Zec_6:8. And he called me. The interpreting angel calls aloud to the prophet, arousing his attention to the purport of the vision. Have caused my Spirit to rest upon. This has often been explained as analogous to the phrase “to cause fury to rest,” in Eze_5:13; Eze_16:42, but wrath is not the same as spirit. Nor is such a violent assumption at all necessary. The Lord’s Spirit is sometimes a Spirit of judgment and of burning (Isa_4:4), and it is in this sense that the chariots let down his manifestations on the nations. This verse specifies only the land of the north as the scene of these operations. But it could easily be inferred from this what was the result in the other directions. The north country was mentioned because, as the inveterate foe of the covenant people, it was the principal mark of the judgments of God, and should in the first instance feel the consuming energies of the Holy Spirit.

THEOLOGICAL AND MORAL

1. The same law obtains in the punishment of the heathen as in that of God’s professed people. The harvest is not cut until it is ripe. The measure of iniquity must be full before judgment falls. This doctrine was shown in the last vision in its application to the Jews. In the present as compared with the first, of which it is the complement, the same principle is illustrated in relation to the world at large. At the beginning of this night of disclosures, the prophet learned that there was no indication in the state of the heathen world of any such convulsion as his predecessor Haggai had predicted; but, on the contrary, actual inspection by horsemen commissioned for the purpose brought back information that all the earth was quiet and at rest, thus furnishing a painful contrast to the weak and suffering condition of the people of God. Now he learns that this prosperity and peace of the heathen was not a permanent thing. The time had not come, and nothing could be done until it did come. But it was sure to arrive. The wrath of God is not a caprice or an impulse, but the steady, uniform, eternal opposition of his holy nature against all sin. It can no more cease than He can. It is the very element of his being. He is necessarily “of purer eyes than to behold evil.” Not more certainly is He infinite in power or wisdom than He is in justice and truth. And these perfections must find expression in his administration of the affairs of the world. Delay is no evidence to the contrary. The accumulation of sins thus produced, only makes more evident the desert of wrath, and causes a deeper destruction when the blow falls.

2. The resting of God’s Spirit upon a land is generally the cause of life, holiness, and peace, but sometimes it is the reverse. In visitations of judgment, the Spirit is a consuming fire. It overwhelms, scatters, destroys. It removes out of the way obstacles otherwise insuperable. It turns mountains into plains. It lays low hoary despotisms, and prepares means and access for the gentler forms of diffusing the truth. Pacem petit ense. The utter destruction of a godless power is sometimes a necessary preliminary to the spread of the Gospel.

Footnotes:

Zec_6:1.— åָàָùֻá =again. Cf. Zec_5:1.

Zec_6:3.—“Speckled bay,” that is, speckled upon a bay ground. The word here rendered speckled is not the same as the one so rendered in the E. V. of Zec_1:8. Noyes translates ,in this place, spotted-red.

Zec_6:5.— øåּçåֹú . The margin of E. V., winds, is better than the text, spirits. Cf. Jer_49:36. I can find no instance in which the plural is used to denote angelic beings. Certainly Psa_104:4 is not one.

Zec_6:6.—The first clause contains a singular anacoluthon, éֹּöְàִéí , referring by its number to the horses, instead of the implied îֶøְëָáָä , to which it grammatically belongs.

Zec_6:7.—“to Pass to and fro,” i. e., in every direction.

Zec_6:8.—Noyes renders äִðִéçåּ øåּçé , execute my wrath, which is an excellent interpretation, but hardly a translation. The E. V. quieted cannot be sustained by usage, and is at best ambiguous, although it is copied in Dr. Van Dyck’s New Arabic version. The invariable use of the hiphil verb requires the rendering given in the text.