Conquest of Israel's Enemy
Zechariah 1:18-21
Turn in your at Psalm 2. I want to just read you the first three verses of the second Psalm as a setting for our look at text in Zechariah. Psalm 2, "Why do the nations rage or in an uproar and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rules take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed saying, "Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us."
Psalmist introduces us to something of the turmoil and the unrest and the anti God feeling in the world in those verses and we know that the world is in a constant state of rebellion against God. And no clearer demonstration of this rebellion can be seen in the way that the world has constantly treated the nation Israel, which is God's people.
Now this becomes the subject of the book of Zechariah. Now if you will turn with me to Zechariah. The nations who have raged against God have showed that anti God rage in their attitude toward Israel. Israel has suffered at the hands of the nations by the time Zechariah writes and will suffer continuously and far beyond the writing of this man's prophecy. And this is the subject with which Zechariah deals. He comforts Israel in the midst of the time of trial and tribulation and suffering at the hands of nations who rage against God and against God's people.
Now we saw that Zechariah comforts his people and he does it in a series of visions that he receives from God. God grants to him visions of comfort to give to the people of Israel to sooth them with the confidence that God is going to move in their behalf ultimately.
Now last time we discussed the first vision in Chapter 1, verses 7 to 17, the vision of the rider on the red horse among the myrtle trees. And we noted that the picture was the myrtle bushes literally in the hollow place or the place of humiliation and degradation, outside the city of Jerusalem. And the picture is of Israel, not yet able to ascend to prominence in its own land. The city is broken down. They've come back from captivity in Babylon, but the wall has not been rebuilt, the temple has not been rebuilt, they've not really re-instituted their national identity and they're in a situation of humiliation and degradation in a valley, in a hollow, in a low place outside and there as it were pleading with God to take them into the city, to take it back and to be again God's people in the place of prominence. And all of a sudden amidst the myrtle bushes there appears a rider on a red horse and we see him defined as the angel of the Lord, which is the Old Testament name for whom, Christ, and Christ appears in the midst of the myrtle buses and the picture is one of coming judgment. There are red horses speaking of blood and there are white horses speaking of victory and so it is that the angel of the Lord is about to lead the children of Israel from the place of humiliation to the place of victory.
And we saw that it wasn't long after that vision, only four years, until things began to be rebuilt and the temple was built and eighty years later the walls were built and the prophecy came to pass. The rider on the red horse, the angel of the Lord, the defender protector of Israel moved in and in spite of the opposition and in spite of the nations surrounding reestablished Israel in the land. So we saw that God was comforting His people with the knowledge that they would be in the place of victory again, that they would be back as a nation with their temple and with their city and with their wall.
But also we noted that there was a far future fulfillment of that very prophecy, that while it had an immediate identity it also had a future significance. That there was coming a day when the great angel of the Lord, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, would come and once and for all finally establish Israel in the land in the great millennium kingdom, and at that point they would come back to prominence. At that point they would reign and Christ would sit on the throne of David on Mount Zion. The times of the Gentiles would be over and God would rule the world again through His nation Israel. And so we saw an immediate historic fulfillment and a future fulfillment prophetically in that first vision.
What basically God was saying there is summed up in verse 15. "I am very much displeased with the nations that are at ease, for I was a little displeased and they helped forward the affliction." God says I was much displeased and I'm going to do something about it. God is going to move against the oppressors of His people, the persecutors of His people, the enemies of His people. And you might remember that hatred of God's people is basically identified in the Bible as hatred of God Himself. That's why anti-Semitism is so despicable to God. For example in Psalm 44:22 the Bible says, "Yes," now note this, "For Thy sake," for God's sake, "Are we killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter." In other words when the world is killing us it is really God that they have in mind. They are really antagonistic to Him.
Didn't we see that same thing in the New Testament? When the world persecutes the church, who is it they're really persecuting? The Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul said, "I fill up in my flesh the afflictions meant for Christ," Colossians 1:24. But he said, "That's all right for I am willing to suffer the blows meant for Him who suffered the blows meant for me."
And so there is an inseparable identification between God's people and God and to persecute God's people is to persecute God. To persecute the church is to persecute Christ and when Paul, for example, was persecuting the church Jesus really said to him on the Damascus Road, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou, what, Me?" God is inseparably beautifully and forever identified with His people.
And so people have been reacting, the nations have been raging in turmoil and unrest against God and they have manifested it in a hatred against His people. It's true of the church in this age and it's been true of Israel throughout history and believe me God righteously reacts against the enemy of His people, and that is the question in Zechariah's time. The people are saying, "Look, you brought us back from captivity, but here we are in the hollow place outside and we haven't rebuilt the city and it's so discouraging and how long will the enemy nations reign around us? How long will everything go well?" You'll notice in verse 15 that the nations were at ease. Everything was great with them, but it wasn't so great with Israel.
And you remember the God squadron that appeared in verse 11, said, "We've been through the earth and the earth sits still and is at rest." There's peace everywhere, but what about us, they're saying, God, what about us? And it's at that point that He shows him the picture of the red horse rider and he's about to move and shed blood and win victory and reestablish Israel, and as we said it had an immediate fulfillment within four years, but it has a greater fulfillment when He comes to set the kingdom for His people again and Israel will reign as God's special people in the millennium.
Now as we come to the second vision we find basically the same thing dealt with only in a tremendous scope. Now remember that God has just said to them, "I'm going to come in judgment and I'm going to deal with those nations that have treated you wrongly." O, he said in verse 15, "I was a little displeased with you and I chose the nations to be a chastening nation against you, but I never wanted them to push it this far, and because they pushed it too far I'm going to come in judge them." And if you look at the long rang of that that still really hasn't happened. And you might say, if you were a Jew today and you were looking up at God, you might say, "God, it's been a long time, it's been a long time of oppression. We're small and we're weak, and we wonder if we ever hope for deliverance from the powers of our aggressors."
But you know Jesus said in Luke 21:24, that, "Jerusalem would be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles was fulfilled." And what He meant by Jerusalem was broader than just the city. The city is representative of all the land that God gave them in the covenant promise, all the way from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean and all the north and south area as well. And all that will never belong to them until the times of the Gentiles is ended, Luke 21:24. Jerusalem will be trodden down in some way, shape, or form until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And so that's why I say the ultimate comfort that Zechariah is giving them is yet distant in the future.
And so they're saying, "How long will the aggressor mercilessly ground the Jew in the dust?" How long will this go on? And the answer comes in the second vision because here you find out just how long, and it takes you all the way to the second coming of Jesus Christ, and then it's going to end.
Now we're looking at the times of the Gentiles as we saw last time. We're seeing how far it's going to stretch. Now I want to clarify that term for just a minute so you won't be confused. The times of the Gentiles is the period of time, said Jesus, in which Jerusalem was trodden down by Gentile power, in which Jerusalem was ruled or lorded over by Gentile nations. It is a period of time that began about 600 B.C. It began when Nebuchadnezzar came in and Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and the Jews were carried captive into Babylon. I think the first group were taken captive in about 604, and the major element in 586 B.C. for about a twenty year period this captivity was going on. They were being taken in and, of course, they were there for 70 years. And so from that time Jerusalem, for the first time since the land of Canaan was given to them, for the first time that land was dominated by Gentile power, the Babylonians. And that began the times of the Gentiles. And Jerusalem will continue to be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles is ended, and it hasn't ended yet. It's still trodden down.
But you say they took back the old city. Yes they have part of it, but there are all kinds of political elements all over the land that God originally gave to them. They haven't begun to touch as far east as the Euphrates, and the south, and even the north. They are just isolated in one little area and Jerusalem is anything but totally free. And all the land that God promised is not yet theirs. And so we're still living in the times of the Gentiles when Israel knows aggressors and overlords from Gentile lines.
Now the whole picture of the times, and I want you to mark this, the whole picture of the times of the Gentiles comes to a great climax under the rule of what is commonly called the anti-Christ. That's not a biblical term for him because the Bible says there are many anti-Christ's. He's the beast, he's the little horn, he's the willful king, he's the prince of the people to come; he's got all kinds of terms. If you like to use the anti-Christ it's all right if you understand what you mean. But rule of the anti-Christ will consummate the times of the Gentiles and at the peak of his rule Jesus returns and the times of the Gentiles comes to a halt and Christ sets up His kingdom, re-establishes Israel in the land and He reigns on the throne of His father, David, II Samuel Chapter 7, and the promise of the Davidic throne is fulfilled. But until that time we are seeing the times of the Gentiles.
Now I don't believe that anybody at all with any system of philosophy or any system of theology, which attempts to arrive at the meaning of history, can ignore that tremendous analysis of history. The theatre of history is Israel and you can't ignore this concept. The nations may foolishly rage against God, the nations may persecute His people, but nevertheless the Bible says that God will triumphly place His Son on the throne in Zion, that's the rest of Psalm 2. "The Lord shall laugh and hold them in derision," and he says, "I will set My King on My holy hill," in spite of the nations. History is the story of God taking back His land for His people.
Now as we come to Zechariah, the times of the Gentiles are already in operation, but God gives the people a vision through Zechariah that shows them that it won't always be this way, and their enemies will be dealt with before them. And the message of the vision is very straightforward. Let me read it to you beginning in verse 18. "Then lifted up mine eyes and saw and behold four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me," that interpreter angel, "What are these? And He answered me these are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. And the Lord showed me four hammerers," is the best term four hammerers, "and I said, 'What come these to do?' And he spoke saying, 'These are the horns which have scattered Judah so that no man did lift up his head, but these are come to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.'"
Now you say, that isn't really too thrilling at first reading. Not exactly sure what's going on, horns and hammers, so what? Well let's find out so what. This is a very comforting vision. Verse 18; let's start. Two elements in the vision, four horns, four hammers. Isn't that a great outline? That won't win any homiletical prizes, but that's what he's talking about. Four horns, four hammers. All right here we go with four horns, verse 18. "I lifted up my eyes and saw behold four horns." It's kind of interesting to note this, and just so we don't bypass anything here that might be edifying to us, "Then lifted up mine eyes." It's interesting to me that all these visions happen on one night. That night is noted for us in Chapter 1 verse 7, the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, the month Sebat, and all these visions came in succession on the same night when the prophet was awake, because a vision is not a dream, it's something that comes when he's awake. "And he lifted up his eyes," and this goes on like this. Look at verse 1 of Chapter 2, "I lifted up my eyes again." Chapter 5, verse 1, "I turned and lifted up my eyes." Verse 5, "Lift thine eyes," said interpreter angel. Chapter 6, verse 1, "I turned and lifted up my eyes."
Now, you say, "Why does he have to do that all the time?" Because it seems to him the most normal response after he sees one of these visions to bow his how in meditation and prayer and interpreter angel has to come along and poke him to look up again for the next one. He is so overwhelmed by each of them that he falls and bows in meditation. He sinks, as it were, in an attitude and response of thankfulness. And the interpreter angel nudges him a little with a supernatural poke and he pops up again and he sees the next of his supernatural pictures on God's divine screen and this is a sense that is like a sixth sense. He can perceive the imperceptible. And look what he sees. "I saw and behold," now behold means, you won't believe it! "And I saw," and wow, "four horns."
Now these are animal horns, most likely the horn of rams, though the animal is not named. The word karin the Hebrew often means a horn for blowing. Remember back in the book of Joshua they walked around the city and blew horns. Those were animal horns. It can mean a horn that is used as a receptacle in I Samuel 16, it talks about a horn that is used to carry fluid or something for drinking, but the most frequent use is as a symbol of power. When the horn is used it is speaking of power because that's the way an animal used it. For example in Jeremiah 48:25, it says, "The horn of Moab is cut off," and what it meant is that Moab is impotent. God has taken the power of Moab away. In Lamentations 2:3 it says, "He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel." In other words God has cut off the power of Israel. In Psalm 75:10, it says, "All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off." To cut off the horn is the symbol of conquering the power and that's such an obvious thing today because whenever a hunter goes out to hunt a beast, as soon as he kills the beast he takes, what, the horn and he puts it up in his den, why, because it's a symbol of his power conquering the power of that beast. It's an old truth, an old principle.
To lift up the horn, a phrase that is used in Psalm 89 and Psalm 92, and other places, incidentally, to lift up the horn means to increase power. And here in Psalm 18:2, David calls the Lord the horn, and used the word karin, the horn of my deliverance. God is the ultimate horn. He is the ultimate power. So it is a symbol of power. And so when he lifts up his eyes he sees four powers, four symbols of power.
Now the horn can express the power of an individual or the power of a nation, as in the case of the horn of Moab, or the horn of Israel. It often symbolizes a Gentile king as representative of a kingdom. It often speaks of a Gentile king as a representative of a kingdom. Look with me for a minute in Daniel Chapter 7, 'cause we're going to look at it several times in the book of Daniel later on, but in Daniel 7 just listen to this verse 21, "I beheld and the same horn made war with the saints."
Now this horn is the one that we call the anti-Christ. So here it is used of an individual, but representative of a whole system. And verse 24, "Ten horns out of the kingdom, or ten kings that shall arise." So you can see here that the horns are used in Daniel's prophecy to refer to Gentile kings. Gentile kings who are representative of Gentile nations. For example in Daniel 8:3, there is a ram pictured with two horns and the two horns represent the kingdoms of Media and Persia that came together to be the Medo-Persian empire. So it is best to see then that these horns are Gentile kings associated with their kingdoms.
So Zechariah looks up and he sees in this vision four Gentile kings associated with Gentile kingdoms. And then he says I'd like to have an explanation please. Verse 19, "I said to the angel that talked with me," and the angel that talked with me is used eleven times in this section, as I said last week, and it means the angel who interprets this thing to him. What are these? What's the deal here, angel? And he said, "These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem." That's simple to identify. These are the political powers, the national Gentile entities that have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem, and he uses all of the possible terms for the country in order to sum it up, all the designations for God's people are used. They have scattered God's people, Judah, Israel and Jerusalem. It's like giving their first, last, and middle name.
Now the word scattered is interesting. It appears in the English text in the past tense, but the verb zeru in Hebrew is a perfect tense and according to some of the Hebrew scholars I was reading this week, the Hebrew indication of the perfect tense is that it can refer to completed, it does refer to completed action, but listen, it can be completed action in the past, it can be completed action in the present, or it can be completed action in the future. It has no time factor, and so rather than put it in the past we would read it this way: these are the horns, which have scattered, are scattering, and will scatter Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Taking it in its broadest possible sense, these are the horns, which scatter at any point in time when it's done, at any point in time during the entire era known as the times of the Gentiles.
Now you say, "Well John who are these four horns?" Well it's interesting to notice that we can't really find four nations at that point in history and clearly identify them as the four horns. So that leaves us with two basic explanations: one is that the four horns is simply a symbol of Israel's foes in general, and that the four, the number four is simply symbolic of the whole world, the four winds, the four corners of the earth, and so forth, so that four symbolizes the whole idea of world-wide universal kind of persecution. And so the four is not significant. Technically it's only significant as a symbol of worldwide persecution. Well that's possible. But there are some weaknesses with that. And there's a second view, and that is that the four horns which scatter, have scattered, and will scatter, using the fullness of that possible Hebrew tense, are the four great world empires that make up the times of the Gentiles. And I believe that this is most probable. I read extensively on both and I lean to this one.
The prophet Daniel helps me with this because he was a contemporary, at least a close to be a contemporary with Zechariah. Daniel was a prophet during the captivity. Zechariah came out of the captivity when he was relative young and no doubt knew Daniel very well and no doubt was acquainted somewhat with Daniel's wonderful ministry and perhaps with many or at least some of his prophecies. And so when he says these are the four horns, which have scattered, or are scattering, or will scatter Judah, Jerusalem and Israel, to me he is point out the four great empires in the time known as the times of the Gentiles.
Incidentally, to support that view I would simply let you know that the Jewish, Targum, which is a commentary on this and this is orthodox Jew, not Christian, but this is the ancient Targum renders this a four definite kingdoms. So it seems that the Jewish interpreters believed that it was four definite kingdoms, which they don't name. But interestingly enough Kimchi, who was a rabbinical scholar of the 12th century, a Rabbi, said this is the proper and Jewish interpretation. These are the four monarchies. They are the Babylonian monarchy, the Persian monarchy, and the Grecian monarchy and he never named the fourth one, but isn't it interesting that a 12th century Rabbi interpreted this as having reference to the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Grecian empires. So this isn't something that came along with C. I. Schofield. This isn't something that popped up just when Dallas Seminary was invented. This goes back to a rabbinic tradition recorded in the 12th century.
Incidentally Kimchi doesn't name the fourth one because I don't guess that he was sure what the fourth one was going to be or whether or not it was really Rome, but he does note that every one of these was guilty of grievous persecution against Israel and consequently that's why they're called to judgment here.
Now since it is consistent with these visions, and note this people, all of these visions that you're going to see in Zechariah have a future element. They can't just wind up in history in the time of Zechariah in the 6th century before Christ. They can't wind up there. There is too much future in them, too much of a future element, and since that's true of all of them, we believe that's also true of this one. So rather than say, well that's just four nations that were existing then and bang they've been scattered and that's the end of the story, there needs to be the same future element that appears in the rest, and it's obvious that even the rabbis saw this. So what we're seeing here then is something that has the same future element that the rest of the visions have and the four horns symbolize the four great world powers that will make up the times of the Gentiles.
Now, as I said, it began with Judah's captivity under Nebeuchadnezzar and the times of the Gentiles runs all the way to the second coming of Christ. And during all that time Jerusalem is trodden down and even today it is still not liberated.
Now you say, "What are these four empires?" Well Kimchi was right as far as he went. According to Daniel, and Daniel names them, they're just as clear as they can be, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, and after that comes Israel's kingdom. Now, of course, in the day in which this was written which of those kingdoms was in existence, Medo-Persia. By the time of Zechariah, the Babylon captivity, the end of the Babylon captivity Babylon had been supplanted, Babylon had been defeated, and the Medes and the Persians had taken over. And you'll remember Daniel even records how they took over, the Feast of Belshazzar, and we'll get into that in a minute.
So Medo-Persia exists. There is one great kingdom that has scattered. There is one great kingdom that is scattering and there are two yet to come that shall scatter, Judah, Jerusalem, and Israel.
Now let's look at Daniel and see how he identifies these four. Turn to Daniel Chapter 2, and this gets fascinating. Now don't get lost, 'cause if you get lost then you can't find your way back. So stay with it. Now we know what happened in Daniel 2, because it's very clear, it's very simple. "Nebuchadnezzar was the king and Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams," verse 1 says, "and his spirit was troubled and his sleep went from him." Well he had a lot of dreams and he had one specific dream and God gave him a dream that pictured the entire history of the times of the Gentiles to this first great Babylon ruler. These are the four great empires that ruled the world, that civilized world that we know in that area. And these four empires began with Nebuchadnezzar and God gave him an amazing dream of a picture of the whole thing, the way it would be all the way to the end when Christ would come. And you know what happened? He forgot the dream. He couldn't remember it.
Well that was frustrating. In verse 5, he says, "The thing is gone from me." I got to know the answer. "If you will not make known to me the dream with the interpretation you shall be cut in pieces." Now that's an awful thing to say to your wise men, because that's very intimidating, "and your houses will be made a dump heap. If you show me the dream and its interpretation you'll receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor," so show me the dream. Don't we wish? And of course, they tell him he's out of his mind. In verse 11 in delicate terms they say, "It a rare thing that the king requires." Now I guess. They said to him there's nobody who can reveal this except the gods whose dwelling isn't with flesh. And the king was angry and furious and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon, and the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain. And the sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain," because Daniel was one of them, one of the wise men." And so Daniel requested, before he got killed, he'd like to come and tell the king the dream because he could do it. Verse 19, "The secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision and Daniel blessed the God of heaven." Thank you God for telling me this. "Daniel answered and said, 'Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever for wisdom and might are His.'" He goes on to praise the Lord. Verse 22, "He revealed the deep and secret things, he knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him. I thank thee and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might hast made known to me what was desired of Thee, for Thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter." So now he's going to tell the king. Verse 27, "Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, 'The secret which the king has demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the soothsayers, the magicians reveal?'" Can't they do it? He sets himself up for the next verse. "But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets and makes known to the king, Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream and the divisions of Thy head upon Thy bed are these:" And Daniel begins to tell him his dream.
Now go to verse 31 and let's pick it up. "Thou O king sawest and behold a great image." He saw a statue. Great huge statue. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before you and the form of it was terrible. The image's head was of fine gold," now notice it's going to be different as it goes down, "its head was fine gold, its breast and its arms," which was no doubt were crossed sort of like this across the chest, "were of silver and its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet part iron and part clay. And you saw until a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image on its feet were of iron and clay and broke them to pieces. Then were the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, the gold broken to pieces together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floor and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them, and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth."
Now that's some dream. What does it mean? Verse 36, "This is the dream and we will tell its interpretation before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings, for the God of heaven has given Thee kingdom power, strength and glory. And whereas the children of me
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