Zechariah 1:18-20

Four horns,...four smiths. The four horns represent the empires, or kingdoms, that persecute and oppress the people of God: the four smiths or carpenters (for faber may signify either) represent those whom God makes his instruments in bringing to nothing the power of persecutors. (Challoner) --- The Ammonites, &c., on the east, the Philistines on the west, the Idumeans and Egyptians on the south, and the Assyrians and Chaldeans on the north, had much molested God's people, and were therefore punished. (Worthington) --- The princes of Assyria and of Babylon, the kings of Persia and of Egypt, had all treated them ill; and these four empires have or will be destroyed by four chariots, (chap. vi. 1.) Nabopolassar, Cyrus, Alexander, and Antiochus, Daniel vii. 1., &c. St. Jerome, and many who usually follow him, understand the empires of the Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, to be designated by the horns, as the workmen mean the angels who have chastised those nations.