Zechariah 1:21

Many commentators suppose that this vision refers to the future as well as the past, and that in it the objects are combined together so as to form one complete picture, without any regard to the time of their appearing in historical reality. And so they take the “four horns” to symbolise the four empires — the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, and the Græco-Macedonian. But such is not the case, as is clearly shown by this verse. It is true that the word “scattered” might, if standing alone, be taken as discharging the duties of historic and, at the same time, of prophetic perfect. But since in the dependent clause we have, “so that no man did lift up his head” — in the perfect — the word “have scattered” can refer only to the actual past. We must, therefore, reject all reference to the four monarchies which we have enumerated, because the Græco-Macedonian had not yet come into existence. If, then, the “four horns” do symbolise four monarchies, they can only be the Assyrian, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Medo-Persian. Some commentators have gone so far as to identify the four workmen with Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Cambyses, and Alexander the Great. (Comp. and contrast Haggai 2:22.) But it seems more probable that here (as in Zechariah 1:8) we must not draw too close a comparison between the symbol and the thing symbolised, and should understand the “four workmen” as merely figuring the destruction of these nations for the good of the Jewish nation, without the manner of its accomplishment being accurately defined. We may remark, in passing, that some commentators do not take the vision as referring to four distinct nations, but suppose the number four to be used in reference to all the powers hostile to Judah, from whatever quarter they may have come. The vision, a natural consequent of the preceding, is one of comfort, its object being to assure the people that as the former nations which had been hostile to Israel and Judah had been destroyed, so the present Medo-Persian monarchy, which also had at times oppressed them, should have the horn of its hostility utterly cast out, and should protect them and encourage the re-building of Jerusalem.