Zechariah 1:8

I saw. — Not in a dream, but apparently, from Zechariah 4:1, awake, in an ecstatic vision.

By night. — Better, on this night. LXX., τὴν νύκτα. It was during the night of the twenty-fourth of Sebat that the prophet saw this series of visions. The expression does not mean that in his vision it appeared to be night.

Red horse, and... the bottom. — Better, bay horse, and he was standing among the myrtles that were in a certain hollow. The construction of the Hebrew shows beyond controversy that “the man that stood among the myrtles” and “the angel of the Lord” (Zechariah 1:11) are identical. On the appellation, “the angel of the Lord,” see Note on Genesis 16:7. Angels, when they assume the human form, are often called “men” — e.g., in Genesis 18:2. There can be no doubt but that “horses” means horses with riders. Commentators endeavour to attach special significance to the expression, “the myrtles which were in the hollow.” Some see in “the myrtles” a symbol of the pious; others of the theocracy, or of the land of Judah, and take “the hollow” as a figurative representation of Babylon, or of the deep degradation into which the land and people of God had fallen at that time. Similarly with respect to the colour of the horses: some suppose that the colours either denote the lands and nations to which the riders had been sent, or the three imperial kingdoms, Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Græco-Macedonian (Kliefoth), or as connected with the various missions which the rider had to perform. The following are specimens of such interpretation — (1) that of Keil: The riders on red horses are to cause war and bloodshed; those on pale-grey (seruqqîm) to cause hunger, famine, and pestilence; those on white go to conquest. But this explanation takes no account of the single horseman on the red (bay) horse. Moreover victory implies bloodshed, as much as does war, so that there is no practical distinction made between the red and the white horses. (2) Ewald deprives “the man standing among the myrtles” of his horse, then he renders the colours of the horses bright-red, brown, grey, and supplies dark-red, from his interpretation of Zech. vi, 3. Having thus arranged the colours to his fancy, he compares this vision with that of the chariots in Zechariah 6, and sees in the colours the mission of the riders to the four quarters of heaven. The red denotes the east; the brown (the black of Zechariah 6) the north; the grey, the west; the dark-red, the south. (3) Vitringa interprets the three colours as follows: red, times of war; varicoloured, times of varying distress and prosperity; white, times of complete prosperity, which were sent on the Jewish people. (4) That of Kliefoth, mentioned above. (5) Rabbi Mosheh Alshekh, the cabbalist, interprets red of the company of Gabriel which inclines to Strict Justice; seruqqîm of that of Raphael (who is the angel of healing after smiting, that is Justice tempered with Mercy); white of that of Michael who inclines to Free Grace. But all these suppositions are purely conjectural, utterly unsuitable, and perfectly unnecessary. In a vision or a parable we must not expect to find something in the interpretation to correspond with each detail of the figurative representation: the setting must not be confounded with the gem. So, in this case, we are of opinion that the fact that the horsemen were standing among the myrtles in a certain hollow is mentioned merely as a natural incident; for where would a body of scouts so naturally come to a halt, especially in the East, where shade and herbage are scarce, and where travellers always strive to escape as much as possible the observation of hostile tribes, as under the cool and protecting shadow of a grove of myrtles growing in a hollow place? LXX., for “among the myrtles which were in a certain hollow,” ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν δύο ὀρέων τῶν κατασκίων, misreading seemingly the word for “myrtles,” and taking the word for “hollow” as from a similar root meaning “to be shady.”

Red. — Better, bay. (Comp. Zechariah 6:2.)

Speckled, or, starling grey, is, perhaps, the meaning of the Hebrew word seruqqîm, which occurs only once again — viz., in Isaiah 16:8, and there in the sense of vine-tendrils; nothing certain is known of it as an adjective of colour. The meanings given by the Authorised Version and ourself are merely conjectural, and derived (unsatisfactorily) from a comparison of this passage with Zechariah 1:3 and Revelation 6:3. We are almost inclined to suggest that the word is a corruption of shechorîm, “black” (see Zechariah 6). The colours seem to be mentioned as those most commonly found among horses, in order to give a more realistic form to the vision, or perhaps, rather, because the prophet actually so saw them. The writer of Revelation has (Revelation 6) adopted the colours mentioned in Zechariah 6, and himself given to them a special significance in his own writings. But to interpret Zechariah in this case by the light of the Book of Revelation, as some commentators have done, would be most uncritical. The colours in LXX. of this chapter are πυρροί, ψαροὶ καὶ ποικίλοι, λευκοί. In Zechariah 6 they are πυρροί, μέλανες, λευκοί, ποικίλοι ψαροί. In Revelation 6 the colours are λευκός, πυρρός, μέλας, χλωρός.