Zechariah 6:7

Zechariah saw these visions around 520 BC, in the reign of Darius I. The exiles had come home from Babylon under the decree of Cyrus, and they were rebuilding the temple among ruins, discouraged, poor and opposed by the peoples around them (Ezra 4). God gave Zechariah a series of night visions to strengthen them, which fill the first part of his book (Zechariah 1–6). The first showed horsemen sent through the earth and came with the promise that Jerusalem would be restored (Zechariah 1:7–17). Later ones showed Joshua the high priest cleansed (Zechariah 3) and Zerubbabel given strength from God to rebuild the temple (Zechariah 4). Just before this one came a flying scroll of judgment on sin and an ephah carrying wickedness away from the land.

The eighth vision brings the series to its close and widens the view from Jerusalem to the whole earth. The earlier visions met the needs of the covenant people at home, and this one shows the God of Israel ruling and judging every nation. The visions began with horses sent through the earth, and they end with horses and chariots sent through it. The chapter then turns to the promise of the Branch, who will build the temple of the LORD and rule on his throne (Zechariah 6:12). Zechariah had already heard of this Branch in Zechariah 3:8.

“And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked” opens a new sight, and “behold” fixes our attention on it. Zechariah sees four chariots. The word merkâbâh means a chariot, an open vehicle drawn by horses and used in war or for travelling. In his day chariots meant armies and royal processions, so they spoke of strength, speed and a king’s authority. These chariots are the LORD’s, and they go out to carry his will into the world. Israel knew of such heavenly chariots. Elijah was taken up by a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11), and once the mountain around Elisha was seen to be “full of horses and chariots of fire”. There are four chariots, and four in Scripture often stands for the four points of the compass, so their number speaks of a mission that reaches every part of the earth.

They come “from between two mountains”. The word har is the ordinary word for a mountain or a range of hills, and the verse names the mountains three times, the last time telling us what they are made of: “the mountains were mountains of brass.” The metal, nᵉchôsheth, is copper or bronze, which the KJV calls brass. Bronze is hard and lasting, and in Scripture it is the metal of the bronze altar and the bronze serpent, so it often speaks of strength and of judgment.

The two mountains mark a gateway, a fixed place from which God sends out his servants, and their metal says that this place is as firm as his decrees. What God has settled stands, and the chariots that come from his presence go out to carry it through. Some place the two mountains near Jerusalem and others take them as great pillars of the earth, and the vision itself names no place.

Each chariot has its own team: red horses for the first, black for the second, white for the third, and “grisled and bay” for the fourth. Red, ʼâdôm, is a ruddy or rosy colour. Black, shâchôr, is dusky or jet black. White, lâbân, is plain white. Grisled, bârôd, means spotted or dappled, as if marked with hail. Bay, ʼâmôts, names a strong colour, usually taken as a reddish brown, from a root meaning to be strong, and some versions render it “dappled” instead.

The angel explains what the chariots are and where they go, and he gives the colours no key. They plainly tell the four teams apart. Elsewhere in Scripture red goes with blood and war, black with mourning, famine and distress, and white with purity and victory, so the colours may well picture different kinds of God’s work among the nations: war, scarcity and sorrow, and triumph. The fourth team’s spotted and strong horses would then picture a mixed work done with power, perhaps judgment and mercy together. These meanings fit the vision, and they are best held lightly, since the angel himself gives none.

John saw horses of the same colours when the first seals were opened, among them a white horse of conquest, a red horse, and a black horse in a time of famine (Revelation 6:1–8). Both visions show horses sent by God over the earth, and both put the troubles of the nations under his hand.

“Then I answered” uses ʻânâh, to answer or respond, whether to words or to a situation. Here Zechariah is responding to what he has just seen. He speaks to “the angel that talked with me”, his guide through these visions. The word malʼâk means a messenger, one sent as a deputy, and here it is a messenger from God. Zechariah calls him “my lord”, ʼâdôwn, the respectful address to a master or a superior, and asks, “What are these, my lord?”

He asks this kind of question again and again. He asked about the horns in Zechariah 1:19, and about the lampstand in Zechariah 4:4, and each time God gave the answer through the angel. The question comes from a man who wants to understand. It turns a strange sight of horses and chariots into a message Zechariah can carry to the people, and it opens the way for the explanation in verses 5 to 8.

God still gives understanding to those who ask him. James tells anyone who lacks wisdom to ask God, who gives it generously (James 1:5). Paul says that God has revealed his truth to us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10), and the psalmist calls God’s word a lamp to his feet and a light to his path (Psalm 119:105). Zechariah had an angel to explain the vision to him, and we have the Scriptures and the Spirit.

The angel answers, “These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.” The word for spirits, rûwach, means wind, breath and spirit. Here, where they are sent on a mission with chariots, it names living servants of God, most likely angels, whose home is heaven.

Believers differ a little over who they are. On one reading they are a company of angels. On another they picture God’s own power at work in the world, like winds he sends out. On either reading they belong to God and go where he sends them, and the word’s sense of wind fits the vision well, since Revelation shows four angels holding back the winds of the earth (Revelation 7:1).

Scripture speaks of angels in just this way. Hebrews calls them “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Hebrews 1:14), and the psalm blesses the LORD’s angels “that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word” (Psalm 103:20).

To stand before a king was to wait in his court, ready for his command, and these spirits go out from that place. Daniel saw the Ancient of Days on his throne with his heavenly court before him (Daniel 7:9–10). The spirits are mighty, and all their might is put to work at the word of the one they stand before.

The title “Lord of all the earth” uses ʼâdôwn, the same word Zechariah used for the angel in verse 4, and here it names God as the ruler and owner of the whole world. The same title closes the vision of the lampstand (Zechariah 4:14). For a people who had been carried into exile and still lived under Persian rule, this was a word worth hearing. The nations that had humbled them belonged to God as surely as Israel did.

The verb for going out, yâtsâʼ, means to go or come out, and “go forth” comes three times in verse 6. The black horses go into the north country with the white behind them, and the grisled go toward the south country.

The north, tsâphôwn, had a long history for Israel. Assyria and then Babylon came against them from the north, and the exile came from there. Jeremiah was told that judgment would come upon the land out of the north (Jeremiah 1:14). The south, têymân, usually meant Egypt and the nations of the south, who had also been Israel’s enemies. So the horses go to the two quarters from which Israel’s oppressors had come, and both answer to the LORD.

The white horses follow the black, perhaps as a later stage of God’s work, a triumph that comes after judgment, or as another work in the same quarter. The red horses of the first chariot are given no destination in these verses, and the bay of verse 7 go through the whole earth.

In verse 7 the bay horses go out and “sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth”. The verb bâqash means to seek, search out or require, and here they ask to be sent. The verb hâlak means to walk, and the form used here means walking about, going up and down through a land, as a patrol does. The phrase “to and fro through the earth” comes three times in the verse: they ask to go, they are told, “Get you hence,” and they go. The one who gives the order is the angel of the LORD or God himself, and the horses go as soon as he speaks. They are eager to serve, and they move at his word.

The same verb describes Satan in Job 1:7, when he tells the LORD that he has come “from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it”. Even the enemy gives account of his wanderings to God, and they stay within God’s permission. Here the movement belongs to God’s own servants, sent to watch over the earth for him, much as the eyes of the LORD range over the whole earth in Zechariah 4:10.

The vision ends with a loud word. “Then cried he upon me” uses zâʻaq, to cry out, a word used for crying for help in hardship and for calling people together, as a herald does. The angel speaks as God’s herald and calls Zechariah to attention. “And spake unto me” uses dâbar, the common verb to speak or tell. The words are the LORD’s, since they speak of “my spirit”.

“Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.” The horses that went north, the black with the white behind them, have done their work. The verb nûwach means to rest or settle down, and in the form used here it means to cause to rest. The Hebrew, hēniḥû ‘et-rûḥî, says that they have brought God’s spirit to rest. The same causative form appears in Ezekiel 5:13, where God gives full vent to his fury until it subsides, and in Ezekiel 16:42, which goes on, “I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.”

So the quieting of God’s spirit means that his righteous anger toward the north country, the home of the powers that had crushed his people, has run its course and his purpose there is complete. Scripture uses human terms here, as we would speak of a man’s anger coming to rest once justice is done, and the point is that God’s decree has been carried out in full. Isaiah had prophesied against Babylon (Isaiah 13), and now the vision announces that God’s purpose toward the north has been accomplished. Even the wrath of man is turned to God’s praise (Psalm 76:10), and he declares the end from the beginning, so that his counsel stands (Isaiah 46:10).

The vision shows the Lord of all the earth sending his servants through the world, and the New Testament shows that rule given to Jesus Christ. After his resurrection he said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” and he sent his disciples out: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:18–19). Through him all things were created, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16–17). The sure foundation pictured by the mountains of brass finds its fullest form in him, the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20).

The angel who explained the vision to Zechariah was a messenger sent by God. In Jesus the Word himself became flesh (John 1:14), and the Son has declared the Father (John 1:18). He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), and every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess him Lord (Philippians 2:9–11).

The white horse appears again in Revelation, where Christ rides as Faithful and True, judging in righteousness and leading the armies of heaven (Revelation 19:11–16). He came first to save the world (John 3:17), and God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world by him (Acts 17:31), the living and the dead (2 Timothy 4:1).

The chariots went out from the presence of God, and so does the Holy Spirit, whom the Son sends from the Father (John 15:26) to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment (John 16:7–8). In his power the church goes out as Christ’s witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), carrying the gospel through the world.

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He bore God’s judgment against sin, and so we who believe have peace with God (Romans 5:1).

The people who first heard this vision were few, poor and surrounded by enemies, and their temple was still a building site. The vision showed them that the LORD has his throne in the heavens and that his kingdom rules over all (Psalm 103:19). The Most High rules in the kingdom of men (Daniel 4:17), he brings all the nations into judgment (Jeremiah 25:30–33), and he forms the light and creates darkness, so that bright days and hard ones are both in his hand (Isaiah 45:7).

All of this holds for us as well. Empires still rise and fall, and over them the Lord of all the earth sends his servants where he wills, and his purposes reach their end. His servants go gladly when he speaks, and his spirit comes to rest when his justice is done. In Christ, all that power belongs to the Saviour who died for us, and the God who quieted his spirit in the north country gives his people peace.