Nine: Four Chariots (The Eighth and Final Vision) - Zech 6: 1-8

Some of Zecharaiah's Visions - Artwork by Naomi Friend

I looked up again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains – mountains of bronze. 2 The first chariot had red horses, the second black, 3 the third white, and the fourth dappled – all of them powerful. 4 I asked the angel who was speaking to me, ‘What are these, my lord?’

5 The angel answered me, ‘These are the four spirits [or winds] of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world. 6 The one with the black horses is going towards the north country, the one with the white horses towards the west [or horses after them], and the one with the dappled horses towards the south.’

7 When the powerful horses went out, they were straining to go throughout the earth. And he said, ‘Go throughout the earth!’ So they went throughout the earth.

8 Then he called to me, ‘Look, those going towards the north country have given my Spirit [or spirit] rest in the land of the north.’

I once had a friend who liked to baffle people when she spoke to them, especially me. For instance, on a day in mid-March she would say, “Ah, I see you are appropriately dressed for the season.” I would boggle for a moment while I tried to work it out, or, more likely she would have to explain herself… I was wearing a green coat and it was St Patrick’s Day.

Jesus often spoke in riddles. His parables, although sometimes explained to the twelve, must have left the others scratching their heads. Why did he do this? Did he enjoy bamboozling people like my friend did, or was it a game of one-upmanship? No. It was, I reckon, to make people listen, think and argue – so that, when the penny dropped, it dropped deep.

Zechariah might have been accused of talking in riddles. The eight visions we have been studying – this is the last one – are certainly peculiar. But we have seen how influential they were on the writer of Revelation, and possibly even in the thought of Jesus himself. So it is important to take them seriously. And keep going at them until the penny drops.

Now is as good a moment as any to recap the eight visions in Zech 1-6.

1. Horses patrol the earth and report back that there is a false peace, with nations obtaining security through violence.

2. Four horns scatter God’s people, which in turn are destroyed by four craftsmen – God vindicates his people in the end.

3. A man with a measuring line is trying to measure Jerusalem, but is told that God has bigger plans for it than that.

4. High Priest Joshua is dressed in filthy rags, but God cleanses and reclothes him.

5. High priest Joshua and Governor Zerubbabel are seen as two olive trees, constantly replenishing a golden lampstand, which is the work and worship of God’s people, focused on the Temple.

6. A huge flying scroll, the size of an advertising hoarding, proclaims God’s judgement on the wicked.

7. Wickedness, depicted as a little woman in a basket, is lifted up and taken away.

8. More horses, with chariots this time, go on patrol, but find true peace (the present passage).

There is a pattern to these visions. Think of them like a pair of butterfly’s wings, or an X, symmetrical about a central point. Visions 1 and 8 are the bookends, the outer points, and both deal with horses. Visions 2 and 3, 6 and 7 are all about God dealing with wickedness and restoring his people. In the centre, visions 4 and 5 are about the individuals whom God is going to use – High Priest Joshua and Governor Zerubbabel.

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In the Greek alphabet, the letter chi (where the ‘ch’ is pronounced as in the Scottish word loch) is shaped like a slightly wiggly X. So this sort of symmetrical structure is often described as a chiasm. Chiasms are found all over the place, such as in the saying ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’ or when Jesus said, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’ There are several longer passages in the Bible which are chiastic – the website https://www.gotquestions.org/chiasm-chiastic.html has some examples.

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Let’s look more closely at the bookends, visions 1 and 8, before zooming in on vision 8 itself. In vision 1 horses are seen, whereas in vision 8 there are horses and chariots. In both visions the horses are patrolling, but in vision 1 they are coming in to report, whereas in vision 8 they are straining to get going. The first vision is set in a gloomy tree-lined ravine, but the last takes place on open ground next to two bronze mountains. In vision 1 there is a false peace; in vision 8 genuine peace.

Now we can look at vision 8 in more detail. Scholars mostly agree that the two bronze mountains are the gateway to heaven, like the pillars of bronze which flanked the entrance to the original Temple that King Solomon built (see 1Kgs 7:15-22). The horses and chariots are the four winds or ‘spirits’ of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world.

You’d expect them to go north, east, south and west. But the text just has north and south. A lot of scholars have got upset about this. You can add an extra letter to get ‘west’ (which is what the NIV has done). And a whole extra phrase to get ‘east’. But there’s no evidence that that’s what Zechariah intended, or that east and west dropped out by accident.

No, in Judah, if you wanted to send patrols throughout the known world, you would start off travelling either north or south. To the west is the Mediterranean Sea and to the east is desert. Enemies always came from either the south (Egypt) or more especially the north (everyone else).

The powerful horses are straining to go, and as soon as the angel of God says “Go!” they’re off. The angel calls out – perhaps he raises his voice above the thunder of their hooves – “Look, those going towards the north country have given my spirit rest in the land of the north.” In other words, “they have put my mind at rest.”

The troubled north (where most of the country’s enemies have come from historically) is troubled no longer. Exile is over and the people have returned. Wicked Babylon has been swept away. Emperor Cyrus is in charge of Persia, and he for the moment is looking favourably on the part of his territory that used to be Israel and Judah. There is peace at last. “They have given my spirit rest.”

What did this mean to the beleaguered people hearing Zechariah – those who had returned from exile, anxious, demoralised? Let’s look again at the sweep of the visions. The bookend visions about horses – numbers 1 and 8 – demonstrate that the false peace is now true peace. The visions about judgement demonstrate that God is dealing with sin and evil. And the middle two visions about High Priest Joshua and Governor Zerubbabel show that God is working through them to rebuild the temple and the nation.

There is a problem about timing here. Vision 1 is about false peace built on tyranny, whereas by vision 8 all is at rest and there’s a true peace. Yet the visions all appear to have taken place on the same night. At any rate, the only date given in the sequence of visions is the one at the start of Vision 1 (Zech 1:7). How have things changed in the course of one night?

The solution, I think, is that the visions are doing double duty. At the same time as describing the false peace of the current political and religious situation in the second year of Darius (520-519 BCE), they are also looking above and ahead to God’s longer-term perspective, as yet undated, one in which events will culminate in true peace, as described in Zech 6:8.

Whichever time frame was understood by Zechariah’s first hearers, his message would have given the people encouragement to rebuild, to know that God was with them, and that it would all be OK.

Why couldn’t Zechariah just have come out and said that? Because ‘It’s OK and God is with you’ is easy to say and easy to forget. Instead, these visions are complex pictures – they draw you in, they make you think. And when the penny drops, it drops deep.

What about us, reading this now? We too are often beleaguered, hard-pressed, anxious and demoralised. But we have a perspective from the New Testament as well as one from the Old. Those first hearers of Zechariah’s message might well have thought, “Oh, four horses, that’s nice.” Whereas we think straightaway of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in Rev 6:1-8. The author of Revelation uses Zechariah’s image and sets it on the far bigger stage of God’s ultimate judgement.

Zechariah’s hearers may have thought, “Well, I’m glad evil will be dealt with – but I wonder how and when.” Whereas we know that evil was dealt with once and for all by God himself on the cross.

Zechariah’s hearers might well have thought, “Well, God seems to be anointing High Priest Joshua and Governor Zerubbabel to bless us and rebuild the temple.” Whereas we know that Jesus, who is both High Priest and King, continually blesses us and is building his heavenly temple, with each of us as living stones.

When we are sad and downhearted, it’s far too easy to spend all our time looking down at our shoes. These weird and wonderful visions force us to look upwards and outwards. “See, I am doing a new thing!” God says in Is 43:19. But we need to see it with the eye of faith.

That is what God was saying, through his servant Zechariah, to his people in the early sixth century BCE. And I believe that that is what God is saying, still through his servant Zechariah, and even more through his Son Jesus, to us his people now.

Lift up your heads! Raise your vision! Extend your hopes! God almighty is Lord of the whole earth. Kingdoms rise and fall at his say-so. Pandemics and climate change, species extinctions and financial collapse are all held within his powerful hand. And we are held there too, safe, the apple of his eye.

Praise him, and let your spirit find rest too.