Two: Messenger Horses in a Ravine (The First Vision) - Zech 1:7-17
- Sep 15, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 16, 2024
7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.
8 During the night I had a vision, and there before me was a man mounted on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses.
9 I asked, ‘What are these, my lord?’
The angel who was talking with me answered, ‘I will show you what they are.’
10 Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, ‘They are the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.’
11 And they reported to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, ‘We have gone throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.’
12 Then the angel of the Lord said, ‘Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?’ 13 So the Lord spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who talked with me.
14 Then the angel who was speaking to me said, ‘Proclaim this word: this is what the Lord Almighty says: “I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, 15 and I am very angry with the nations that feel secure. I was only a little angry, but they went too far with the punishment.”
16 ‘Therefore this is what the Lord says: “I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,” declares the Lord Almighty.
17 ‘Proclaim further: this is what the Lord Almighty says: “My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.”’
I once heard the author Michael Morpurgo interviewed on the radio. He told of an encounter in a rural pub with an old man who had served as a soldier in World War I. The old man was reluctant to talk about his experiences at first, until he eventually confided, “They ‘ad ‘osses.” From that moment he talked about the farm horses that were put to use in the war, hauling equipment or ambulances or carrying messages. That proved to be the inspiration behind Morpurgo’s wildly successful children’s book War Horse written in 1982 and reaching wider audiences more recently as a stage play and film.
The commentator Richard Phillips, himself a former army officer, points out that armies throughout history have had both heavy and light mounted units. The heavy units – chariots in Biblical times, tanks today – concentrate on smashing an enemy position with great force. Lighter units rely on speed and stealth and are used for reconnaissance. And it’s these sorts of swift stallions that are pictured here in the first of Zechariah’s eight strange visions, apparently all taking place in a single night.
Picture the scene – a gloomy, tree-shrouded ravine, sweating horses of different colours, with presumably angelic riders. Perhaps we think immediately of the Four Horsemen in Revelation 6:2-5. This is just one of many parallels between the two books; as already mentioned, it seems that the author of Revelation drew heavily on Zechariah, and we will note the similarities as they occur. But whereas in Revelation the horsemen are going out to execute judgement, in Zechariah they are returning from a worldwide reconnaissance.
The number of horses is not given, but it is possible there is just one of each colour behind the man on the red horse in v8. That would give four horses, one for each point of the compass on their worldwide expedition, thus symbolising completeness. Zechariah seems to like the number four – shortly we will meet four horns, four craftsmen, four winds and four chariots. It may be that they symbolise completeness too.
Zechariah sees a man on a red horse (v8), who turns out to be the angel of the Lord (v11), standing among the trees. He’s on a horse but standing… surely ‘stationed’ would be a better translation! Then there’s another angel – “the angel who was talking with me” – whom we’ll meet several times in the subsequent visions. This makes two angels, although some scholars conclude that they are one and the same.
Zechariah also sees red, brown and white horses, which are reconnaissance horses, spy horses, scouts. Presumably they have riders too, but we’re not told about those. They are just back from travelling the whole earth, checking out what’s going on, and reporting back to the Lord.
And it sounds like good news: “We have … found the whole world at rest and in peace (v11).”
Except it’s not a wholesome peace, a shalom peace. Read on to v15 and it’s clear that this is a shady peace, a cover-up sort of peace, peace as a mask for evil.
Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace, and is still used as a greeting today. As many have noted, it is a broader term than our English word for peace and carries notions of well-being, wholeness, health and good community relationships too. The Hebrew word for peace in v11, however, has the root shaqat which merely means ‘undisturbed’.
I’m reminded of Syria. President Assad’s forces are almost back in control of the whole country, with help from Russia and Iran. When he has achieved his objective, there will be peace – but the sort of peace where demonstrations are banned, food prices are sky-high and huge numbers of school-aged children are not going to school.
The kind of ‘peace’ descending on Syria would have been familiar to Zechariah’s contemporaries. Following a period of rebellion, King Darius had got a firm grip on the Persian Empire, the largest the world had ever seen. Most parts of it were peaceful, at least on the surface, but it was an empire that wielded huge power and exercised a high degree of control over its citizens.
Local officials were suspicious of the Temple-rebuilding project, and wrote to the King to try to get it stopped (Ezra 5). Was that really peace?
That must be why the angel cried out, “Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?” (v12).
Richard Phillips takes encouragement from the idea that angels pray for us (p22-23). The angel of the Lord’s anguished cry “How long, O Lord?” mirrors that of Psalm 79:5. Far from regarding him as impertinent, the Lord speaks kind and comforting words (albeit to the other angel!). Heb 1:14 assures us that “angels [are] ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation”. It seems that one aspect of their service is to cry out on our behalf.
It was indeed nearly seventy years since Jerusalem had been destroyed. Where was the promised restoration? The good news comes in v13: “the Lord spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who talked with me”.
The angel then explained to Zechariah in his vision that the Lord was very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, and very angry with the nations that feel secure. He was only a little angry [with Jerusalem], but they went too far with the punishment.
That tells us quite a lot. The exile was God’s punishment for his people turning their back on him again and again and ignoring his laws. God used the pagan nations – first the Assyrians then the Babylonians – to carry out his punishment. But they “went too far with the punishment”. Or, selecting a handful of other translations, “they added to the calamity, furthered the disaster, heaped evil on evil, and made the suffering worse!”[1]
God even uses people who don’t acknowledge him to bring about his purposes. If they go too far, they will be punished in their turn. And if that’s true for nations, how much more for individuals.
That annoying non-Christian neighbour or family member who treats us unkindly or teases us mercilessly about our faith – have we ever thought that God might be using her or him to toughen us up, or to get rid of some of our hypocritical behaviour, or identify some weaknesses that need forgiving and correcting? In Num 22:30 God spoke through a donkey, so non-Christian humans shouldn’t present a problem!
Back to the vision.
God now promises some wonderful things (v16-17). ‘“I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house [the Temple] will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.”
‘Proclaim further: this is what the Lord Almighty says: “My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.”’
The Temple was being rebuilt but the city was still largely in ruins. God promises that the day is coming when the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem. There will be architects’ plans and builders and muddy wellies and mugs of tea (if the last two had been invented, which they hadn’t). Outside Jerusalem, all Judah’s towns will again overflow with prosperity. And back in the capital, the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.
It reminds us of Is 40:1, that great call of hope to the exiles: ‘“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God’. And in the next chapter (41: 8-9):
“But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
you descendants of Abraham my friend,
I took you from the ends of the earth,
from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.”
This comfort and this choosing invite us to look ahead to Jesus, who chose his disciples and comforted the distressed. He too was involved in building a new Temple, his body.
Going back to the war horses where we began: in many parts of the world there is a superficial peace. But it’s not a shalom-peace, a real peace. It is an absence of conflict – often because a strong man is ruling the place with an iron fist, and no one dares to criticize. Dissenters are locked up, or worse. Peace built on injustice is no peace at all.
In the western world, we usually take it for granted that our democratic systems mean that we are free to disagree loudly with our rulers, and even vote in new ones if we want to. But there are signs that we should not be complacent. Some worry that long-held rights to protest peacefully in public are being eroded. Others point to the misinformation spread on social media that muddy the waters of debate and even inspire violence. Still others express concern about the behaviour of many in public office, leading to a widespread disenchantment in institutions and a disengagement with mainstream politics. Zechariah’s angels, I think, would warn us against settling for being ‘undisturbed’ and instead encourage us to work and pray for shalom-peace based on truth and justice.
[1] Zech 1: 15 in the New International Version (1979 edition), my own translation, English Standard Version and the Good News Translation.
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