Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 6

Behold, four chariots going forth—Alb.: “By the secret disposal of God into the theater of the world,” “from between two mountains of brass.” Both Jews and Christians have seen that the four chariots relate to the same four empires, as the visions in Daniel.

“The two mountains.” It may be that the imagery is from the two mountains on either side of the valley of Jehoshaphat, which Joel had spoken of as the place of God’s judgment (Joel 3:2), and Zechariah afterward (Zechariah 14:4). It may then picture that the judgments go forth from God.

Anyhow, the powers, symbolized by the four chariots, are pictured as closed in on either side by these mountains, strong as brass, unsurmountable, undecaying, (Ribera), “that they should not go forth to other lands to conquer, until the time should come, fixed by the counsels of God, when the gates should be opened for their going forth.”

The mountains of brass may signify the height of the Divine Wisdom ordering this, and the sublimity of the power which puts them in operation; as the Psalmist says, Thy righteousnesses are like the mountains of God (Psalms 36:6).

The symbol is different from that in the first vision. There (Zechariah 1:8), they were horses only, with their riders, to go back and forth to inquire; here they are war-chariots with their horses, to execute God’s judgments, each in their turn. In the first vision also, there is not the characteristic fourfold division, which recalls the four world-empires of Daniel (Daniel 2); after which, in both prophets, the kingdom of Christ is mentioned. Even if the grizzled horses are the same as the speckled of the first vision, the black horses are lacking there, as well as the succession in which they go forth. The only resemblance is that there are horses of various colors, two of which, red and white, are the same.

The symbol of the fourth empire, grizzled, strong, remarkably corresponds with the strength and mingled character of the fourth empire in Daniel.

These are the four spirits of the heavens - They cannot be literal winds, for spirits, not winds, stand before God as His servants. This is as in Job, where the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord (Job 1:6; Job 2:1).

This they did, as Jerome notes, “for these four kingdoms did nothing without the will of God.” Zechariah sums up in one what former prophets had said separately of the Assyrian, the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian.

For example, O Assyria, the rod of Mine anger - I will send him against an ungodly nation, and against the people of My wrath I will give him a charge (Isaiah 10:5). And, I will send and take all the families of the north, and Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land (Jeremiah 25:9).

Also, The Lord shall hiss for the fly, that is in the uttermost part of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they shall come, and shall rest, all of them, in the desolate valleys (Isaiah 7:18–19). Finally, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 1:15).

Whatever the human impulse or the human means, all stand before the Lord of the whole earth, ministering to His will, to whom all things belong. He is the Judge of all, who withholds the chastisement until the iniquity is full, and then, through human injustice, executes His own just judgment.

Osorius writes: “He says that they went out from where they had stood before the Lord of the whole earth, to show that their power had been obtained by the counsel of God, that they might serve His will.

For no empire was ever set up on earth without the mind, counsel, and power of God. He exalts the humble and obscure, He prostrates the lofty who trust too much in themselves, and He arms one against the other, so that no fraud or pride will be without punishment.”

The black horses which are in it go forth - Literally, “That chariot in which the black horses are, these go forth.”

Jerome states: “Most suitably the first chariot, in which the red horses were, is passed over, and what the second, third, and fourth did is described. For when the prophet related this, the Babylonian empire had passed, and the power of the Medes possessed all Asia.”

Red, as the color of blood, represented Babylon as sanguinary; as it is said in Revelation, “There went out another horse, red, and power was given to him that sat thereon, to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another, and there was given him a sharp sword” (Revelation 6:4).

“The black” horses were to go forth to the north country, the ancient title of Babylon. For Babylon, though taken, was far from being broken. They had probably been betrayed through the weakness of their kings. Their resistance in the first carefully prepared revolt against Darius (Herodotus, 3:150) was more courageous than that against Cyrus, and more desperate.

Since probably more Jews remained in it than returned to their own country, what was to befall it had a special interest for them. They had already been warned in the third vision (Zechariah 2:7) to escape from it.

The color black doubtless symbolizes the heavy lot inflicted by the Medo-Persians. As in Revelation it is said, “the sun became black as sackcloth of hair” (Revelation 6:12). And to the beast in Daniel’s vision which corresponded with it, it was said, “Arise, devour much flesh” (Daniel 7:5). And in Revelation, “he that sat on the black horse” (Revelation 6:5–6) was the angel charged with the infliction of famine.

Of the Medes, Isaiah had said, “I will stir up the Medes against them (Babylon), which shall not regard silver; and gold, they shall not delight in it. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children” (Isaiah 13:17–18).

The white went forth after them - For the Greek empire occupied the same portion of the earth as the Persian.

White is a symbol of joy, gladness (Ecclesiastes 9:8), victory (Revelation 6:2), and perhaps also, from its relation to light, of acute intelligence. It may relate too to the benevolence of Alexander toward the Jewish nation. “Alexander used such clemency to the conquered, that it seemed as though he might be called rather the founder than the destroyer of the nations whom he subdued.”

And the grizzled - The Romans, in their mingled character (so prominent in the fourth empire of Daniel, as described in Daniel 2:41-43), “go forth” to the south country, that is, Egypt.

Daniel speaks of “the ships of Chittim” (Daniel 11:30) in connection with Roman actions in the region, such as their initial intervention regarding the expulsion of Antiochus Epiphanes from Egypt.

In Egypt also, the last enduring kingdom of any successor of Alexander, that of the Ptolemies, expired.

“Thirty years afterward, the Son of God was to bring light to the earth. The prophet so interweaves the prediction, that from the series of the four kingdoms it is brought to the Birth of the Eternal King.”

And the strong went forth and sought to go, that they might walk to and fro through the earth - The mention of their strength corresponds to the extent of the power and commission for which they asked: to go to and fro, up and down, at their will, unhindered, through the whole earth. The Babylonian empire held Egypt as its only territory outside of Asia; the Persian empire was conquered in its efforts against Europe, in Greece; Alexander's empire was like a meteor, gleaming but breaking into four parts; the Roman empire combined East and West and, within its large limits, ruled tranquilly.

And he said, Go, walk to and fro in the earth - He commanded, and they, who were previously withheld, went, and they walked to and fro on the earth, ordering all things at their will, under the Providence of God, by which He gave free access to the Gospel throughout their wide empire. After the Greek empire was extinguished, the Romans no longer merely went into any particular country, but superintended and governed all human affairs in (it is the language of the New Testament) all the world. Cyril: “These same, the dappled and ashen-grey horses were commanded to traverse the earth, and they did traverse it; for they mastered all under heaven and ruled the whole earth, God consenting and arraying those who wielded the Roman might with this brilliant glory. For, as God, He knew beforehand the greatness of their future piety.”