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The eighth and final vision concludes with what biblical scholars call a prophetic sign-act, a real-life action by the prophet that symbolized a divine revelation. This last vision upheld the major theme in all of Zechariah’s visions: the restoration of Judah, the appointment of her leaders, and the construction of the temple.
Eighth vision
The vision opens with the prophet looking up and seeing “four chariots coming out from between two mountains—mountains of bronze” (6:1). Colored horses—red, black, white, and dappled—pulled the chariots (6:2). Zechariah asked the messenger to explain the horses’ significance. The messenger explained the chariots were “the four winds of heaven going out” from the presence of the Lord (6:5).
The reader could infer that the last vision bookended the first due to the similarities between visions eight and one. Zechariah’s last vision wrapped up what the first vision had started. The first vision had included four horses of four distinct colors, ridden by four horsemen. The last vision also featured horses of assorted colors, now pulling four chariots. In the first vision, the horses had been standing among the myrtle trees. The last vision depicted horse-drawn chariots emerging from bronze mountains. Both visions show Yahweh’s teams of horses and envoys patrolling the earth (1:10). God had tasked the horsemen in the first vision with a reconnaissance mission before any warfare transpired. By the time of the last vision, the appearance of horse-drawn chariots—instruments of warfare in antiquity—signaled the commencement of a military campaign.
Bronze mountains
The angelic messenger did not explain the meaning of the bronze mountains. If the two Jerusalem mountains were not metallic, Bible commentaries would likely identify them as Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives. Since bronze mountains are not an earthly occurrence, the prophet was likely seeing the abode of heaven. Perhaps the mountains were bronze to parallel God’s earthly dwelling in the temple. Two bronze pillars, named Jachin and Boaz, beautified the entrance to Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 7:13-22). Were the mountains like bronze pillars? Many times, in Zechariah’s visions, he embedded symbols in symbols. If the four chariots came out of the heavenly realm, as the bronze mountains showed, the horsemen received their orders directly from Yahweh’s divine council.
Zechariah’s vision sequence frequently used the Hebrew verb yatza, translated as “coming out” or “going forth.” His book expertly layers movement and motion. Yatza was repeated six times to highlight the chariots’ movement in the last vision.
In the vision, Yahweh intervened militarily on Israel’s behalf. When the angelic messenger connected the chariots with the four winds, he emphasized the global dominion of Yahweh. The first and last visions sounded the same gong. Yahweh’s reign extended over the whole earth.
The angelic messenger told the prophet, “The chariot with the black horses goes toward the north country, the white ones go toward the west country, and the dappled ones go toward the south country” (6:6). The text mentions chariots traveling north and south, but not east or west. For the prophets, the “land of the north” was code for all of Israel’s imperial enemies through the centuries, especially Assyria or Babylon (Jer. 3:18; Zech. 2:6). Advancing armies from Babylon or Assyria always approached Judah from the north. The black and white horses led the armies to attack Judah’s greatest historical enemies.
Bible scholars debate the significance of Zechariah’s “south country.” The first possibility is that south represented Egypt. Since Egypt was the original enemy of the Hebrew people, the source of their enslavement, the country makes for a sensible target. Perhaps Yahweh’s equestrian army was intent on vanquishing all of Israel’s historical enemies. However, in Zechariah’s day, Egypt was not a threat to the Judean province, so the postexilic prophets rarely mention Egypt.
Zechariah may have had his postexilic audience’s trauma in mind. The “north country” and “south country” could reference the two lands of their captivity. After the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, the largest communities of exiles were transported to Babylon or fled to Egypt.
The eighth vision concludes with the presumption of military victory. The messenger declared that the chariots in the north country had appeased God’s wrath, setting Yahweh’s “spirit at rest” (6:8). In the first vision of the horsemen, Yahweh had declared that the “carefree nations” (aka Babylon) would pay for destroying Jerusalem. While God had been only a little angry at Judah, Babylon had “made the disaster worse” (1:15). The empire had gone beyond their mandate in punishing Judah. As a result, the prophets, psalmist, and chronicler all expected Yahweh’s retaliation to be unleashed on Babylon.
Though Zechariah’s visions continued the theme of punishing Babylon, Babylon was no longer an imperial power in Zechariah’s day. That honor had passed to the Persian Empire, first under the reign of King Cyrus, and then ruled by King Cambyses II and King Darius. By the time Zechariah began having visions, Persia had been the dominant force for 20 years. So why were his visions predicting God’s vengeance on Babylon, as if it had not already happened?
Though the Persians had subdued the kingdom of Babylon in 538 BCE, King Cyrus did not eradicate the empire. Instead, he allowed Babylon to continue as a Persian province. Around the time of Zechariah’s visions, in the second year of King Darius, Babylon was trying to make a comeback, rebelling twice against the empire, in an attempt to overthrow Darius. Darius crushed the Babylon rebellion more forcefully than any other uprising during his reign.
Putting the vision in its immediate historical context, Zechariah’s portrayal of the chariots bringing peace to the north was most likely his declaration that Yahweh was the source behind Darius’s eventual victory over Babylon. The vision recognized Yahweh, not Darius, as the true source of Babylon’s collapse. The Persian army, like the four chariots, was doing Yahweh’s bidding, even if those leading the battle did not realize it.
God’s hand in history
The prophets interpreted every historical event as an act of God. The prophet Isaiah attributed King Cyrus’s overthrow of Babylon to the hand of Yahweh (Isa. 45:1-4). Addressing Cyrus, Isaiah assured the Persian king, “I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron” (Isa. 45:2). Before Zechariah’s ministry, the major preexilic prophets had already normalized this way of speaking about foreign, even godless leaders, whom Yahweh had strengthened to fulfill his desire.
Indeed, once King Darius had quashed the Babylonian rebellions, peace spread throughout the region, giving the returnees the quiet they needed to rebuild the temple. Only with the security of regional peace could the postexilic leaders, Joshua and Zerubbabel, move forward with rebuilding Jerusalem, the temple, and their nation.
Zechariah 6 synthesizes all eight of the preceding vision reports. After the reconnaissance mission in vision one, the six intervening visions encouraged the returnees to repent, return to Yahweh, and pursue obedience. The last vision acknowledges God’s role in punishing Babylon. The postexilic community had been given the green light to move forward. Babylon’s defeat was the promised sign for all the exiles to return.
At the conclusion of the last vision, Yahweh requested that Zechariah perform a symbolic action. Prophetic sign-acts pop up frequently in the Major and Minor Prophets. They served as object lessons in the prophets’ immersive theater. For example, Ezekiel had built a miniature Jerusalem out of clay and laid siege ramps around it like a toy soldier array (Ezek. 4-5). Isaiah had preached unclothed for several years (Isa. 20:1-4), and Hosea had married a prostitute (Hos. 1:2).
Silver and gold offerings
Zechariah’s sign-act was less dramatic than those of his predecessors. He was told to visit three exiles who had recently returned from Babylon: Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah (6:10). The return of these three otherwise unknown exiles symbolized the prophetic return of all the exiles who were far off (6:15).
Upon arriving, they brought with them offerings of silver and gold, possibly collected from the Jewish diaspora in Babylon. Ezra gave several accounts of donations coming in from Persia to the Jewish temple. Sometimes, those donations came from the Persian treasuries. In other cases, they were from Jewish exiles who were sending freewill offerings for the temple. The temple priests were accountable for guarding and inventorying all the donations.
The generosity of the Jewish exiles echoed a similar collection of freewill offerings that had occurred before the exodus from Egypt. When Moses had commissioned the tabernacle, he held a public collection for precious materials (Ex. 25:1). The former slaves had given so spontaneously and generously, Moses had called off the donation drive because of the surplus (Ex. 36:6). Perhaps Zechariah hoped that God would once again move on the hearts of the people so that Zerubbabel’s Temple would have a similar outcome.
Zechariah accompanied the three men to Josiah’s home. Josiah, perhaps a goldsmith, obediently fashioned two crowns out of the gold and silver offerings. They used one crown as a prop in the real-life endorsement of Joshua the High Priest. Zechariah took the newly constructed crown and placed it on Joshua’s head (6:11). In the traditions of Israel, the royal line of David and the priestly line of Levi had distinct roles. At no point in Israel’s history did God approve the merging of priest and king. Zechariah intended the crowning of Joshua to convey a message, but the message left more questions than answers. The crowning of Joshua is a difficult passage to interpret, partly because of the oddity of the act and partly because of the awkwardness of the sentence structure.
Was Zechariah coronating Joshua, giving him the authority of both priest and king? Zerubbabel, the only legitimate heir to the throne, does not appear in the scene. God instructs the prophet: “Say to him: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Here is a man whose name is Branch, for he shall branch out in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord” (6:12). Notice, Zechariah was commanded to address Joshua about the Branch and did not seem to address Joshua as the Branch. In previous visions, the Branch had been associated with Zerubbabel. The Branch is a term used by the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah (Jer. 23:5, 33:15; Isa. 42:1-4; 49:1-7). It was an “epithet” used mostly in connection with a restored Davidic king.
Joshua had descended from the line of Levi. His grandfather was Seraiah, the High Priest who was taken prisoner at the time of Jerusalem’s capture (2 Kings 25:18; Ezra 2:2). Zerubbabel was a descendant of King Jehoiachin, who was exiled in 597 BCE (2 Kings 24:12-16; 25:27-30). According to Judah’s traditions, Jehoiachin’s line was the only hope for a royal throne.
My understanding from the vision is that Zechariah was expressing a messianic hope, rather than an immediate reality. The mere survival of the priestly line was an “omen of things to come” that pointed to the future coming of the Branch (3:6).
As subjects of the Persian Empire, Joshua’s role as High Priest was surer than Zerubbabel’s position as provincial governor. Repeatedly in his visions, Zechariah affirmed the roles of both Joshua and Zerubbabel. At least in the short term, it may have been Zerubbabel who was in view when the prophet announced, “it is he who shall build the temple of the Lord; he shall bear royal honor and shall sit upon his throne and rule” (6:13).
Towards the end of Zechariah’s sign-act, the prophet called for balance of authority, saying “there shall be a priest by his throne, with peaceful understanding between the two of them” (6:13). The book was not promoting the immediate priestly takeover of the royal position. In the past, the prideful King Uzziah tried to usurp the role of priest. God was so disgusted with the arrogance of the act that he afflicted Uzziah with leprosy (2 Chron. 26:16-20). Zechariah’s visions resisted any temptation to combine the role of priest and king. The “peaceful understanding” between Joshua and Zerubbabel was likely an endorsement of their separate but complimentary roles. Joshua handled the religious affairs of the community and Zerubbabel oversaw the civil affairs.
In Zechariah’s last declaration, he repeated the promise that the exiles would return to rebuild the temple. The prophecy could only be fulfilled if they obeyed the Lord’s voice (6:15). The crown was intended to be a memorial for the temple, not for any specific leader to wear (6:14). Zechariah’s sign-act, as a conclusion to his visions, expresses the hope that was to come. For the rest of the book, Zechariah does not discuss Joshua or Zerubbabel. Instead, he moves his attention to the importance of renewing the covenant.