Chapter 6
The eighth and final vision: This is the seventh I think ( MSB says this is the eighth. What did I miss?). Four chariots come out from between two bronze mountains. Red, black, white, and dappled horses. In chapter 1 it was red, sorrel, and white. In Revelation the horses are white at the first seal, bright red at the second, black at the third horse, and the fourth is a pale horse. The interpreter doesn't say what they are, but says the black horses are going north, and the white ones will follow. The dappled horses will go south. We are not told where the red horses go. Before going, they have presented themselves before the Lord. So they are doing as He wills - or are patrolling and reporting on the things that happen on earth. Can't tell exactly, but it looks like the red horses, being impatient, went on ahead to patrol the whole earth, while the other three go to specific places. To Babylon and Assyria - or Assyria and Greece!, and to Egypt maybe. This vision concludes with this verse:
8 Then he cried to me, "Behold, those who go toward the north country have set my Spirit at rest in the north country." [Zec 6:8 ESV] Some justice finally brought? Or at least a lessening of the rebellion? Again, this might be the state of things following the destruction of Babylon. These chariots are sent to accomplish God's will. Babylon and Egypt seem to be in view. And the chariot with the red horses keeps order everywhere else. The rest don't get out of line as badly as Shinar and Egypt perhaps. MSB says I'm on the right track with these. It refers back to explanation of the horses in Zech 1:8. It says each chariot is going not to watch, but to deal out God's justice. Two for Babylon, one for Egypt, and one for the rest of the planet. But they are "winning the battle" that God will have over all the Gentile nations at the end of the world. And they correspond to the four horses of the apocalypse.
2026 - Consider the four creatures full of eyes around the throne. We know about them. They have shown up before in Ezekiel's wheel within a wheel and also in Revelation. And the purpose of these four matches the purpose of the four here in Zechariah. They are sent out to enforce the peace that Zechariah was told about earlier. We also saw the number four in reference to Kings and Kingdoms, and we decided what those four might be. Do the cardinal directions given here in this chapter corroborate any of our guesses back in Chapter 1:18ff?
2026 - Either Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Medo-Persia, or Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome? If we take it that Zechariah is writing from Israel 16 years after Cyrus sent the Jews home, then:
In the first hypothesis:
North - Would seem to be about Assyria as destination for both black and white. South would have to be Egypt and be about the dappled horses. That would leave the lat two in the list - Babylon and Medo-Persia to the red horses, and that wold be to the east. So yes, we can make this fit.
In the second hypothesis:
We can't really even get off the ground. Greece and Rome are both to the west, so we would have to say the red horses go there. But the north? Neither Babylon or Medo-Persia is north and nothing in the list is to the South at all. By any stretch...
So let's take this as a really good argument that the first list is correct.
2026 - So after a long historical period of international war in the region, with Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Medo-Persia as the four nations participating in the wars of conquest, Cyrus sent the Jews home, and for at least the 16 years between the decree of Cyrus and Zechariah's time, there has not been any large scale war. That is what the four horses report. That peace if being enforced by God via the four creatures we see in three different places in the Bible.
2026 - Is this an enforced peace during the Millennial? Is that the far prophecy? I think not. I think peace in Jerusalem with the MoL set up in future Babylon makes better sense. He would surely not leave them alone if he could nuke them. Maybe this is the desert place to which the woman flees, maybe the MoL sends out water to annihilate them there and the earth soaks it up - trying to cross the Arabian Peninsula with an army to wipe them out? It's an idea...
And I am mentally exhausted - so reading on out from here.
After the eighth vision, we return to Zechariah's time. To narration instead of revelation. Zechariah told from the Lord to go to three men returning from exile, take gold and silver from them, and make a crown for Joshua the High Priest. He is to be crowned "the Branch" and is to complete the temple. He is "a" branch, I think, because "the" Branch is Jesus. There is also to be a priest on the throne with Joshua. But Joshua is already high priest...? Foretelling of the combining of those two offices in Christ? Per MSB, the clue is that Zechariah was to make a crown, as a King wears, and not a turban, as the priests wore. As I suspected...But God is setting this up in the OT. This leaves Zerubbabel out, he is not, nor is he ever, made a king. This because God said no descendant of xxxxx would ever sit on the throne and Zerubbabel is his "son". MSB lists 8 facts about Messiah in vs 12-15. They are worth reading. The one that struck me most is the phrase "Those who are far off will come and build the temple..." That is, Gentiles will be allowed in this city. Gentiles who have weathered Great Tribulation and remained true to God.
2025 - First and foremost, this is about Zechariah's time, and about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem at that time. However, we know also that the Branch is ultimately Christ. I think we might read into these verses that once Jesus arrives and sets up his kingdom, HE, the Branch, will build a new Temple in Jerusalem. This might be where the Ezekiel's Temple comes from. The Jews will return to the Millennial Kingdom, with Christ as both King and High Priest, and worship in that new Temple. This would further imply that the AoD, standing where he ought not, is in fact standing in some "other" temple, constructed by the beast as some kind of compromise with the Jews to restore peace and order to the world, and since he built it, he will be - claim to be - justified in being the one worshiped there.