Zechariah 1:20

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁸Then I looked up and saw four horns. ¹⁹So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, "What are these?" And he told me, "These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem." ²⁰Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen.²¹"What are these coming to do?" I asked. And He replied, "These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one could raise his head; but the craftsmen have come to terrify them and throw down these horns of the nations that lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter it."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

four: Zechariah 9:12-16, Zechariah 10:3-5, Zechariah 12:2-6, Deuteronomy 33:25, Judges 11:16, Judges 11:18, 1 Samuel 12:11, Nehemiah 9:27, Isaiah 54:15-17, Obadiah 1:21, Micah 5:5, Micah 5:6, Micah 5:8, Micah 5:9

Reciprocal: 2 Kings 8:10 - the Lord Psalms 75:10 - All the horns Jeremiah 24:1 - Lord Amos 7:1 - showed Zechariah 10:4 - of him came forth

Cross-References

Genesis 1:7
So God made the expanse and separated the waters beneath it from the waters above. And it was so.

Genesis 1:14
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years.

Genesis 1:22
Then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

Genesis 1:24
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and wild animals according to their kinds." And it was so.

Genesis 1:25
God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:30
And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth-everything that has the breath of life in it-I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.

Genesis 2:19
And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 8:17
Bring out all the living creatures that are with you-birds, livestock, and everything that crawls upon the ground-so that they can spread out over the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it."

1 Kings 4:33
He spoke of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing in the wall, and he taught about animals, birds, reptiles, and fish.

Psalms 148:10
wild animals and all cattle, crawling creatures and flying birds,

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the Lord showed me four carpenters. To saw and cut in pieces the four horns; or rather "four blacksmiths" y; these horns were horns of iron; so the word is rendered a "smith" in 1 Samuel 13:19 and indeed it signifies both a worker in wood and a worker in iron; and who are sometimes distinguished by what they work in, whether wood or iron; see Isaiah 44:12. The Jews say z these four carpenters are Messiah ben David, Messiah ben Ephraim, Elijah, and the priest of righteousness; or, as elsewhere a, Elijah, the King Messiah, Melchizedek, and he that was anointed for war; though Kimchi much better interprets them of the kings, the princes above, who preside over kingdoms, that is, the angels; and so Jerom and Theodoret; who have been sometimes employed in the destruction of the enemies of God's people, or in preventing them doing the mischief they otherwise would; and even the several monarchies themselves have been the means of destroying each other; so the Babylonians were destroyed by the Medes and Persians; the Persians by the Grecians; the Grecians by the Romans; and the Romans by the Goths, Hunns, Vandals, c. in the western part of the empire and by the Saracens and Turks in the eastern part of it: and they may be applied to the apostles of Christ, who were chiefly mechanics, mean and illiterate persons, yet workmen in the Gospel, that need not to be ashamed; and who were sent by Christ into the four parts of the world, to spread his Gospel, set up his interest, and pull down the kingdom of Satan: and since the Jews make the Messiah himself one of these carpenters, they have no reason to upbraid or be offended at Jesus our Messiah being a carpenter, and a carpenter's son, as in

Matthew 13:55 and Kimchi owns that their ancient Rabbins explain this verse of the days of the Messiah.

y חרשים "fabros ferrarios", Pembellus, Sanctius, Burkius. z T. Bab. Succa, fol. 52. 2. a Shirhashirim Rabba, fol. 11. 4. Vid. Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 111. 4.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Zechariah 1:20. Four carpenters. — Four other powers, who should defeat the powers intended by the horns. These are the same as the four chariots mentioned Zechariah 6:1-3; Zechariah 6:6-7. The first was NABOPOLASSAR, father of Nebuchadnezzar, who overturned the empire of the Assyrians. The second was CYRUS, who destroyed the empire of the Chaldeans. The third was ALEXANDER the Great, who destroyed the empire of the Persians. And the fourth was PTOLEMY, who rendered himself master of Egypt. Some of these had already been cast down; the rest were to follow. Calmet gives this interpretation, and vindicates it at length.