Zechariah 1:7 Commentary and Bible Study

Haggai’s final prophecy had been given in the ninth month of the second year of Darius, and so this comes only two months later. The two prophets are ministering close together. But now the tone changes. ‘I saw by night’ – it was a night vision; it is the beginning of a series of visions all given in the same night. Unlike a dream, a vision is a waking experience. These visions and their symbols are practically all explained in the book, or in other parts of the Bible, or else have obviously derived meanings. ‘And behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom’ – that is to say, in the bottom of a deep valley – ‘and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.’ It would seem that there is a whole troop of them red, speckled, and white, and their colours indicate their role, their effect, as they ride out into the world. The horses would have symbolised definite things to those people. They appear again in a separate vision in Zechariah 6 in which a fourth black coloured horse features. The four coloured horses are said to be ‘the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth’ (Zechariah 6:5), and they patrol throughout the whole earth (Zechariah 6:7). The same symbolic horses also appear in Revelation 6, where the meaning of the different colours is explained in more detail. The red horse represents carnage and bloodshed. ‘Power was given to him that sat [upon the red horse] to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword’ (Revelation 6:4). The white horse has an opposite effect and is described in Revelation as going forth ‘conquering, and to conquer.’ In Revelation it is Christ who rides this horse (Revelation 11:19), and the conquest referred to is conquest that brings peace with God through the gospel. The speckled horse corresponds to the bay or grizzled horse of Zechariah 6:3, which seems to be the pale horse of Revelation 6:8 signifying death. These represent God’s messengers. God is in charge of history and he permits only his will to happen; he has the power to bring wars on mankind and to bring peace also. He is constantly getting victory for himself. ‘And then said I, Oh my Lord, what are these?’ and there is an explaining angel. ‘The angel that talked with me said unto me, I will show thee what these be.’ The myrtle is a low bush which Leupold describes as ‘never exceeding a height of eight feet.’ It lets out a sweet smell when its leaves are crushed and bruised. It fittingly represents the people of God in the world, for they are generally not among the great ones of the earth and are looked down on as having little significance to an unbelieving world. Nevertheless they are important both to the man in the vision and to the angel since they are mentioned three times in the following verses and each time in connection with one of them. After the last mention however, the vision switches to speak of Jerusalem and cities of Judah and the myrtle tress are not referred to again, suggesting strongly that the myrtle trees themselves represent the people of God. They are dense but humble trees, and they are in a deep valley, which probably, taking the obvious sense, means that Zion is at a time of declension, a time of spiritual depression. The angel who speaks with Zechariah is not the one on the horse; it is the interpreting angel. This angel is later called ‘the angel of the LORD’, a term often used to speak of Christ in his pre-incarnate state.