SUMMARY
Two visions – one of engravers punishing horns for what they did to the Israelites, and another of two women taking wickedness in a prison-basket to Shinar dramatically depict God removing troubles from God’s people.
ANALYSIS
Zechariah’s second vision is of four horns that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Frequently interpreters will conflate these four horns with the nations of Daniel 2 and 7 (Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Romans). This is probably a mistake, because it would not have made sense to Zechariah’s hearers as nations that had scattered Israelites. If anything, Medo-Persians were gathering Jews, rather than scattering them. Instead, reading the horns of Zechariah 1 as a gloss of EzekielEzekiel was a priest and prophet who was raised in Jerusalem and exiled to Babylon in 597 BCE. 25, which was one of the former prophets alluded to a few verses earlier, makes more sense in the context. So, the candidates for the four horns are more likely to be Ammon (Ezekiel 25:1-7), Moab (Ezekiel 25:8-11), Edom (Ezekiel 25:12-14), and Philistia (Ezekiel 25:15-17). Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt are also candidates, but were conquered either before Zechariah’s time by the Babylonians, or afterward by the Greeks. According to this interpretation, the four engravers/craftsmen that cast down the horns should be understood as four Medo-Persian kings: Darius I, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and Darius II.
Reading with the rabbis of the TalmudThe Talmud is one of the most important texts of Judaism., the four horns and engravers take on eschatological importance. The horns are the nations that exiled Jews (Assyria, Babylon, potentially Greece, Rome, and potentially Arabs or Spain). Rav Hana and Rav Simeon Hasida identify the four craftsmen as the two messiahs (see Zechariah 4:14), the great high priestThe high priest was the most powerful priest in the temple in Jerusalem. The high priest Caiaphas held the office during the trial of Jesus. Later, in the New Testament book of Hebrews, the role of merciful high priest is ascribed to the resurrected Jesus./servant (see Zechariah 3:8-9), and Elijah, the prophet (see Malachi 4:5-6) (BT Sukkah 52b). What remains clear is that the nations have been a problem, and God will raise up leaders to save the people.
Turning toward the seventh vision, two women with wings haul a basket with a lead lid, in which is imprisoned wickedness, symbolized by a woman, off to Shinar, or Babylonia. There in Shinar, they will build a templeThe Jerusalem temple, unlike the tabernacle, was a permanent structure, although (like the tabernacle) it was a place of worship and religious activity. On one occasion Jesus felt such activity was unacceptable and, as reported in all four Gospels, drove from the temple those engaged... to wickedness, and she will stay there, well outside of the land. The Land has been cleansed, wickedness removed to Babylon, and the people are allowed to stay.
