Zechariah 1:18

"And I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold four horns."

We do not hesitate to identify these horns as "the powers of the world, which rise up in hostility against Judah and hurt it."[33] "Horns" when used figuratively, typify power and strength; and in Daniel 8:3, they specifically stand for mighty world powers. Leupold appeared to back away from this interpretation, saying, "The difficulty would be to pick out the four powers that have scattered Judah.[34] We do not consider that a difficulty. These four horns correspond to the great scarlet beast that the apostle John saw rising out of the sea (Revelation 13). The horns here correspond exactly to the first four heads of that beast, despite the fact of different metaphors being used. We identified the seven heads of the sea beast as: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the religious tyranny that succeeded Rome. In each case, the great monolithic "head" of the beast was a persecuting power against God's people and enjoyed worldwide authority. At the time Zechariah wrote, the Jews were living in the times of the fourth of these seven monolithic enemies of God's peoples; and indeed they (in a collective sense) were the powers that had devastated, scattered, and destroyed Israel. How appropriately therefore were these four great world powers identified as "horns" enemical to the people of God. No other understanding of these horns fills the bill exactly as does this interpretation.

Higginson affirmed that they might mean "danger on every side"[35] just as we might speak of the four points of the compass; but as Keil noted, "The number four here does not point to the four quarters of heaven."[36] There was no danger to Israel front any quarter except from the capital of the Medo-Persian government. The error of some interpreters here is that of trying to make the horns represent dangers to Israel in Zeehariah's time; but there is a much wider sweep to his prophecy than that.

The great 19th century scholar, Adam Clarke, identified these horns perfectly, as, "The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Chaldaeans, and Persians."[37] Gill and other writers hesitate to accept this explanation, because it was the Medo-Persians who overthrew the Babylonians and sponsored the return of the exiles to Jerusalem.[38] Although that is true, such an attitude was characteristic of the fourth horn only at the outset. It was precisely this power that eventually plotted the murder of every Jew in the empire and the confiscation of all their wealth through the wicked devices of Haman, a threat so serious that it required the intervention of God Himself to prevent it. That one event entitles them to be classified with the others as the powers that "scattered Judah."

Ironside identified the four horns as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome;[39] and, although those four powers were of the same character as all the other "heads" of the scarlet colored beast, two of them had not appeared upon the stage of history when Zechariah was written. It seems more logical to see the first four of the "seven heads" here instead of the "third, fourth, fifth, and sixth."

The horns of this vision represented powers that had scattered Judah; but, as Pusey pointed out, Judah was never threatened by four great powers moving simultaneously; and, from this, he properly concluded that the horns represent successive world-powers that were hostile to the people of God.[40] This appears to us to be absolutely correct.