Zechariah 6:1

The next thing Zechariah saw in his night visions was four chariots coming out from between two bronze mountains. Due to the increasing repetition of "come forth" or "go forth" (Heb. yasa’) through the series of eight visions, the careful reader feels a developing sense of intensity in the activity being described that reaches its climax in this vision (Zechariah 6:8). Chariots were instruments of judgment, and bronze is a color that often carries this connotation in Scripture (cf. Exodus 27:2; Numbers 21:9). William Kelly and others believed the four chariots represent the four great kingdoms in Daniel’s prophecy (Daniel 2; Daniel 7). [Note: William Kelly, Lectures Introductory to the Study of the Minor Prophets, p. 461.] This seems unlikely. [Note: See Feinberg, God Remembers, pp. 95-97, or Keil, 2:287, for refutation.]

Bronze was used to defend against attackers (Isaiah 45:2; Jeremiah 1:18), so perhaps impregnability is also in view. Some interpreters believed the color bronze was due to the rising sun. This results, in the interpretations of some, in the first vision taking place at evening and the last at sunrise. [Note: See G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2:287.] Leupold referred to the commentators who take this view as letting "their fancy play at this point." [Note: Leupold, p. 110.]

Perhaps the mountains represent the gateway to heaven from which these agents of judgment come. [Note: Baldwin, p. 130; McComiskey, p. 1106.] Another more probable view is that they were Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives with the valley between being the Kidron Valley. [Note: Barker, p. 636; Keil, 2:287; Unger, p. 101; Feinberg, God Remembers, p. 95; idem, "Zechariah," p. 903.] A third possibility is that they are the two parts of the Mount of Olives that will split apart when Messiah returns to the earth (cf. Zechariah 14:1-8). Nevertheless they are "bronze."

"Always in Scripture symbolism, they [chariots and horses] stand for the power of God earthward in judgment (Jeremiah 46:9-10; Joel 2:3-11; Nahum 3:1-7). The vision, then, speaks of the LORD’s judgments upon the Gentile nations north and south in the day of the LORD (Isaiah 2:10-22; Revelation 19:11-21)." [Note: The New Scofield . . ., p. 968.]