The Eight Night Visions

In a single night, Zechariah receives eight visions that follow one another, and an angel explains them to him as they come: “What are these, my lord? And the angel who spoke with me said: I will show you what these are.” Zechariah 1:9. These visions form a single movement, from the edges of the world to the heart of Jerusalem, then from outside the city to within the hearts. The first ones look at the nations and the lot of the scattered people; the last ones look at the sin that must be taken away from the purified land. All answer one same question, the one the angel puts to God at the threshold of the night: how long will Jerusalem remain without consolation?

The horseman among the myrtles

The first vision answers this question at once. Zechariah sees a man mounted on a red horse, stopped among myrtles in a shaded place, and behind him other horsemen: “I had a vision in the night: behold, a man was mounted on a red horse, and he stood among myrtles in a shaded place, and behind him were red, sorrel and white horses.” Zechariah 1:8. These horsemen are God’s messengers who range over the earth, and they come back with a report: “We have ranged over the earth, and behold, all the earth is inhabited and at rest.” Zechariah 1:11. This rest of the world is the drama of the people: the nations live in peace while Jerusalem lies in the dust. The angel then brings the complaint before God: “Lord of hosts, how long will you have no pity on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?” Zechariah 1:12. The answer overturns the situation. God declares himself jealous for his city and angry at the nations that abused their rest to deepen the people’s misfortune: “I have been moved with a great jealousy for Jerusalem and for Zion; and I am moved with a great wrath against the nations that live in ease.” Zechariah 1:14-15. And he announces his return: “I return to Jerusalem with compassion; my house will be rebuilt there, and the measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.” Zechariah 1:16. The measuring line is the surveyor’s tool: God measures the city in order to rebuild it, and the vision sets the tone of all that follow, the return of God toward his own.

The four horns and the smiths

The second vision looks at the powers that struck the people. Zechariah sees four horns, and the angel gives their meaning: “These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.” Zechariah 2:2. In the Bible, the horn is the image of the force that strikes, that of the bull or the ram; the four horns are the powers come from the four horizons to scatter the people. Then God shows four smiths who come in their turn: “These are the horns that scattered Judah, and these have come to strike them with terror, to cast down the horns of the nations that raised the horn against the land of Judah.” Zechariah 2:4. To each force that struck answers a hand that casts it down. The vision teaches that the powers that scattered the people do not have the last word: God raises up against them what will break them, and the scattering will not prevail.

The man with the measuring line

The third vision takes up the image of the measuring line announced in the first. Zechariah sees a man holding a line to measure Jerusalem: “I lifted my eyes and saw: behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand.” Zechariah 2:5. But the angel stops the measurer, for the city to come will overflow every measure: “Jerusalem will be inhabited like an open town, so many will be the men and beasts within her.” Zechariah 2:8. The promised Jerusalem will have no walls because her protection will be God himself: “And I will be for her a wall of fire all around, and I will be in glory in her midst.” Zechariah 2:9. The city needs no ramparts of stone when God makes himself her rampart. The vision then widens to the nations, who are no longer only the enemies of the first visions but peoples called to enter: “Many nations will attach themselves to the Lord on that day, and they will be my people; and I will dwell in your midst.” Zechariah 2:15. God’s return is not for Jerusalem alone; it opens the city to the peoples of the world.

Joshua the high priest

The fourth vision stands at the centre of the eight, and it touches the heart of the people, its priesthood. Zechariah sees the high priest Joshua standing before the angel, and the accuser at his right: “He showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord; and Satan stood at his right to oppose him.” Zechariah 3:1. The Hebrew word rendered “accuser”, satan (שָׂטָן), names the adversary who frames the accusation; he stands at the right, the prosecutor’s place in a trial. Joshua is covered with filthy garments, image of the unworthiness of a priesthood marked by the people’s sin: “Now Joshua was covered with filthy garments and stood before the angel.” Zechariah 3:3. God silences the accuser and orders these garments removed: “Take off his filthy garments. See, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I have clothed you in festal robes.” Zechariah 3:4. The high priest is justified not by his merits but by the pardon granted to him: it is God who takes away the iniquity and clothes anew. This purification of Joshua raises up the whole priesthood, and through it the worship of the Temple being rebuilt.

The lampstand and the two olive trees

The fifth vision is wholly light. Zechariah sees a golden lampstand with seven lamps, with a bowl at the top and two olive trees on either side: “I saw, and behold a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl at its top, bearing its seven lamps; and two olive trees beside it, one to the right of the bowl, the other to its left.” Zechariah 4:2-3. The oil flows from the olive trees into the bowl, and from the bowl into the lamps, without a human hand: the light depends on no human force. This is the meaning of the word that governs the vision, addressed to the governor Zerubbabel who rebuilds the Temple: “Not by an army, nor by force, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” Zechariah 4:6. The work will be done, not by the power of men, but by the Spirit of God who feeds it as the oil feeds the flame. And the seven lamps of this lampstand are the very eyes of God: “These seven lamps are the eyes of the Lord, which range over all the earth.” Zechariah 4:10. His gaze watches over the work he accomplishes by his Spirit. The angel then names the two olive trees: “These are the two sons of the anointing who stand near the Lord of all the earth.” Zechariah 4:14. The two anointed are the king Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua, through whom God leads his people; they are not the source of the oil but the channels through which it passes.

The flying scroll

The last three visions turn toward the sin that must leave the land. Zechariah first sees a vast scroll flying over the earth: “I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits.” Zechariah 5:2. Its dimensions, twenty cubits by ten (about ten metres by five), are those of a great proclamation spread open in broad daylight. This scroll carries a curse that strikes two named faults, theft and false oath: “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land; whoever steals will be swept away from here, and whoever swears falsely will be swept away from here.” Zechariah 5:3. The thief sins against his neighbour, the perjurer sins against God by swearing falsely by his name; the two faults sum up sin against men and against God. The curse enters into the very heart of the guilty houses to consume them: the land where God returns to dwell must be purified of injustice.

The woman in the ephah

The seventh vision shows sin itself carried out of the land. Zechariah sees an ephah, the great grain measure, and a woman sitting within: “This is the ephah that appears. And behold, a disc of lead was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the middle of the ephah.” Zechariah 5:6-7. The angel names this woman: “This woman is wickedness.” Zechariah 5:8, and he pushes her back to the bottom of the measure, which a heavy lid of lead closes again. Then two winged women carry the ephah between heaven and earth toward the land of Shinar, that is, the plain of Babylon: “They carry it off to build a house for it in the land of Shinar.” Zechariah 5:11. The evil is shut in, sealed and led back to the very place of the exile, far from the land that God purifies. Where the scroll struck the faults one by one, this vision seizes iniquity in person and drives it wholly out of the land.

The four chariots

The eighth vision closes the night by taking up its opening. As the first showed horsemen sent through all the earth, the last shows four chariots that go out toward the four winds: “And behold four chariots coming out from between the two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze.” Zechariah 6:1. The angel names them: “These are the four winds of heaven that have just stood before the Lord of all the earth.” Zechariah 6:5. The four winds designate the four directions of space, north, south, east and west: to say that the chariots go out toward the four winds is to say that they reach every point of the horizon, the whole earth. They go out to carry out the orders of God to the four corners of the world, a sign that his mastery extends everywhere. The night ends on a word of appeasement about the land of the north, from which the oppressor had come: “Those who went out toward the land of the north have set my spirit at rest in the land of the north.” Zechariah 6:8. God’s anger against the oppressor is satisfied; the account is settled. The eight visions, begun from the complaint “how long?”, end on the rest of God: he has returned to Jerusalem, cast down the powers, purified the priesthood, driven out iniquity and brought all the earth under his word.