And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these?” So he answered me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
Parallel translations
- WEB I asked the angel who talked with me, “What are these?” He answered me, “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
- KJV And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What be these? And he answered me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.
- BSB So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these?” And he told me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
- NASB So I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these?” And he said to me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
- NLT “What are these?” I asked the angel who was talking with me. He replied, “These horns represent the nations that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The angel explains the horns are the powers that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. They represent the nations that dispersed God's people.
Overview
The four horns stand for the successive empires and enemies that broke up and exiled God's covenant people. Naming Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem encompasses the whole nation's suffering. The vision validates the people's pain while preparing for the next scene, where God raises up agents to overthrow these very powers.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Zech 2:2Then I asked, “Where are you going?” He said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.”
- Ezra 4:4Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building.
- Zech 1:21Then I asked, “What are these coming to do?” He said, “These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations, which lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”
- Zech 8:14For Yahweh of Armies says: “As I thought to do evil to you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I didn’t repent;
- Jer 50:17–18“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”
- Ezra 4:7In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in Syrian, and delivered in the Syrian language.
- Ezra 4:1Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity were building a temple to Yahweh, the God of Israel;
- Zech 1:9Then I asked, ‘My lord, what are these?’” The angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.”
- Hab 3:14You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret.
- Rev 7:13–14One of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and from where did they come?”
- Ezra 5:3At the same time Tattenai, the governor beyond the River came to them, with Shetharbozenai, and their companions, and asked them, “Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall?”
- Amos 6:13you who rejoice in a thing of nothing, who say, ‘Haven’t we taken for ourselves horns by our own strength?’
- Dan 12:7I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it shall be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.
- Zech 4:11–14Then I asked him, “What are these two olive trees on the right side of the lamp stand and on the left side of it?”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Branch who is both priest and king, the shepherd struck and the flock scattered, the king coming humble on a donkey, the one they pierced, the fountain opened for sin — Zechariah is dense with Christ.
How Zechariah 1:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.