Scripture Daily

Context No. 397 of 4322 · Zechariah

Context · Reflection

Zechariah 6:1-7: in context

1Again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of bronze. 2In the first chariot were red horses. In the second chariot were black horses. 3In the third chariot were white horses. In the fourth chariot were dappled horses, all of them powerful. 4Then I asked the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” 5The angel answered me, “These are the four winds of the sky, which go out from standing before the Lord of all the earth. 6The one with the black horses goes out toward the north country; and the white went out after them; and the dappled went out toward the south country.” 7The strong went out, and sought to go that they might walk back and forth through the earth. He said, “Go around and through the earth!” So they walked back and forth through the earth.

Zechariah sees a strange vision: four chariots coming out from between two mountains of bronze, drawn by horses of different colors, red, black, white, and dappled, all of them strong. When he asks the angel what they are, the answer opens the meaning. These are the four winds, or spirits, of heaven, the angel says, going out from standing before the Lord of all the earth. And then they are dispatched, one team toward the north, another toward the south, sent out with a command: go, patrol the earth. And they go, ranging back and forth across the whole world.

The picture is of God's active oversight of the entire earth. The chariots do not wander on their own; they come out from standing before the Lord of all the earth, from his very presence, and they are sent in every direction, north and south and to and fro, so that no region of the world is left unpatrolled. The bronze mountains are the gateway of heaven, and out of God's throne room ride agents commissioned to cover the whole earth. Nothing is off the map. There is no corner so remote, no situation so hidden, that it lies outside the range of the ones sent out from before the Lord of all the earth. The world Zechariah's people thought had forgotten them, a small returned community in a wrecked city, was in fact being patrolled in every direction by the servants of its true King.

That vision is meant to steady a people who feel overlooked and out of the way, and it can steady me the same way. I sometimes imagine that some corner of the world, or some corner of my own life, has slipped off God's radar, too remote or too small or too hidden for his attention. Zechariah saw the opposite: the whole earth patrolled, in every direction, by those who ride out from God's own presence. What part of my life have I quietly assumed is outside God's oversight and reach, when the Lord of all the earth has the entire world under patrol?

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