THE SECOND VISION: THE FOUR HORNS AND THE FOUR SMITHS (ii. 1–4 Heb., i. 18–21 Eng.).
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Smith, George Adam and Nicoll, W. Robertson (William Robertson), Sir
The Second Vision supplies what is lacking in the First, the destruction of the tyrants who have oppressed Israel. The prophet sees four horns, which, he is told by his interpreting angel, are the powers that have scattered Judah. The many attempts to identify these with four heathen nations are ingenious but futile.
“Four horns were seen as representing the totality of Israel’s enemies—her enemies from all quarters.”[809] And to destroy these horns four smiths appear. Because in the Vision the horns are of iron, in Israel an old symbol of power, the first verb used of the action can hardly be, as in the Hebrew text, to terrify. The Greek reads sharpen, and probably some verb meaning to cut or chisel stood in the original.[810]
And I lifted mine eyes and looked, and lo! four horns. And I said to the angel who spoke with me, What are these? And he said to me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.[811] And Jehovah showed me four smiths. And I said, What are these coming to do? And He spake, saying, These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that none lifted up his head;[812] and these are come to ...[813] them, to strike down the horns of the nations, that lifted the horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.