The night visions end where the very first one began — with chariots patrolling the whole earth — and then the book steps out of vision entirely into a single, physical, public act: a crown set on a priest’s own head, for a king who has not been born yet.
A study in Zechariah 6 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 16 min read
Four Chariots Out From Between Two Mountains
“And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses; And in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses.”
Zechariah 6:1-3
The eighth and final night vision closes the whole series by returning almost exactly to where it began — chapter 1 opened with a single rider on a red horse patrolling the earth; this vision closes with four full chariots doing the same work on a larger scale. Bronze, in ancient symbolism, typically represents unshakeable strength, and mountains of it framing the scene suggest these chariots emerge from something entirely stable and permanent.
“Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord? And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth. The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country; and the white go forth after them; and the grisled go forth toward the south country. And the bay went forth, and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth: and he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth. So they walked to and fro through the earth. Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying, Behold, these that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country.”
Zechariah 6:4-8
“The north country” is Babylon’s own direction from Judah — the very empire that had held Israel captive — and God’s own closing comment, that the chariots sent there “have quieted my spirit,” suggests that the settling of accounts with Babylon brought a specific and personal satisfaction. These four spirits, dispatched in every direction “to and fro through the earth,” complete the picture chapter 1 first introduced: God’s oversight of world events is neither distant nor passive. It moves.
Behold The Man Whose Name Is The Branch
“And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, even of Heldai, of Tobijah, and of Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, and come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah; Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest.”
Zechariah 6:9-11
The night visions end, and Zechariah is told to perform an actual public act instead of merely reporting one: recently returned exiles bring silver and gold, a crown is made, and it is placed — unexpectedly — on the head of Joshua the high priest, not a king. In Israel’s own history, priesthood and kingship had always been kept sharply separate (2 Chronicles 26:16-21 records what happened to King Uzziah when he tried to combine them). This coronation is a deliberate anomaly, meant to be noticed.
“And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD: Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”
Zechariah 6:12-13
Joshua himself is never actually named “the Branch” — the text pointedly says “behold the man whose name is the Branch,” describing someone else the coronation merely pictures. Joshua wears the crown; the prophecy speaks past him entirely to a still-future figure who will be both priest and king at once, something no ordinary Israelite ever could be. “The counsel of peace shall be between them both” describes a perfect harmony between two offices — and, as the fuller verse implies, between two persons — that this vision leaves unresolved for the reader to wonder about.
“The work of Christ as man’s intercessor is presented in that beautiful prophecy of Zechariah concerning Him ‘whose name is the Branch.’ Says the prophet: ‘He shall build the temple of the Lord; and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His … throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between Them both.’”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 415
This passage sits inside The Great Controversy’s own chapter establishing the doctrine of the heavenly sanctuary — White treats Zechariah’s coronation of Joshua as a direct prophecy of Christ’s own present ministry, priest and king simultaneously, ruling from a throne that is also an altar of intercession.
“‘He shall build the temple of the Lord.’ By His sacrifice and mediation Christ is both the foundation and the builder of the church of God. … ‘He shall bear the glory.’ To Christ belongs the glory of redemption for the fallen race. … He ‘shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne.’ Not now ‘upon the throne of His glory;’ the kingdom of glory has not yet been ushered in. … As a priest, Christ is now set down with the Father in His throne. … His intercession is that of a pierced and broken body, of a spotless life. The wounded hands, the pierced side, the marred feet, plead for fallen man, whose redemption was purchased at such infinite cost.”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 416
White walks through the verse phrase by phrase, and her distinction matters: Christ already reigns as priest-king today, but not yet “upon the throne of His glory” — that fuller kingdom waits until His mediatorial work is actually finished. What Joshua’s own borrowed crown could only symbolize for a moment in Zechariah’s own day, White reads as an ongoing present reality: a wounded, risen Christ, ruling and interceding at once, exactly as this ancient coronation pictured five centuries before He was born.
They That Are Far Off Shall Come And Build
“And the crowns shall be to Helem, and to Tobijah, and to Jedaiah, and to Hen the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the LORD. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.”
Zechariah 6:14-15
The crown itself is preserved afterward as a permanent, physical “memorial” inside the temple — a lasting reminder of a prophecy still waiting to be fulfilled, kept in plain sight rather than quietly set aside. Verse 15’s promise that “they that are far off shall come and build” extends the temple’s own construction crew beyond the local returned exiles to include people from much farther away, a small early hint of exactly the kind of Gentile inclusion chapter 2 had already promised. The chapter’s very last line, though, keeps everything conditional: this future depends on the same thing every promise in this book has depended on since chapter 1’s opening invitation — whether the people will actually “diligently obey the voice of the LORD.”
