Four horses and four craftsmen
Then I looked up—and there before me were four horns! 19 I asked the angel who was speaking to me, “What are these?”
He answered me, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.”
20 Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen. 21 I asked, “What are these coming to do?”
He answered, “These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one could raise his head, but the craftsmen have come to terrify them and throw down these horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter its people.”
Destruction comes with four horns. Deliverance comes through four craftsmen.
This little prophecy gives us a commentary on the work of the devil and on the work of God. The one is bent on destruction and ruin. The other is determined to save and reconstruct. Basically, the devil tries to destroy and root up. He uses the horn, the symbol of power, to accomplish this.
It is with the horn that the bull causes all of the damage his mighty body is capable of. All of his strength is focused on that one point as he charges angrily at his cowering victim. Here the horn is the symbol of the devil’s power. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil” (Ephesians 6:12).
The Lord, on the other hand, is a craftsman of singular accomplishment. He takes what is ruined, bent, and spoiled and repairs, restores, and redeems it. When there was no hope, when “no one could raise his head,” he came and worked in his mighty way. Then, in turn, the great Craftsman, who summons his craftsmen, is going to place the powers of evil in a place of terror and destruction. The Craftsman is finally going to destroy. Hell is real, and hell is not remedial. Hell is the place of terror reserved for all the nations who used power to scatter God’s people.