Overthrown by craftsmen

The four horns of Zechariah’s second night vision (1:18) are likely horns of an altar, an altar of false worship that scatters Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Four craftsmen, horns of power in their own right, appear on the scene to thrown down the threatening horns.

The word for “craftsman” is variously translated as engraver, jeweler, carpenter, or more generically as “craftsman.” And in that sense, Zechariah is saying that the Lord will throw down Israel’s enemies through labor. In Zechariah’s setting, though, the word has a more specific connotation. It is used frequently to refer to the laborers who built the tabernacle and temple (Exodus 35:34-35; 38:23; 1 Kings 7:13-14; Ezra 3:6-7). Zechariah is not merely talking about laborers in general but encouraging the people to keep re-building the temple. The altars of false gods will be cast down, but the flip side is that the Lord’s house must be built if Israel is going to be delivered from her oppressors.

No doubt this kind of prophecy was in the minds of Jewish zealots who challenged Rome in the first century A.D.