“I looked up!
I saw four horns!
I asked the angel,
Who talked with me.
‘What are these?’
He answered me.
‘These are the horns
That have scattered
Judah.
They have scattered
Israel.
They have scattered
Jerusalem.’”
Zechariah looked up and saw 4 horns. Then he asked the angel that had been talking to him about what these horns were. The angel told him that these 4 horns represented the powerful nations of the world who had scattered the people of Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.
“Can your courage
Endure?
Can your hands
Remain strong,
In the days
When I shall deal
With you?
I,
Yahweh,
Have spoken.
I will do it.
I will scatter you
Among the nations.
I will disperse you
Throughout the countries.
I will purge
Your filthiness
Out of you.
I shall be profaned
Through you
In the sight
Of the nations.
You shall know
That I am Yahweh.”
Yahweh was going to scatter the people of Jerusalem into many other countries. He wanted to know if they had enough courage to endure this. Were their hands strong enough? He was going to deal with them. Yahweh was clear about what he was going to do. He was going to scatter and disperse them among the various nations and countries. He was going to purge the filthiness out of Jerusalem. Yahweh would be embarrassed that this scattering would take place in the sight of these other nations. They would all know that he was Yahweh, their God.
“So Judah
Went into exile
Out of its land.
This is the number
Of the people
Whom King Nebuchadnezzar
Took into exile.
In the seventh year.
There were
Three thousand twenty-three Judeans.”
There are specific details about the number of people being deported. In the first captivity, around the time of King Jehoiachin in 597 BCE, in the 7th year of the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar, about 3,023 Judeans went into captivity.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 