Zechariah 1:18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Behold, four horns— In this second vision, under the emblem of four horns, is represented, that God, by such agents as he would appoint, would quell and bring down all those powers which had risen, or should rise, to oppress his people. Horns are an usual emblem of strength and power; and because those fierce beasts that have them, push and gore with them, and, tossing them furiously about, scatter and drive all before them, they aptly denote conquering and oppressive princes and states. See Daniel 7; Daniel 8. But whether the number four is used indefinitely, or to denote that specific number, and, if the latter, what particular Powers are pointed out by it, is a question that has been much agitated, but not satisfactorily determined. Several quaternions have been named, but with no other effect than to make the matter more doubtful. The most ancient and prevailing opinion among the Jews themselves, and perhaps the most probable of any, is, that the four great empires, the Assyrian or Babylonian, the Persian, Grecian, and Roman, which most certainly were alluded to by the four beasts in the seventh chapter of Daniel, and I think are designed by the four chariots in the last of these eight visions, chap. 6: are here likewise intended; by each of which the Jewish nation has been in turns oppressed, and all of them have been successively brought down, and annihilated; although from the depression of the last the Jews have not as yet apparently derived any considerable advantage.