The golden lampstand and the olive trees
4
📚And the angel who talked with me 📖 came back, and wakened me, as a man that is wakened from his sleep 📖, 2 📚and said to me, “What do you see?” And I said, “I look and see a lampstand 📖 of solid gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are on the top of it, 3 📚and two olive trees beside it, one on the right side of the bowl, and the other on its left”. 4 📚So I responded and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?”
5 📚Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord”.
4:4-5 The angel’s question may suggest that Zechariah should have known the meaning of the lampstand and olive trees.⚜
6 📚Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit’, says the LORD of hosts 📖.
4:6 Zerubbabel as one of the “olive trees” must not think he could minister to Israel in a proper way or accomplish God’s work in his own strength. He needed the fullness of God’s Spirit. This is the “oil” that needed to pour through him to the people (v 12). Compare 2 Cor 12:9-10.⚜
7 📚“Who are you, O great mountain 📖? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain. And he will bring out its capstone 📖 with shouts, calling out, ‘Grace, grace to it.’ ”
8 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 📚“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation 📖 of this house. His hands will also finish it 📖, and you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.
10 📚“For who has despised the day of small things 📖? For those seven will rejoice, and will see the plumb line 📖 in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes 📖 of the LORD, which range throughout the whole earth”.
11 📚Then I answered and said to him, “What are these two olive trees on the right and on the left of the lampstand?”
12 📚And I responded further and said to him, “What are these two olive branches beside the two gold pipes which empty the golden oil 📖 from themselves?”
13 📚And he answered me and said, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord”.
4:13 Verse 5.⚜
14 📚Then said he, “These are the two anointed ones 📖, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth”.