Zechariah 4:3

And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:1-7 The prophet's spirit was willing to attend, but the flesh was weak. We should beg of God that, whenever he speaks to us, he would awaken us, and we should then stir up ourselves. The church is a golden candlestick, or lamp-bearer, set up for enlightening this dark world, and holding forth the light of Divine revelation. Two olive trees were seen, one on each side the candlestick, from which oil flowed into the bowl without ceasing. God brings to pass his gracious purposes concerning his church, without any art or labour of man; sometimes he makes use of his instruments, yet he needs them not. This represented the abundance of Divine grace, for the enlightening and making holy the ministers and members of the church, and which cannot be procured or prevented by any human power. The vision assures us that the good work of building the temple, should be brought to a happy end. The difficulty is represented as a great mountain. But all difficulties shall vanish, and all the objections be got over. Faith will remove mountains, and make them plains. Christ is our Zerubbabel; mountains of difficulty were in the way of his undertaking, but nothing is too hard for him. What comes from the grace of God, may, in faith, be committed to the grace of God, for he will not forsake the work of his own hands.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And I said, I have looked and behold a candlestick all of gold - The candlestick is the seven-branched candlestick of the tabernacle Exodus 25:31, but with variations purposely introduced to symbolize the fuller and more constant supply of the oil, itself the symbol of God's Holy Spirit, who:

"Enables with perpetual light

The dullness of our blinded sight."

The first variation is "her bowl on the top of the candlestick," containing the oil; then (as dependent on this) the pipes to derive the oil into each lamp, "seven several pipes to the seven lamps," that is, seven to each; and the two olive trees on either side of the bowl, whose extreme and fine branches poured through two golden pipes the golden oil into the bowl which supplied the lamp. The multiplied conduits imply the large and perfect supply of oil unceasingly supplied, the seven being symbolic of perfection or of the reconciling of God (symbolized by 3) unto the world (symbolized by 4, its four quarters); the spontaneous flow of the golden oil from the olive trees symbolizes the free gift of God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. two olive trees—supplying oil to the bowl. The Holy Ghost, who fills with His fulness Messiah (the anointed: the "bowl"), from whom flow supplies of grace to the Church.

by it—literally, "upon it," that is, growing so as somewhat to overtop it. For the explanation of the "two" see Zec 4:12, 14.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Two olive trees; some say branches; better trees, which, well rooted, will continue, and perpetually supply the bowls, and that will supply the lamps.

One; not more, or fewer than two.

Upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof; so placed that the candlestick stood between them, and each tree stood at distance from the candlestick, on the right and left hand thereof, that they might distil their oil into the bason or bowl: all which is an emblem of the church, both what it is made of, pure gold; what made for, to be light in the world; to shine as lamps that continually burn, maintained with pure oil, distilled from the olive trees, not pressed out by man, but continually, freely, and abundantly dropping or flowing from these olive trees.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the two olive trees by it,.... Which are explained in; see Gill on Zechariah 4:14,

one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof; in Zechariah 4:11 they are said to be on the right and left sides of the bowl or candlestick, which is the same; for the situation of them was alike, with respect to the one and the other: according to Fortunatus Scacchus, these two olive trees did not arise out of the earth, and the top of the candlestick; but out of the base of the candlestick, one on the right hand of the bowl, which hung in the middle of the candlestick; and the other on the left (o), of which he has given the figure.

(o) Ibid. (Sacer. Elaeochrism, Myrothec. l. 1.) c. 12. p. 62.

Geneva Study Bible

And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. two olive trees] We learn afterwards (Zechariah 4:11-12) that each of these had a fruit-bearing “branch,” which “emptied itself” (its oil) by a golden tube into the oil-bowl of the candlestick. Human agency is again set aside. The berries become oil without the aid of man.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - Two olive trees. These, as explained in ver. 12, discharged the oil from their fruit-bearing branches into conduits which led to the central reservoir. Without man's agency the oil is separated from the berry and keeps the lamps constantly supplied (comp. Revelation 2:4). Zechariah 4:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Zechariah 4:1. "And the angel that talked with me returned and waked me, like a man who is waked out of his sleep." After the prophet has seen four visions one after another, probably with very short intervals, and has heard the marvellous interpretation of them, he is so overpowered by the impression produced by what he has seen and heard, that he falls into a state of spiritual exhaustion resembling sleep, just as Peter and his companions were unable to keep awake at the transfiguration of Christ (Luke 9:32). He has not only fallen back into the state of ordinary human consciousness, but his ordinary spiritual consciousness was so depressed that he resembled a man asleep, and had to be waked out of this sleep-like state by the mediating angel, in order to be qualified for further seeing. It is evident from the expression ויּשׁב (and he returned) that the angelus interpres had left the prophet after the termination of the previous visions, and now came back to him again. The fresh vision which presents itself to his spiritual intuition, is described according to its principal features in Zechariah 4:2 and Zechariah 4:3. Zechariah 4:2. "And he said to me, What seest thou? And I said, I see, and behold a candlestick all of gold, and its oil-vessel up above it, and its seven lamps upon it, seven pipes each for the lamps upon the top of it. Zechariah 4:3. And two olive trees (oil trees) by it, one to the right of the oil-vessel, and one to the left of it." The second ויאמר (chethib) in Zechariah 4:2 might, if necessary, be explained in the way proposed by L. de Dieu, Gusset., and Hofmann, viz., by supposing that the mediating angel had no sooner asked the prophet what he saw, than he proceeded, without waiting for his answer, to give a description himself of what was seen. But this is at variance with the analogy of all the rest of the visions, where the visions seen by the prophet are always introduced with ראיתי or ואראה followed by והנּה (cf. Zechariah 1:8; Zechariah 2:1, Zechariah 2:5; Zechariah 5:1; Zechariah 6:1), and it remains quite inflexible; so that we must accept the keri ואמר, which is adopted by the early translators, and found in many codd., as being the true reading, and pronounce ויאמר a copyist's error. On the combination מנורת זהב כּלּהּ, in which the last two words are construed as a relative clause in subordination to menōrath, see Ewald, 332, c.

The visionary candlestick, all of gold, with its seven lamps, is unquestionably a figurative representation of the seven-branched golden candlestick in the tabernacle, and differs from this only in the three following additions which are peculiar to itself: (1) That is has its gullâh (גּלּהּ for גּלּתה, with the feminine termination resolved; cf. Hosea 13:2, and Ewald, 257, d), i.e., a can or round vessel for the oil, which was omitted altogether from the candlestick of the holy place, when the lamps were filled with oil by the priests, "at the top of it" (על־ראשׁהּ); (2) That it had seven mūtsâqōth (pipes) each for the lamps, that is to say, tubes through which the oil poured from the gullâh into the lamps, or was conducted to them, whereas the candlestick of the tabernacle had no pipes, but only seven arms (qânı̄m), for the purpose of holding the lamps, which of course could not be wanting in the case of the visionary candlestick, and are merely omitted from the description as being self-evident. The number of the pipes is also a disputed point, viz., whether שׁבעה ושׁבעה means seven and seven, i.e., fourteen, or whether it is to be taken distributively, seven each for the lamps, i.e., seven for each lamp, and therefore forty-nine for the seven. The distributive view is disputed by Hitzig and Koehler as at variance with the usage of the language: the former proposing to alter the text, so as to obtain seven pipes, i.e., one for each lamp; and the latter, on the other hand, assuming that there were fourteen pipes, and inferring from the statement "seven and seven," instead of fourteen, that the second seven are to be sought in a different place from the first, that is to say, that the first seven led from the oil-vessel to the seven different lamps, whilst the second seven connected the seven lamps with one another, which would have been a very strange and perfectly useless provision. But there is no foundation whatever for the assertion that it is at variance with the usage of the language. For although a distributive relation is certainly expressed as a rule by the simple repetition of the number without any connecting Vav, such passages as 2 Samuel 21:20 and 1 Chronicles 20:6 show quite indisputably that the repetition of the same number with the Vav cop. between is also to be taken distributively. When, for example, it is stated in 2 Samuel 21:20, with regard to the hero of Gath, that the fingers of his hands and the fingers (toes) of his feet were "shēsh vâshēsh, four-and-twenty in number," it is evident that shēsh vâshēsh cannot mean "six and six," because six and six do not make twenty-four; and a division of the shēsh between the hands and feet is also untenable, because his two hands had not six fingers on them, but twelve, and so his two feet had not six toes on them, but twelve. Consequently shēsh vâshēsh must be taken distributively: the fingers of his (two) hands and the toes of his (two) feet were six each; for it is only 2 + 2(( equals 4) x 6 that can give 24. This is shown still more clearly in 1 Chronicles 20:6 : "and his fingers were shēsh vâshēsh, four-and-twenty." It is in this distributive sense, which is thus thoroughly established, so far as the usage of the language is concerned, that שׁבעה ושׁבעה מוּץ is to be taken: seven pipes each for the lamps, i.e., forty-nine for the seven lamps; inasmuch as if fourteen pipes were meant, it would be impossible to imagine any reason why "seven and seven" should be written instead of fourteen. And we cannot be shaken in this conviction, either by the objection "that if there was any proportion between the pipes and the size of the oil-vessel, such a number of pipes could not possibly (?) spring from one oil-can" (Koehler), or by the statement that "forty-nine would be quite as much at variance with the original as fourteen, since that had only one pipe for every lamp" (Hitzig). For the supposed original for the pipes had no existence, inasmuch as the Mosaic candlestick had no pipes at all; and we can form no opinion as to the possibility of forty-nine pipes issuing from one oil-vessel, because we have no information as to the size either of the oil-vessel or of the pipes. (3) The third peculiarity in the visionary candlestick consists in the olive trees on the right and left of the oil-vessel, which supplied it with oil, and whose connection with the candlestick is first described in Zechariah 4:12. These three additions which were made to the golden candlestick seen by Zechariah, as contrasted with the golden candlestick of the tabernacle, formed the apparatus through which it was supplied with the oil required to light it continually without the intervention of man.