Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/146



The Fifth Vision

We shall now give an explanation, first, of the symbolism of this vision; and, secondly, of the message.

I. The Symbolism (vers. 1-5)

A brief pause had intervened, during which the prophet was lying probably in a state of ecstatic slumber still con templating the wonderful things he saw and heard in the last vision; or Hengstenberg may be right in regarding the prophet's " sleep " as a return to his ordinary conditions of life in comparison to the spiritually wakeful state in which he was when receiving the visions. If so, then we have here, as he suggests, " the deepest insight into the state in which the prophets were, during their prophecies, as com pared with their ordinary condition. The two bear the same relation to each other as sleeping and waking. A man's ordinary state, in which he is under the control of the senses, and unable to raise his spiritual eye to the con templation of Divine objects, is one of spiritual sleep; but an ecstatic condition, in which the senses with the whole lower life are quiescent, and only pictures of Divine objects are reflected in the soul, as in a pure and untarnished mirror, is one of spiritual waking."

Being thus wakened by the interpreting angel, and his powers of spiritual vision stimulated by the question, " What seest thou? " he looks, and beholds a candlestick, all (of it) of gold, with a bowl, or oil vessel, " at the top of it " (indi cating that it is designated as a fountain of supply for the candlestick), with seven nipifin (mutsaqotti) " pipes," or little canals (literally " pourers "), connecting this vessel with each of the seven lamps on the candlestick.

On either side (i.e., one on the right and one on the left of the bowl) were two olive trees, each with a specially ffoiitful bough, or branch, which, as Kimchi puts it, " were