defeated. The seven spirits press into the service of the Church, delivering and helping, overthrowing and destroying even to the uttermost corners of the earth." If, then, the oil is the Spirit, so far as he dwells in the church, the olive trees can only be the Spirit regarded in his transcendental existence.-The candlestick also is quite as well defined a symbol as the oil. As the vehicle of the Spirit of God, it can only denote the community, the people of the covenant, the Church. In Rev. i. 20 it is expressly stated that "the seven candlesticks are seven churches;" (for the meaning of the candlestick see the commentary in loc. and the Dissertation on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. p. 528). That the candlestick is entirely composed of the purest metal, namely gold, is a sign of the glory of the Church of God. The great number of tubes, seven for every one of the seven lamps, shows the variety of the channels, by which the mercy and power of God are communicated to his Church, and also the abundance of the supply.1 There are many who suppose, that in the description, which the prophet has given of the symbol, he has omitted one circumstance by mistake,-viz., the fact that in the two olive trees there were two branches full of olives, which lay in two presses (for this is the way, in which in ver. 12 must be rendered, as we may see among other things from the word which cannot possibly be translated "hard by," as it has been by many expositors), and fed the candlestick with oil,-and that he sup 1 Nothing but confusion results from the opinion expressed by Hitzig and others, that the seven lamps are the same as the seven eyes of the Lord mentioned in ver. 10. We read there: "for who hath despised the day of small things, for they rejoice and see (equivalent to see with joy) the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, these seven, the eyes of the Lord: they run to and fro through the whole earth." "These seven are already known from having been mentioned in the previous vision (chap. iii. 9), which is closely connected with the one before us (vid. ver. 14). But in order to prevent any obscurity, and the possibility of the seven being confounded with the seven lamps in ver. 2, the eyes of the Lord are expressly mentioned again. eyes are the symbol of the operations of the Spirit of the Lord, the powers of God as manifested both in and above the sphere of nature. These go through the whole earth, to ward off danger on every side from the kingdom of God, and to bring assistance from every quarter. The 2 If the opinion be still adhered to, that means pipes or channels, these channels must at all events differ from the pin ver. 2, as is evident from the difference in the name and in the number, and also from the word. In ver. 2 the pipes, referred to, were those which conducted plies the omission in ver. 11 sqq. But the omission was intentional on his part. If this had been mentioned before, it would have interfered with the general impression produced by the symbol, and obscured its main design. The prophet, therefore, does not call attention to this particular circumstance, till he has received and reported the interpretation of the symbol generally. He enquires first of all, in ver. 11, "what are these two olive trees ?" The question cannot refer to the meaning of the olive trees in general; for the prophet had already been told that they were symbols of the Spirit of God. It can only relate to the number of the trees. But, before receiving a reply from the angel, the prophet perceives that the number is of no importance, so far as the trees are concerned, but that two trees are introduced simply on account of the two branches. He corrects himself, therefore, and without waiting for an answer enquires in ver. 12, "what do these two ears' of the olive trees mean, which are in the two golden presses ?" and the fact that he receives from the interpreter a reply to the second question, but not to the first, shows that the number of the olive trees was not in itself a point of any importance. The answer runs thus: they are the two sons of oil, which stand before the Lord of the whole earth." with y literally means to stand over any one, but here it is used in the sense of serving; the servants stand by the Lord who is seated; compare Is. vi. 1, 2, “the Lord sat upon a lofty throne; seraphim stood over him," that is they עמד stood by his side so as to rise above the seated Lord. 66 The question arises now, who were these two sons of oil, the ביד in explaining the word the oil from the vessel to the lamps; here, on the other hand, the channels could only be those, by which the oil was conducted into the vessel itself. If we imagine these to have been open at the top, there would be no difficulty The two olive branches lie in the channels. 1 Kimchi says, "he compares the branches of the olives to ears, because, as the latter are full of grains of corn, so the former were full of olives." 2 , a noun formed from the third person future of "it shines" (lit. the shining one), is a rhetorical, or poetical name for oil. It serves to indicate the relation in which stands to the ordinary word that the former only occurs once in the first four books of the Pentateuch, whereas the latter is met with very frequently; on the other hand is used more frequently than in the Book of Deuteronomy, in harmony with the style of this book, which is generally more elevated than that of any of the others. שמן ישמן servants of the Lord κατ' ἐξοχὴν ? Many commentators suppose them to have been Zerubbabel and Joshua. And certainly one very strong argument may be adduced in support of this opinion. We cannot possibly be left to that species of conjecture, in which some indulge, who think of Haggai (a person never once named) and Zechariah. On the contrary we must look to the context for more precise information. Now in chap. iii. Joshua the High Priest is represented as "standing before the Lord," and in this very chapter Zerubbabel comes to his side as his colleague (ver. 14 is the connecting link between chap. iii. and iv.). They are both introduced, just like the two sons of oil in this case, as the persons by whom the whole covenant-nation is represented, the medium through which it receives the grace of God. It is certain, however, that these two, considered merely as individuals, cannot possibly be intended, but that they are regarded rather in their ideal character, as types and representatives; for the simple reason, that the supply of oil for the candlestick, the communication of divine grace to the Church, cannot possibly be made to depend upon the lives of two frail and mortal men. It is with justice, therefore, that it has been assumed by others, that the two sons of oil denote the two offices of priest and king (or rather the sacerdotal and civil authorities in general), which were principally employed in the economy of the Old Testament as instruments of the grace of God, and of which Joshua and Zerubbabel were the existing representatives. These were the only orders which could be called sons of oil (a phrase descriptive of the grace of office bestowed upon them by God, which was symbolised by the ceremony of anointing), the only orders which had really been anointed with oil at the very outset. With reference to the High Priest, compare the important passage in Lev. xxi. 12. The fact that the practice of anointing was dropped in the case of the civil authorities after the captivity, does not affect the question. They had been anointed in the persons of their predecessors in office, and the grace of office which the symbol expressed, they still retained. And the direct intention of the present symbolical representation was to assure both the High Priests and civil authorities, that this was the fact; and by this assurance to comfort and gladden the hearts of the people, who fancied that God had forsaken them. The civil and ecclesiastical authorities were still to be what they had previously been, the medium by which the Lord conveyed his blessings to his Church. But the promise received its most complete fulfilment in the coming of Christ, who is described in chap. vi. as combining both offices, that of High Priest as well as King, in his own person, who is specially referred to as High Priest in chap. iii. and as King in chap. ix., and through whom the oil of Divine grace was poured into the candlestick of the Church, in infinitely greater abundance than through any of the previous servants of God. 6. THE FLYING ROLL. (Chap. v. This vision and the one which follows are mournful in their character. Like the eleventh chapter, they show that it was not the prophet's object to urge forward the building of the temple at any cost, but that his main design was rather to lead the people to repentance and faith; in which case zeal for the outward work, which was already commenced, would follow as a matter of course. Stimulated by Ezek. ii. 10, the prophet now sees a flying roll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad. These dimensions correspond exactly to those of the porch of the temple (1 Kings vi. 3). This can hardly be accidental. The porch, the outermost portion of the actual temple, was the spot from which God was supposed to hold intercourse with his people, just as Solomon judged the people in the porch of his palace (1 Kings vii. 7). Hence the altar of burnt-offering stood before the porch, in the forecourt of the priests; and when any great calamity fell upon the land, the priests approached still nearer to the porch to offer their prayers, that they might, as it were, embrace the feet of their angry Father, Joel ii. 17. By giving to the flying roll, the symbol of the divine judgments upon the covenant-nation, the same dimensions as those of the porch, the prophet appears to intimate that these judgments were a direct result of the theocracy. It may be, however, that the peculiar nature of the porch does not come into consideration, and that the only point of importance is the fact that the dimensions are borrowed from one part of the temple. There is writing on both sides () of the roll, as was the case, according to Ex. xxxii. 15, from which the expression itself is borrowed, with the tables of the law, and also with the roll in Ezek. ii. 9, 10. On one side stand the curses against those who abuse the name of the Lord to purposes of perjury; on the other the curses against thieves. (, to clean, is used here in the sense of wiping clean away; cf. Is. iii. 26). The former are adduced as examples of those who broke the commandments of the first table, the latter of those who violated the second; so that one side of the roll contained the judgment of God against the transgressors of the command, "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," and the other the judgments against the transgressors of the command, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”—This curse is to go out over the whole land, it is not merely to touch the wicked in a superficial and passing manner, but to consume them utterly and for ever with all they have and are. In the expression, "he consumes their house and its wood and its stones," there is an allusion to 1 Kings xviii. 38. We have here, therefore, an announcement of a new and terrible judgment from God, which was to fall upon Judea, when the ungodliness that already existed in the germ, even in the time of the prophet, should have taken root and put forth branches. It is still further explained in chap. xi., how this ungodliness would lead the people to reject the good shepherd, and thus deprive them of the last means of deliverance. 7. THE EPHAH AND THE WOMAN SITTING IN THE MIDST OF IT. (Chap. v. 5-11.) The interpreter, who had gone away for a time to join the choir of the heavenly angels, comes back to the prophet, to explain to him the meaning of another vision. The expression, "the Angel of the Lord went forth," indicates the opening of a new scene and the occurrence of a pause between the two visions. 1 Baumgarten has pointed out the fact, that the prophet selects the middle command from each of the tables. |