Zechariah 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The angel wakes Zechariah for another vision: a solid gold lampstand with seven lamps, fed from a bowl, with an olive tree on each side of it. When Zechariah asks what it means, he is given the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel rebuilding the temple: the work will be done not by might or power but by God's Spirit. The obstacle in front of Zerubbabel will flatten out, the hands that laid the foundation will set the final stone, and the two olive trees are named as the two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of all the earth.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • The angel who talked with the prophet came back.
   • The angel woke the prophet.
   • The waking was like a man being wakened out of his sleep.
2. 4:2
   • The angel asked the prophet what he saw.
   • The prophet said he had looked.
   • The prophet saw a lampstand made entirely of gold.
   • The lampstand had a bowl on top of it.
   • The lampstand had seven lamps on it.
   • There were pipes running to the lamps, counted as seven and seven, so the total is not plainly stated.
   • The lamps were on the top of the lampstand.
3. 4:3
   • Two olive trees stood by the lampstand.
   • One olive tree was on the right side of the bowl.
   • The other olive tree was on the left side of it.
4. 4:4
   • The prophet spoke to the angel who talked with him.
   • The prophet asked what these things were.
   • The prophet addressed the angel as 'my lord'.
5. 4:5
   • The angel who talked with the prophet answered him.
   • The angel asked whether the prophet did not know what these were.
   • The prophet said he did not know.
   • The prophet addressed the angel as 'my lord'.
6. 4:6
   • The angel answered and spoke to the prophet.
   • The angel said this is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel.
   • The word says it will not be by might.
   • The word says it will not be by power.
   • The word says it will be by the LORD's spirit.
   • The LORD of hosts said this.
7. 4:7
   • The great mountain is asked who it is.
   • The mountain will become a plain before Zerubbabel.
   • He will bring out the top stone.
   • The bringing out will be with shoutings.
   • The shout is 'Grace, grace unto it.'
8. 4:8
   • The word of the LORD came to the prophet.
9. 4:9
   • The hands of Zerubbabel laid the foundation of this house.
   • The hands of Zerubbabel will also finish it.
   • The hearer will know that the LORD of hosts sent the speaker to them.
10. 4:10
    • The question is asked who has despised the day of small things.
    • They will rejoice.
    • They will see the tin stone, the plummet, in the hand of Zerubbabel.
    • Those seven are the eyes of the LORD.
    • The eyes of the LORD run to and fro through the whole earth.
11. 4:11
    • The prophet answered and spoke to the angel.
    • The prophet asked what the two olive trees were.
    • The two olive trees were on the right side of the lampstand and on its left side.
12. 4:12
    • The prophet answered a second time and spoke to the angel.
    • The prophet asked what the two olive clusters were.
    • The two olive clusters were beside two golden pipes.
    • The two golden pipes empty out the golden oil from themselves.
13. 4:13
    • The angel answered the prophet.
    • The angel asked whether the prophet did not know what these were.
    • The prophet said he did not know.
    • The prophet addressed the angel as 'my lord'.
14. 4:14
    • The angel said these are the two anointed ones, literally sons of oil.
    • The two stand by the Lord of the whole earth.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

This is one of a linked series of night visions running through chapters 1–6, and the same angel has been guiding Zechariah through all of them. Being "woken" suggests the state between visions was something like sleep or a trance rather than ordinary rest.

4:2

The lampstand is the type that stood in Israel's sanctuary: a stand of solid gold holding seven oil lamps. A lamp of the period was a small open container of olive oil with a wick at its lip, not a candle, the King James "candlestick" is misleading. The "spouts" (King James "pipes") are the channels through which oil ran from the bowl to feed each flame. The Hebrew is compressed and may mean seven spouts in all, or seven to each of the seven lamps.

4:3

Olive oil was the fuel these lamps burned. Trees standing beside the lampstand would supply it directly, with no picking, pressing, or storing in between.

4:4

"My lord" here is ordinary polite address to a superior, the way one would speak to an official, not a title for God.

4:6

Zerubbabel was a grandson of Jehoiachin, one of the last kings of Judah. Under Persian rule he was appointed governor of the province of Judah and led the community that had returned from exile in Babylon; rebuilding the temple was his responsibility. "LORD" printed in capitals stands for God's personal name in Hebrew, which Jewish tradition avoided pronouncing aloud. "LORD of Armies" renders the older "LORD of hosts": "hosts" meant armies, here the armies of heaven, not human troops.

4:7

A "great mountain" is a figure for an obstacle too big to move; flattening it into level ground means clearing the way. The "top stone" (King James "headstone") is the last stone set in place, the one whose laying marked a building as finished; the ceremony was public and noisy. "Grace, grace to it" is a shout of acclamation over that stone. The word translated "grace" means favor or goodwill, something given freely rather than earned.

4:9

"This house" is the temple in Jerusalem. The earlier temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC; the returned exiles laid a foundation for its replacement around 536 BC, and then the work stalled for roughly sixteen years. Zechariah is speaking around 520 BC, when building had just restarted.

4:10

"The day of small things" points to how modest the new temple looked beside the one it replaced; older people who remembered the first building are said to have wept at the sight of the new foundation. A plumb line is a weighted stone hung on a cord, used by builders to check that a wall is going up truly vertical. Holding one means the work is actually in hand. The Hebrew phrase is literally "the stone, the tin," and its exact sense is uncertain. "Those seven" is left unexplained; the Hebrew sentence is compressed and its parts can be linked in more than one way, so it is not certain whether the seven eyes are the ones who rejoice, or what they are watching.

4:12

"Golden oil" is literally "the gold" in Hebrew, olive oil is golden in color, and the phrase runs the color and the substance together.

4:14

"Anointed ones" is literally "sons of oil." Pouring olive oil over someone's head was the ceremony that installed him in office; kings and high priests were installed this way, which is why the word carries the sense of an officially commissioned man. The text does not say who the two are. The two leading figures in Zechariah's own day were Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, who appears in chapter 3.