Candlestick

Candlestick is the older English rendering (as in the King James Version) of the Hebrew word for a lampstand — a stand of pure gold holding oil lamps rather than candles, which is why modern translations such as the one quoted here say "lamp stand." Historically and linguistically, the Hebrew term is menorah, and the object described in the tabernacle instructions was to be made of hammered work, with its base, shaft, cups, buds and flowers formed as one piece (Exodus 25:31), following a pattern shown to Moses on the mountain (Exodus 25:40). Its placement was inside the Tent of Meeting, outside the veil before the covenant, where Aaron and his sons were to keep it in order from evening to morning (Exodus 27:21); the incense altar was tended at the same time the lamps were trimmed (Exodus 30:7). The lampstand was holy furniture and was not to be handled by the transporting clans until the priests had covered it (Numbers 4:15), and the temple furnishings later included gold snuffers and related implements for such lamps (1 Kings 7:50). The author of Hebrews lists the lampstand, the table and the show bread as the contents of the first part of the tabernacle, called the Holy Place (Hebrews 9:2).

The prophetic vision of Zechariah shows a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top, seven lamps, and seven pipes to each lamp (Zechariah 4:2) — an image that apparently shaped the later visionary material in Revelation.

In Revelation the lampstands carry an explicit interpretation: the seer beholds one like a son of man standing among them (Revelation 1:13), and is told that the seven golden lampstands are the seven assemblies (Revelation 1:20). The imagery becomes a warning, since a congregation that does not repent will have its lampstand moved from its place (Revelation 2:5), and in a further vision the two lampstands are identified with the two olive trees standing before the Lord of the earth (Revelation 11:4), recalling the olive trees of Zechariah's vision.

Christian traditions differ over how to press these symbols. One common reading takes the lampstand as a figure of the church's calling to bear light in the world, with Revelation's letters read as addressed to real congregations and, in some dispensational readings, as foreshadowing successive ages of church history; another reads the sevenfold light as a symbol of the Holy Spirit's presence among God's people, and liturgical traditions have long used standing lamps in worship as a visual echo of the tabernacle and temple. Jewish interpretation has typically treated the menorah as a sign of Israel's covenant vocation and of divine light and provision, and the seven-branched form is today the emblem of the State of Israel. Which of these readings is primary — corporate witness, the Spirit's presence, or Israel's election — is a matter of genuine confessional disagreement rather than something the texts themselves settle.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.