Albert Barnes Commentary Zechariah 4

The angel came again - The angel (as before, Zechariah 2:3) had gone out to receive some fresh instruction from a higher angel or from God.

And awakened me - As a man is awakened out of sleep. Zechariah, overwhelmed by the greatness of the visions, must have sunk down in a sort of stupor. This is similar to Daniel's experience after the vision of the ram and he-goat, when, as Gabriel was speaking with him, Daniel says, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground, and he touched me and set me upright (Daniel 8:18). It happened again at the voice of the angel who, after his three weeks’ fast (Daniel 10:9), came to declare to him (Daniel 10:21) the scripture of truth. Likewise, at the Transfiguration, Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep, and when they were awake, they saw His glory (Luke 9:32).

Osorius says: "Wondrous and stupendous mysteries were they that were shown to the divine man. He saw the Branch of the Lord; he saw His invincible might; he saw His brightness of Divine Intelligence and Providence; he saw the amplitude of beauty and dignity.

"Then, fixed and struck still with amazement, while he pondered these things in his mind, sunk in a sort of sleep, he is taken beyond himself and, enveloped in darkness, understands that the secret things of Divine Wisdom cannot be perfectly comprehended by any human mind. He then attained this: that, his senses being overpowered, he should see nothing, except that in which is the sum of wisdom—that this immensity of the divine excellence cannot be fathomed. By this sleep he was seized, when he was roused by the angel to see further mysteries."

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,” which contains the oil. Then, dependent on this, are the pipes that derive the oil into each lamp: “seven several pipes to the seven lamps,” that is, seven pipes for each lamp. And there are the two olive trees on either side of the bowl, whose extreme and fine branches poured the golden oil through two golden pipes into the bowl that supplied the lamps.

The multiplied conduits imply the large and perfect supply of oil, unceasingly supplied. The number seven is symbolic of perfection or of the reconciling of God (symbolized by three) to the world (symbolized by four, its four quarters). The spontaneous flow of the golden oil from the olive trees symbolizes the free gift of God.

Osorius: “Awakened from his state of sleep, and so the prophet seemed slowly to understand what he was shown. He then asks the instructing angel. The angel, almost amazed, asks if he does not know it, and when he plainly declares his ignorance, explains the enigma of the vision.”

This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel - Osorius: “It is as if he were to say, the meaning of the vision and scope of what has been shown is, ‘God’s actions have almost cried aloud to Zerubbabel that all these visions will come to an end in their time, not accomplished by human might nor by fleshly strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and through Divine Will.’

“For the Only Begotten became Man as we are, but He did not wage war according to the flesh to set up the Church as a candlestick to the world. Nor did He, through physical weapons and armed phalanxes, make those two peoples His own or place the spiritual lights on the candlestick. Instead, by the might of His own Spirit, He appointed in the Church first Apostles, then prophets and evangelists (1 Corinthians 12:28), and all the rest of the holy company, filling them with divine gifts and enriching them abundantly by the outpouring of His Spirit.”

Cyril: “The work of Christ, then, was not accomplished by great power or by fleshly might, but by the power of the Spirit Satan was despoiled, and the ranks of the opposing powers fell with him; and Israel and those who formerly served the creature rather than the Creator were called to the knowledge of God through faith. But that He saved all under heaven, not by human arm, but by His own power as God Emmanuel, Hosea also testified, I will have mercy upon the house of Judah and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow nor by sword nor by battle nor by chariots nor by horses nor by horsemen (Hosea 1:7). But exceedingly fittingly was this said to Zerubbabel, who was of the tribe of Judah and at that time administered the royal seat at Jerusalem.”

So that he might not think that, since such glorious successes were foretold to him, wars would, in due time, have to be organized, God lifts him up from these unsound and human thoughts and instructs him to be of this mind: that the force was divine—the might of Christ, who would bring such things to pass—and not human.

Having given this key to the whole vision, without explaining its details, God expands on what He had said to Zerubbabel, as He had in the preceding chapter to Joshua (Zechariah 3:8–10).

Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt be a plain - The words have the character of a sacred proverb: “Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased” (Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14). Isaiah prophesies the victories of the Gospel in the same imagery: “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain” (Isaiah 40:4). And in the New Testament Paul says, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).

As it is the character of antichrist, that he “opposeth and exalteth himself above everything that is called God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4), so of Satan himself it had been said in the former vision, that he stood at the right hand of Joshua “to resist him” (Joshua 3:1).

So then the mountain symbolizes every resisting power; Satan and all his instruments, who, each in his turn, shall oppose himself and be brought low. In the first instance, it was Sanballat and his companions, who opposed the rebuilding of the temple, on account of the “exclusiveness” of Zerubbabel and Joshua, because they would not make the temple the abode of a mixed worship of him whom they call your God and of their own idolatries.

In all and each of his instruments, the persecuting emperors or the heretics, it was the one adversary.

Cyril: “The words seem all but to rebuke the great mountain, that is, Satan, who rises up and leads against Christ the power of his own stubbornness, who was figuratively spoken of before (Joshua 3:1). For, as far as it was allowed and lay in his power, he warred fiercely against the Savior; no one who considered how he approached Him when fasting in the wilderness, and seeing Him saving all below, willed to make Him his own worshiper, showing Him all the kingdoms of the world, saying that all should be His, if He would fall down and worship him (Matthew 4:8–9).

“Then out of the very choir of the holy Apostles he snatched the traitor disciple, persuading him to become the instrument of the Jewish perverseness. He asks him, ‘Who art thou?’ disparaging him and making him of no account, great as the mountain was and hard to withstand, and in the way of every one who would bring about such things for Christ, of whom, as we said, Zerubbabel was a type.”

And he shall bring forth the headstone - The foundation of the temple had long been laid. Humanly it still hung in the balance whether they would be permitted to complete it (Ezra 5:0): Zechariah foretells absolutely that they would. Two images appear to be used in Holy Scripture, both of which meet in Christ: the one, in which the stone spoken of is the foundation-stone; the other, in which it is the head cornerstone binding the two walls together, which it connects.

Both were cornerstones; the one at the base, the other at the summit. In Isaiah the whole emphasis is on the foundation: “Behold Me who have laid in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, well-founded” (Isaiah 28:16). In the Psalm, the building had been commenced; those who were building had disregarded and despised the stone, but “it became the head of the corner,” crowning and binding the work in one.

Both images together express how Christ is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last; the Foundation of the spiritual building, the Church, and its summit and completion; the unseen Foundation which was laid deep in Calvary, and the Summit to which it grows and which holds it firm together. From this Peter unites the two prophecies, and blends with them that other of Isaiah, that Christ would “be a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.”

To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of people but chosen of God and precious, ye also are built up a spiritual house - And so it is also contained in the Scripture: Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious: unto you which believe He is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the same stone which the builders refused is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, to them which stumble at the word being disobedient (1 Peter 2:4–7).

A Jew paraphrases this concerning the Messiah; Jonathan: “And He shall reveal His Messiah, whose name was spoken from the beginning, and he shall rule over all nations.”

With shoutings, grace, grace unto it - that is, all favor from God to it, redoubled favors, grace upon grace. The completion of the building was only the commencement of the dispensation under it. It was the beginning, not the end. They pray then for the continued and manifold grace of God, that He would carry on the work which He had begun. Perseverance, by the grace of God, crowns the life of the Christian; our Lord’s abiding presence in grace with His Church to the end of the world, is the witness that He who founded her upholds her in being.