Vision Report: Golden Oil:

4:1 An interval during which Zechariah was not alert ends when the angel who talked with him returned and wakened him. After his experience in the divine council Zechariah had not been asleep, but the angel/messenger had to rouse him forcibly, as a man is wakened from his sleep.

4:2–5 In this fifth vision, Zechariah saw a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top. Excavations have discovered pottery versions of this sort of lamp stand in which a tubular base supports a reservoir of oil. The rim of this bowl holds seven lights on it, with seven channels to the lights. The lamps were small bowls, with spouts for the wicks pinched in their rims. (The familiar seven-armed menorah has a very different shape.) There were two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl an…