and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand.
The lampstand was solid gold, not hollow, and magnificently wrought with ornamental knops and flowers, but far more than decoration, it spoke truth. The tabernacle had no windows because that old covenant dwelt in darkness; the sun of righteousness had not yet risen. Yet God did not leave them in silence: His Word was their lamp, the prophets were branches spreading its light through the ages. We have the same light still, though the world remains a dark place without it.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 25:31-40
And thou shall make the seven lamps thereof,.... Which were, six of them, on the top of the six branches that came out of the sides of the candlestick, and the seventh on the top of the shaft which ran up in the middle of it; which no doubt were made of gold as well as the rest, and may signify the many members of...
The candlestick issued whole from a single mass of beaten gold: its pedestal, its hollow stem rising upward, its cups shaped like flower calyxes, its knobs round and polished, its petals bursting open, all one unified work, nothing added, nothing soldered. The form itself declares that whatever branches forth from the true stem must proceed organically from it, or it is not the Lord's handiwork.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 25:31-40