And he said to me, “What do you see?”: In this vision and the next (5.2), the angel questions the prophet in order to encourage him to describe the vision.

I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold”: The expression I see, and behold is very unnatural in English, although in a number of other languages it may be good style, and could be expressed as “I am looking and see.” Several modern versions simply say “I see” (Moffatt, New American Bible, New International Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible en français courant, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, Biblen: Det Gamle og Det Nye Testamente). Others (New English Bible/ Revised English Bible, Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) have no equivalent, but simply proceed with the description of the vision. For comments on behold, see the notes on 1.8.

A lampstand all of gold: This much is clear, but unfortunately the rest of the description is difficult to follow, and different scholars have put forward different views about the design of the lampstand. The first possibility is that expressed for instance by Cashdan. He says that Zechariah’s lampstand is a seven-branched one like that described in Exo 25.31-40 and 37.17-24 as part of the tabernacle furnishing. This kind of lampstand (called a menorah) is still in use among Jews today. However, it does not seem to fit Zechariah’s description in which the central stem of the lampstand supports a bowl rather than a lampholder. If the lampstand were of the seven-branched type but with a bowl instead of a lampholder in the middle, then there would be only six lamps instead of the seven mentioned.

This problem has given rise to a second theory that pictures a stand with seven branches each supporting a lampholder, but with a bowl “on an arm extending backward from the top of the shaft.” This is unconvincing because such an arm would be a most unusual feature, yet it is not mentioned in Zechariah’s description.
A third view is that the central stem of the lampstand supported the bowl, and the seven lampholders were on arms extending in different directions in a circle around the bowl (Mitchell, Mason). This raises no logical problems, but fails to convince because no such ancient lampstand has ever been found.

A fourth interpretation pictures the bowl as standing on top of the stem of the stand, and as having a wide rim on which seven small lamps rested. Ancient lamps usually had a lip at one end to hold the wick; the lamps in Zechariah’s vision each had seven lips. Therefore they could each hold seven wicks and would thus give a powerful light. Ancient lamps with seven lips have indeed been found by archaeologists. This view is held by Delcor, Baldwin, Amsler, Petersen, Meyers & Meyers, and Redditt (1995), and is also found in the footnote of Jerusalem Bible. It underlies the translation in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation as well as Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. This view seems to make the best sense of the text and we recommend that translators adopt it.

Lampstand may also be rendered as “lampholder,” “a support on which lamps are placed,” or even “a pole that has lamps on top of it.”

With a bowl on the top of it: According to the fourth view given above, the bowl stood on top of the stem of the lampstand. It is not clear whether the bowl held oil to fuel the lamps, or as suggested in the Jerusalem Bible footnote, water to extinguish falling pieces of wick. It seems more likely that it was for oil; Good News Translation says “a bowl for the oil.”

And seven lamps on it: We take these to be seven small lamps resting on the broad rim of the bowl. Thus it refers here to the bowl rather than to the lampstand, as in Jerusalem Bible.

With seven lips on each of the lamps: Each lip is a place for a wick. One end of the wick dipped into the oil, and the other end carried the flame. Good News Translation avoids the word lips, which is used here in a figurative sense, and expresses the meaning in plain language as “places for seven wicks.” The word translated lips in Revised Standard Version may be understood to mean “pipes” (Moffatt, New English Bible/ Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh; compare New American Bible, New International Version, Bible en français courant, Biblen: Det Gamle og Det Nye Testamente). However, if we take it in this way, we would be forced to picture the lampstand as a whole according to the second or third of the theories discussed above, with pipes running from the bowl to each lamp. Adding pipes to such designs makes them seem even less probable.

We may further note that the Hebrew actually says “seven and seven lips/pipes.” Of interpreters who take the meaning to be “pipes,” some take there to be a total of seven plus seven, or fourteen pipes (Cashdan). Others have considered the possibility that it may mean seven times seven, or forty-nine pipes (Driver, Mason), an arrangement which Merrill considers an “almost unimaginable spaghetti-like configuration.” This appears to us to be another reason for translating as lips rather than “pipes.” Seven lips to each lamp is quite reasonable; seven pipes is not!

Which are on the top of it repeats information from earlier in the verse. Here it probably refers again to the bowl rather than to the lampstand. In many languages it is very awkward to repeat this clause, and since it contains no new information it can be omitted, as in New American Bible, Good News Translation, New International Version, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente.

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Zechariah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .