Candlestick

(More properly menorah, or lampstand.) Made for the tabernacle (Ex. 25:31–37; 37:17–24), placed on the south side, opposite the table of shewbread. From the main vertical stem three pairs of branches extended, curving upward so that all seven lamps on the ends were at the same level. In Solomon’s temple there were 10 golden lampstands (1 Kgs. 7:49; 2 Chr. 4:7). In the temple of Zerubbabel there was a single lampstand, afterwards carried off by Titus from the Herodian temple, and said to have been finally placed (A.D. 533) in a Christian church in Jerusalem. The metaphor in 1 Kgs. 11:36, Ps. 18:28, and Rev. 2:5 refers to the eastern custom of keeping a lamp burning day and night.