The Menorah's Significance

There are many neat connections and meanings hidden throughout the Bible.  One of them involves the Menorah described in Exodus.  Before I go further and describe this connection, I must give credit to my friend Jeff for pointing this out to me.  Its nothing new but it seems that not many people know about it.

The Menorah is described in Exodus 25:31-40.  It is one lampstand with three branches on one side and three on the other, making it able to hold seven lamps.  On each of the six branches there are three cups shaped like almond flowers, three buds and three blossoms.  If you take the ornaments, the cups, buds and blossoms, from one side of the lampstand, they add up to 27 (3+3+3=9 x 3=27).  On the center shaft there are four of each kind, cups, buds and blossoms.  That makes 12 on the center shaft.  If you add up all the ornaments on the whole Menorah, you end up with 66.  There is 27 on the one side, 12 in the center and 27 on the other side.  27 plus 12 is 39, and 39 plus 27 is 66.  Now what else do we know that has that same numerical pattern?  The Bible is 66 books.  The Old Testament is 39 books.  The New Testament is 27 books.  There are the 12 minor prophets at the end of the Old Testament.  Before them is 27 books.  So we see that there are 27 books before the 12 minor prophets, then the 12 minor prophets, and then the 27 books of the New Testament.

Clearly there is a connection between the Menorah and the Bible - the Menorah is somehow a picture of the Bible.  It made me think of what it might mean, and then I realized what the purpose for a lampstand is.  A lampstand holds the lamp, which is the light.  Another way to say it, the lampstand carries the light.  With the Bible we have a lampstand that carries the light of Jesus.  In John 8:12 Jesus says "I am the light of the world".  The lampstand is not the light itself, but the lampstand carries the light.  Now this may confuse some people because Jesus is called the Word in John 1:1 (also in Revelation 19:13).  The Bible is also called the word of God, so a person may make the mistake of thinking that the Bible and Jesus are one in the same.  But that would be absurd; the Bible can't literally be Jesus.  I may be going out on a limb here, but I believe that when John calls Jesus the Word of God, he is saying that Jesus in the complete Word.  While Jesus is the complete Word (uppercase W), the Bible is not, but the Bible is a means for receiving the complete Word.  Of course that's not to say that anything should be added to the Bible, except the Holy Spirit, but just to make it clear that the Bible is not God Himself (it would be tragic if we made that mistake).  Taking the picture of the Menorah into consideration, the Bible is the lampstand and Jesus is the light that that lampstand holds.  In other words, the Bible is the means by which the light of the world (Jesus) is brought into the world.

This made me think of something else.  The lampstand in Exodus, the Menorah, isn't the only lampstand mentioned in the Bible.  The Menorah has seven lamps, but in Revelation there are seven lampstands.  The seven lampstands in Revelation 1:12 represent the seven churches.  These are also pure gold, just as the Menorah is.  And I believe that the meaning of these lampstands is very similar.  As the Menorah represents the Bible, and is a means for carrying the light (Jesus) into the world, so the seven lampstands represent the seven churches, and are the means for carrying the light into the world.  We, as the church of Christ, are tasked with the mission of shining the light of Jesus.  We are called to take the word of God (the Bible) to every corner of the earth.  In doing so we are a lampstand (church) that carries the lampstand (Bible) that holds the light (Jesus).