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The Seven Eyes

I was drawn to Zechariah 4 today and noticed a few things that may be of interest to some of you.

This is the primary Old Testament passage about the Two Witnesses, Joshua and Zerubbabel. One was the high priest, and the other was the governor who built the temple for Joshua's ministry. In a broader outlook, the two represent Church and State working together, and in that sense, we can see the earlier pattern of Moses and Aaron. Moses was the civil leader, while Aaron was the high priest.

The priesthood originally included the office of prophet, for the high priest wore the ephod by which the Word of the Lord was discerned. Later, because of the corruption of the priesthood, the prophetic office was separated from the priesthood and given to Samuel. It was prophesied to Eli that his "arm" would be cut off (1 Sam. 2:31). We know that his physical arm was never cut off, for if it had, he would have been disqualified from the priesthood. Instead, it was the "arm" of prophetic authority that was taken from him.

The prophets, then, were placed under God's direct authority, in order that they might be a counterweight to the priesthood in times of corruption.

At the same time, however, without the prophetic authority, the priesthood had lost its spiritual "arm." Hence, though the two-armed high priests could minister through the Order of Levi, they were disqualified as Melchizedek priests, for they lacked the spiritual body part, the arm of the prophetic ministry.

For this reason, the Two Witnesses, which started out as High Priest and Civil Governor (Aaron and Moses), later shifted to Moses and Elijah. Elijah the prophet took the place of the disqualified priesthood as the second witness. So properly speaking, the Two Witnesses came to represent the Law and the Prophets.

In Zechariah 3, however, Joshua was the high priest. Though he was physically of the tribe of Levi (being in the context of the Old Covenant times), he was also a type of Jesus Christ, who had the same name (Yeshua) but came from the tribe of Judah. Jesus' genealogy from Judah disqualified Him from the priesthood of Levi, but, like David, He was the high priest of a different Order--the Melchizedek Order--where physical genealogy was not an issue.

If the Jews build a physical temple in Jerusalem and consecrate priests named Cohen, they will be attempting to re-establish a Levitical priesthood which excludes Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ could never be the high priest of such an order. The law forbids it. He will always be the High Priest of the Melchizedek Order alone, and the priests serving under Him will be those who reckon their spiritual genealogy from Him.

In Zechariah 3:9, Joshua is associated with the stone having seven eyes. The Hebrew word for "eye" is ayin. (This is one of thousands of English words that are derived from the Hebrew.) "The eyes of the Lord" see all activity in the earth (Zech. 4:10).

In Zechariah 4:10 the eyes of the Lord are associated with the plumb line ("plummet") in the hands of Zerubbabel. The plumb line comes from two Hebrew words: stone and tin. To build anything, the builder used a plumb line, which was normally a stone made of the dross from silver smelting, i.e., tin. This could be used to determine true vertical. Thus, the spiritual meaning of the plummet was TRUTH. It determined that which was "upright."

The purpose of the eyes of the Lord was also to discover the truth of world events. Because most people are in a state of spiritual sleep, they need to be wakened out of their sleep. They need to see things through the eyes of God to know the purpose of all things. And so the prophet Zechariah was wakened out of his sleep when given this revelation. Zech. 4:1 says,

"Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and roused me as a man who is awakened from his sleep."

The interplay of prophetic symbols is complex and amazing. The angel spoke first of the Candlestick in the temple (vs. 2), which had 7 branches and 22 almonds on it (Ex. 25:33, 34). The almond is in the shape of an eye, and so it is related to the letter ayin, "eye." The Hebrew word for almond isshaqad, "to be sleepless, to watch."

In order to manifest the light of the Candlestick, one must have 7 eyes that are sleepless in a spiritual sense. That is why Jesus admonished us to be watchful. It is the opposite of being blinded or of being in a state of slumber (Isaiah 29:10). Most of the Israelites in the Old Testament and the Church in the New Testament have been in this state of slumber without realizing it. Only the "elect" see with the eyes of God, while "the rest are blinded" (Rom. 11:7).

This was foreshadowed in the Church in the wilderness under Moses, for at the end of their 40 years of wilderness wandering, God told Moses in Deut. 29:4,

"Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear."

Exodus 4:11 says,

"And the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?"

We are finally seeing revelation that God is beginning to open the eyes of His people, in order to prepare their hearts to hear the Truth as the plumbline is brought out, the stone of tin having the seven eyes of the Lord.

That is the message for this year's Feast of Dedication, otherwise known as the Feast of Lights (Hanukkah). It is mentioned in John 10:22 on the occasion where the people wanted Jesus to tell them plainly whether or not He was the Christ.

This year, Hanukkah began on the evening of December 11. It goes for 8 days.

In Zechariah 4 the eyes of the Lord are associated with two stones, one for Joshua and one for Zerubbabel. It speaks of "grace, grace" (4:7). Both speak of Christ, the source of Grace, but more specifically, the Two Witnesses are the two olive trees that pour OIL into the Candlestick (4:3).

Hanukkah is the feast day celebrating the dedication of the temple in 163 B.C. after it had been desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes. They only had a one-day supply of oil for the dedication, but God multiplied it so that it burned for the full 8 days necessary to cleanse the temple.

The Two Witnesses are the true fulfillment of Hanukkah as the real source of "golden oil" being poured into the 7-branched Candlestick (the 7 Churches--Rev. 1:20). It is about the Oil of the Holy Spirit, and it is also about the Plummet of Truth. To be complete, God must be worshipped not only in spirit but also in Truth (John 4:24). It is in this area of Truth that the Church has been most lacking, because that is the nature of blindness and slumber.

But now we are seeing the eyes of the Lord awakening us and opening our ears as well, in preparation for the plummet of Truth that is about to be revealed.