1. woke me as a man wakes from his sleep. There is a pointed ambiguity in this statement because all of these visions convey a sense of things seen in a dream. He awakes, then, from one dream to another.

2. a bowl. This is probably a receptacle for the oil.

seven pipes. The oil would be conducted through these pipes.

6. Not by might and not by power but by My spirit. These memorable words have great resonance, but how do they follow from the vision of the golden lampstand? The golden lampstand, with its seven burning oil lamps, is to be a focal point in the Temple, its light a token of God’s radiant presence in His house, in the midst of His people. Thus the rebuilding of the Temple, in difficult material conditions and perhaps with some resistance from the Persian imperial power, will be consummated through God’s spirit, which is symbolized in the lampstand. The idea of imposing obstacles that are set as naught is spelled out in the next verse.

7. And he shall bring out the capstone—shouts of “lovely, lovely” for it. What is imagined here is the completion of the rebuilding of the Temple, with Zerubbabel setting the capstone in place and the assembled people bursting out in cheers.

10. For who has despised the day of small things? This rather crabbed formulation probably means: you who have dismissed the humble beginning of the construction as unimpressive will be filled with joy when you witness its completion by Zerubbabel.

the stone of separation. The Hebrew, haʾeven habedil, is enigmatic (“the tin stone”?). Most scholars emend the second word to hamavdil, “separating.” It could be identical with the capstone, ʾeven haro’shah, though it is not clear what it separates—perhaps, two large sections of the roof.

12. I spoke out again. Perhaps Zechariah is obliged to repeat his question by the divine messenger because the initial formulation is insufficiently specific.

the golden tubes emptying out the gold. The entire lampstand is golden, but the color of the fine olive oil is also golden. The tubes presumably empty out into the receptacles of the seven lamps.

14. the two men consecrated with oil. The literal sense is “the two sons of oil.” It should be recalled that “sons” has many broad applications in biblical Hebrew. The word for “oil” used is not the common shemen but yitshar, perhaps adopted as a literary effect or perhaps an encoding device, so as not to make too explicit a reference to anointing. The two men are Zerubbabel and Joshua, so the anointing of the former would be royal, not sacerdotal.