CANDLESTICK (rmizsr; ; Sept. 77 Xvxvia), The candelabrum which Moses was commanded to make for the tabernacle, after the model shewn him in the Mount, is chiefly known to us by the passages in Exod. xxv. 31-40 ; xxxvii. 17-24 ; on which some additional light is thrown by the Jewish writers, and by the representation of the spoils of the Temple on the arch of Titus.
The material of which it was made was fine gold, of which an entire talent was expended on the candelabrum itself and its appendages. The mode in which the metal was to be worked is described by a term which appears to mean wrought with the hammer, as opposed to cast by fusion. The structure of the candelabrum, as far as it is defined in the passages referred to, consisted of a base ; of a shaft rising out of it ; of six arms, which came out by threes from two opposite sides of the shaft ; of seven lamps, which were supported on the summits of the central shaft and the six arms ; and of three different kinds of ornaments belonging to the shaft and arms. These ornaments are called by names which mean cups, globes, and blossoms. The cups receive, in verse 33, the epithet almond-shaped (it being uncertain whether the re semblance was to the fruit or to the flowers). Three such cups are allotted to every arm ; but four to the shaft : two-and-twenty in all. Of the four on the shaft, three are ordered to be placed severally under the spots where the three pairs of arms set out from the shaft. The place of the fourth is not assigned ; but we may conceive it to have been either between the base and the cup below the lowest tier of arms, or, as Bahr prefers, to have been near the summit of the shaft. As for the name of the second ornament, the word only occurs in two places in the Old Testament, in which it appears to mean the capital of a column ; but the Jewish writers generally (cited in Ugolini, Thesauri xi. 917) concur in considering it to mean apples in this place. Josephus, as he enumerates four kinds of ornaments, and therefore two of his terms most be considered identical, may be sup posed to have understood globes, or pomegranates (o-cpcupta o-6v Antiq. iii. 6. 7). But as the term here used is not the common name for pome granates, and as the Sept. and Vulgate render it
o-Ocupcorlipes and sphcerulce, it is safest to assume that it denotes bodies of a spherical shape, and to leave the precise kind undefined. Bahr, however, is in favour of apples (Symbalik, i. 414). The name of the third ornament means blossom, bud; but it is so general a term that it may apply to any flower. The Sept., Josephus, and Maimonides, understand it of the lily ; and Bahr prefers the flower of the almond. It now remains to consider the manner in which these three ornaments were attached to the candelabrum. The obscurity of verse 33, which orders that there shall be ' three almond shaped cups on one arm, globe and blossom, and three almond-shaped cups on the other arm, globe and blossom ; so on all the arms which come out of the shaft,' has led some to suppose that there was only one globe and blossom to every three cups. However, the fact that, according to verse 34, the shaft (which, as being the principal part of the whole, is here called the candelabrum itself), which had only four cups, is ordered to have globes and blossoms (in the plural), is a sufficient proof to the contrary.
It is to be observed, that the original text does not define the height and breadth of any part of the candelabrum ; nor whether the shaft and arms were of equal height ; nor whether the arms were curved round the shaft, or left it at a right angle, and then ran parallel with it. The Jewish autho rities maintain that the height of the candelabrum was eighteen palms, or three ells ; and that the distance between the outer lamps on each side was two ells. Bahr, however, on the ground of har monica] proportion with the altar of incense and table of shew-bread, the dimensions of which are assigned, conjectures that the candelabrum was only an ell and a half high and broad. The Jewish tradition uniformly supports the opinion that the arms and shaft were of equal height ; as do also Josephus and Philo c. ; Quis Rer. Div. Her. sec. 44) ; as well as the representation on the arch of Titus. Scacchius has, however, maintained that they formed a pyramid, of which the shaft was the apex.