(8.) Menorah: The Tree of Life

(8.) Menorah: The Tree of Life.

“You shall make a menorah of pure gold, and this lampstand shall be made of hammered work: its base, its centrals stem, its cups at the tops of each branch, its ring of outer leaves, and its flowers shall be one piece with it. And there shall be six branches going out of sides of the central stem, three branches of the menorah out of one side of it and three branches out of the other side of it. On one branch are to be three cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with a ring of outer leaves and flowers, and similarly for all six branches extending from the menorah. And on the menorah’s central branch there shall be four cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with its ring of outer leaves and flowers… You shall make seven lamps for the golden menorah…” (Exodus 25:31-40).

What is the Menorah? “Menorah” is a Hebrew word that simply means light-bearer, or the place that shines and gives light. Menorah and lampstand are treated as synonyms throughout the Bible, even with its variations down through biblical history. The first official menorah was made according to very precise spec’s from Lord Yahweh Himself given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. As with every other piece of furniture in the wilderness Tabernacle, every piece meant something profound, and was a shadow of a heavenly thing to help us understand God better (Hebrew 8:5). Included in the Lord’s instructions regarding the Lampstand were items like these (refer to Exodus 25 and various rabbinic sources):

1. It is to be shaped by hammering out one large piece of pure gold that weighs around 75 pounds;
2. It is to be large enough to completely light up the interior of the Holy Place, and according to rabbinic tradition the Lampstand was about 5 feet tall and over 3 feet in width;
3. It is to have a central shaft resting on a golden base with six branches extending outwards, three shafts on each side facing the central branch in the middle;
4. It was to be made with a cup on top of each branch to be refilled daily with olive oil to fuel the lights;
5. It was to be fueled by pure olive oil and was not to be made for candles;
6. It had one end of the wick in the oil stored in each cup at the branch’s top, and the other end, the lighted end, hanging out to be burned;
7. It was designed to look like a tree, complete with elaborately decorated images of a flowering almond tree that had leaves, blossoms, buds and flowers, which is why in many rabbinic sources the Lampstand was called the Tree of Light;
8. It was to be lighted every evening and kept burning through the night until morning;
9. It was to receive daily maintenance by the priests that involved cleaning the Lampstand, trimming the wicks, and refilling the cups of olive oil on each branch;
10. It was for private use by the priests inside the Tabernacle and not to be seen by worshipers outside;
11. It was to be carefully covered by a special blue cloth and a layer of fine leather when the Israelites broke camp and continued their wandering.

“Yahweh God planted a garden paradise in Eden toward the east, and there He put the person whom He had formed. Out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the Tree of Life in the very center of the Garden…  Then Yahweh God said, ”Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and takes and eats of the Tree of Life and lives forever – ‘ Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the Paradise of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” (Genesis 2:9 and 3:22-24).

A Quick Summary of the Main Point. The Lord designed the wilderness Tabernacle to re-create the Garden of Eden. The Lord had in mind, apparently, to reestablish His presence on earth, and the best way to do that was to make another version of His first dwelling place. So it made sense that within this mini-Paradise there was a piece of furniture that represented the Tree of Life. Creator God arranged His wilderness Sanctuary to contain something that reminded the Israelites of His first sanctuary in Eden. And so the Tabernacle included the Menorah, the golden Lampstand that was designed to look like a tree; but not just any tree… The Tree of Life. The Menorah was not merely a link to the past, however. The Tabernacle Lampstand was also designed to point to the heavenly Tree of Life as well, when the fully restored Garden of Eden would contain the Lord’s Divine Presence and remain God’s eternal dwelling place with humanity. The original Menorah, then, was a vital part of pointing to the past, present, and future dwelling places of God, where there was communion between God and man, where the Lord was happy to meet face-to-face with His people. The Tabernacle was a middle step, the middle Act in a Three-Act drama called God’s Dwelling Places. And its first Menorah was the Tree of Light that represented both former and future spiritual realities, including the joyous anticipation of a restored Paradise and eternal communion with God.

On the Tabernacle as a Micro-Eden. There were many parallels between the Tabernacle and the Garden of Eden, many ways the wilderness Tabernacle was modeled on the Garden Paradise of Eden, including:

1. The Menorah representing the Tree of Life;
2. All that Tabernacle gold and gems that bring to mind the gold and precious stones in Eden;
3. The cherubim embroidered on the holy curtain guarding the Ark, as well as the cherubim guarding the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies, which reminds us of the cherubim guarding the entrance to Paradise;
4. The Tabernacle priests were commanded to “keep” and “work” the Sanctuary, which was exactly the same wording God used when assigning Adam to his duties in Eden;
5. Moses intimately speaking with Yahweh face-to-face in the Holiest place just as Adam and Eve intimately enjoying fellowship in the cool of the day in Eden;
6. The Tabernacle’s entrance faced the east, reminding us of Eden’s being placed in the east;
7. The Spirit of God participated in the Tabernacle’s construction just as in the world’s creation;
8. There were seven instructions from the Lord to Moses while building the tabernacle, just as there were seven commands of Creator God in the creation of the world;
9. The Lord commanded the taking of Sabbath when the Tabernacle was completed after six months, just as God commanded the Sabbath after the creation of the world that took six days.

Paradise: (Greek, paradeiso; Hebrew, Gan-Eden); the Greek word is taken from an old Persian term meaning park, garden, paradise, a pleasure-ground; the Hebrew understanding of the word came from its root ‘dn,’ which means enjoyment, and was considered to be the ‘Garden of Yahweh’). The early church Fathers believed that Paradise, the Garden of Eden, still exists far removed from the heavens and the earth, and is awaiting its renewal and recovery in the ‘new heaven and new earth.’ Christians believe this will occur at the coming of the Lord Jesus to establish the New Jerusalem. Believers now think of Paradise as a synonym of heaven, the place of rest for those who have departed in Christ, where fellowship will once again take place in perfect unity between God and mankind, just as it did in the original Garden of Eden.

Paradise Lost. The Tree of Life in Eden was planted by God in the middle of the garden. It was put there to fulfill man’s destiny of eternal life, bearing the fruit of immortality. Those who ate of this tree “live forever.” (Gen 3:22). After Adam and Eve fell into a state of sin, God would not allow anyone to eat of the Tree of Life. This would have given sinners a hopeless life of eternal sin, a sinner’s life that would never end. A sinner who ate of this Tree would agonize through an endless existence of slavery to a sinful condition, and would never achieve God’s eventual plan of a righteous immortality for mankind. This would be God’s worst nightmare, a humanity that would be wicked forever, a spiritual catastrophe. God needed to protect the Tree of Life at all costs, so He positioned cherubim at the Tree. Cherubim were and are the angel servants of God who accompany God’s glory around the Throne. Cherubim are those mighty and fearsome winged creatures created by God before the world began. We don’t know how many of these angels were stationed at the Tree of Life, but we do know that each angel wielded an awesome weapon, a revolving sword of fire, a flaming blade forged in heaven. These swords of fire turned in every direction, flashing back and forth to protect the Tree of Life. We can imagine that the fires that forged these heavenly swords came from the celestial consuming fires of the glory of God.

Paradise Recovered: The Tree of Heaven. “To those who overcome, I will give to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God… I’m about to call each conqueror to dinner! I’m spreading a banquet of Tree of Life fruit, a supper plucked from God’s orchard.” (Rev. 2:7; NKJ and MSG).  What a picture St. John paints for us in Revelation 22. There in Paradise, a pure river of crystal-clear water is flowing freely from the Throne of the Father and the Lamb. The water is John’s way of talking about the Holy Spirit. So there we can see the Trinity’s presence in the center of heaven, with the Father on the Throne, the Son on the Throne, and the Holy Spirit flowing right from their presence into heaven. And then he sees that the River is somehow flowing right through the Tree of Life, the Tree on both sides of the River as it travels through Paradise. A pure River of Life flowing right through the roots and bottom trunk of the Tree of Life! Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the restored Tree of Life is now ready to fulfill mankind’s destiny, the believer’s assurance of eternal life. This Tree, once planted in God’s first Paradise, is now planted in eternal Paradise. God desires to restore the Garden of Eden in the new heaven and the new earth, and so God has placed the restored Tree of Life in the middle of the new Kingdom. This Tree reverses the hostility and woundedness of the first rebellion, and is ready to be productive and useful, bearing a fruit that is ripe for each of the twelve months. Its leaves are intended for the permanent healing of the nations, the nurture and care of all people, Jew and Gentile. This restored Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem reverses the curse of the Garden of Eden. Jesus promises that all the overcomers, believers in Christ, will eat the fruit of this Tree in heaven, this Tree that heals our deadly wounds and gives us wholeness and everlasting life. The Tree of Life will be enjoyed by all those who participate in Christ’s victory and salvation.

On the Cross as the Tree of Life. The early Christians loved calling the Cross the Tree of Life. The Cross was the life-giving tree that bore the fruit of eternal life. Believers receive the reality of everlasting life when we believe in Jesus and eat of the Tree.  The Cross was seen as the Tree that provides nourishment for those who have been redeemed in Christ, the Tree that gives spiritual shelter under its shady leaves. An ancient Christian hymn reads, “O Tree of Life, you surpass in greatness all the cedars of Lebanon, for on you was the Life-Giver of this world hung. The cross, which was a tree of death, was transformed into the Holy Cross, which is the Tree of Life.”  The early believers were convinced that the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden prefigured the Cross, an ancient picture of the Cross that anticipates the Tree of Calvary.