Revelation 11:4

These are the two olive trees, etc. The Church, illuminated by the light of the two Testaments, always stands by the commands of the Lord. For the prophet Zechariah saw one seven-branched candlestick, and these two olive trees, that is, the Testaments, pouring oil into …

These are the two olive trees,....

These are the two olive trees - Mentioned Zec 4:14, which there represent Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest. The whole account seems taken from Zec 4:1-14. Whether the prophet and the apostle mean the same things by these emblems, we know not.

The phrase alludes to Zec 4:10, 14, "the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth." The article "the" marks this allusion. They are "the two candlesticks," not that they are the Church, the one candlestick, but as its representative light-bearers (Greek, "phosteres," Php 2:15), and ministering for its encouragement in a time of apostasy.

These are the two olive-trees - These are represented by the two olive-trees, or these are what are symbolized by the two olive-trees. There can be little doubt that there is an allusion here to Zec 4:3, Zec 4:11, Zec 4:14, though the imagery is in some respects changed. The prophet Zec 4:2-3 saw in vision “a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which were upon the top thereof; and two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.” These two “olive branches” were subsequently declared Rev 11:14 to be “the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” The olive-trees, or olive-branches Rev 11:12, appear in the vision of the prophet to have been connected with the ever-burning lamp by golden pipes; and as the olive-tree produced the oil used by the ancients in their lamps, these trees are represented as furnishing a constant supply of oil through the golden pipes to the candlestick, and thus they become emblematic of the supply of grace to the church. John uses this emblem, not in the sense exactly in which it was employed by the prophet, but to denote that these two “witnesses,” which might be compared with the two olivetrees, would be the means of supplying grace to the church. As the olive-tree furnished oil for the lamps, the two trees here would seem properly to denote ministers of religion; and as there can be no doubt that the candlesticks, or lamp-bearers, denote churches, the sense would appear to be that it was through the pastors of the churches that the oil of grace which maintained the brightness of those mystic candlesticks, or the churches, was conveyed. […]