Zechariah 4:1
in Zechariah 4Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and woke me, as a man is awakened from his sleep.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep.
KJV
And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep,
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This verse in Zechariah 4
Commentary
9 notes on this verse(Chapter 4, Verse 1) And the angel who spoke to me came back and woke me up like a man who is awakened from his sleep. LXX: And the angel who spoke to me came back and woke me up as a man is usually awakened from his sleep. For wherever he had gone, in order to return he had to be with the prophet who was speaking to him, and without him he could not exist. But whenever human frailty is left to its weakness, we must believe that the help of God and his angels departs from us.
This site's exposition
waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep
on Zechariah 4:1-3
The angel returns and rouses the prophet as a man is roused from sleep, and what he sees is a lampstand of gold with a bowl on top feeding oil through seven pipes to seven lamps, with two olive trees standing beside it. The bench reads the lampstand as the tabernacle's own menorah, the church or the covenant people cast as a light bearer, but here supplied automatically from living trees rather than by a priest's hand pouring oil in morning by morning. Keil takes the bowl and pipes as a continuous, self-feeding supply, the picture the vision builds toward before the angel ever explains it.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
And the angel that talked with me,.... See Zec 1:9, came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep; into which he fell, after he had had the former vision; see Dan 8:18.
It seems, though he was in conference with an angel, and about matters of great and public concern, yet he grew dull and fell asleep, as it should seem, while the angel was yet talking with him. Thus the disciples, when they saw Christ transfigured, were heavy with sleep, Luke ix.
The Nineteenth Century3 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
waked me--The prophet was lying in a state of ecstatic slumber with astonishment at the previous vision. "Came again, and waked me," does not imply that the angel had departed and now returned, but is an idiom for "waked me again."
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase
THE Prophet, as he tells us in the introduction to His vision, had to be awakened by the angel as one is awakened out of his sleep. His mind was dull and heavy. Perhaps he was weary and worn out. Do you not often feel a similar lethargy from which you need to be awakened before your mind is equal to the study of those Truths which God is revealing to your soul?
THE Prophet, as he tells us in the introduction to His vision, had to be awakened by the angel as one is awakened out of his sleep. His mind was dull and heavy. Perhaps he was weary and worn out. Do you not often feel a similar lethargy from which you need to be awakened before your mind is equal to the study of those Truths which God is revealing to your soul? May it not, then, be well, at the commencement of our meditation, to pray the Lord to awaken us as a man is awakened out of his sleep? A divinely mysterious power can brood over us and quicken us out of lethargy. Have you ever felt it? "Or ever I was aware my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib." I had been slow before, but when the Spirit came, then was fulfilled that ancient proverb, "Draw me and I will run after You." The touch of the Holy Spirit makes our faculties strong, our powers of thought are greatly enlarged and we get the key to mysteries which we never had been able to unlock before. Come, blessed Spirit, then, to each one of Your slumbering children at this good hour and awaken us, that we may see what You would set before us! Like young Samuel, whom You called in his sleep, we would, each one, heartily say, " Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears." Beloved Friends, we live in a world which is naturally shrouded in darkness. The "Prince of this world," "the Prince of the power of the air" is a dark spirit loving ignorance and sin! This darkness hovers over all the world as it did over Egypt—a darkness that might be felt is upon the souls of men! We sometimes fear that this gloom will thicken into an awful midnight.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
The angel - came again, and waked me - Abp. Newcome considers this vision as represented on the same night, Zec 1:8, with the preceding ones. See the latter part of Zec 1:10, compared with Zec 3:9. After some interval the prophet, overpowered with the vision which had been presented to him, was awakened from his prophetic trance as from a sleep.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
The angel came again - The angel (as before Zec 2:3) had gone forth to receive some fresh instruction from a higher angel or from God.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
with its oil - bowl on top of it as in (Josh.:19): “The upper springs”. This is an expression for a spring, [hence] a sort of large round bowl.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וַיָּ֕שָׁב | vaiyashov | and he returned | H7725 → | 1056 times |
| הַמַּלְאָ֖ךְ | hamalakh | the angel | H4397 → | 213 times |
| הַדֹּבֵ֣ר | hadover | who was speaking | H1696 → | 1141 times |
| בִּ֑י | bi | with me | ||
| וַיְעִירֵ֕נִי | vayireni | and he roused me | H5782 → | 80 times |
| כְּאִ֖ישׁ | keish | like a person | H376 → | 1663 times |
| אֲשֶׁר־ | ʾasher- | who | H834 → | 5497 times |
| יֵע֥וֹר | yeor | he is roused | H5782 → | 80 times |
| מִשְּׁנָתֽוֹ׃ | mishenato | from sleep his | H8142 → |
וַיָּ֕שָׁבand he returned
vaiyashovH7725 →1056 times
הַמַּלְאָ֖ךְthe angel
hamalakhH4397 →213 times
הַדֹּבֵ֣רwho was speaking
hadoverH1696 →1141 times
בִּ֑יwith me
bi
וַיְעִירֵ֕נִיand he roused me
vayireniH5782 →80 times
כְּאִ֖ישׁlike a person
keishH376 →1663 times
אֲשֶׁר־who
ʾasher-H834 →5497 times
יֵע֥וֹרhe is roused
yeorH5782 →80 times
מִשְּׁנָתֽוֹ׃from sleep his
mishenatoH8142 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Zechariah 2:3Then the angel who was speaking with me went out, and another angel came out to meet him
it leads to
- Zechariah 1:19
So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these?” And he told me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Zechariah 1:19
Through
Zechariah 1:9“What are these, my lord?” I asked. And the angel who was speaking with me replied, “I will show you what they are.”
it leads to
- Zechariah 5:5
Then the angel who was speaking with me came forward and told me, “Now lift up your eyes and see what is approaching.”
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Zechariah 4:4–5
“What are these, my lord?” I asked the angel who was speaking with me.
- Zechariah 5:5
Through
Daniel 8:18While he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep, with my face to the ground. Then he touched me, helped me to my feet,
it leads to
- Daniel 10:18
Again the one with the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me.
- Daniel 10:16
And suddenly one with the likeness of a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and said to the one standing before me, “My lord, because of the vision, I am overcome…
- Daniel 10:18
Through
Zechariah 1:19So I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these?” And he told me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
it leads to
- Zechariah 8:14
For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Just as I resolved to bring disaster upon you when your fathers provoked Me to anger, and I did not relent,” says the LORD of…
- Zechariah 1:21
“What are these coming to do?” I asked. And He replied, “These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one could raise his head; but the craftsmen have come to terrify them…
- Ezra 4:4
Then the people of the land set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to build.
- Zechariah 8:14
Where this verse is studied
About Zechariah
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1569: “The Golden Lamp and Its Goodly Lessons” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Zechariah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.