"8 Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and say to him, When you set up the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the lampstand.” 3 And Aaron did so: he set up its lamps in front of the lampstand, as the Lord commanded Moses. 4 And this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold. From its base to its flowers, it was hammered work; according to the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand."
Numbers 8:1-4
The end of the last chapter spoke of the voice of the Lord being heard among the people in the Tabernacle. We instanced the story of 1 Samuel 3 as an example of how the word of the Lord came among God's people after a long dearth. This same chapter illustrates this pas- sage which speaks of the lighting of the candlestick in the Tabernacle. In chapter 7 it was the coming of the word of the Lord; here it is the coming of the light. And both are integrally connected in the spiritual message that this affords us. For a forward movement and the children of Israel were about to move forward from Sinai towards the Promised Land you need the word of the Lord, and you need the light of the Lord, shining in the midst. The tragedy in Samuel's day was that the word of the Lord was precious (scarce), and that the light was flickering and faltering. Such is the association of ideas here, and it reminds us of another scripture Genesis 1: 'And God said ...' that is the coming of the word; 'Let there be light' that is the coming of the light.
This, then, shows us the desire and concern of God for His House it is to be a place where His voice is heard speaking and where His light is seen to shine out into the darkness of men's hearts, bringing illumination upon the dark places of their experience. Nor can the two ever be separated: word without light cannot be of divine origin, and is inconceivable; light without word can be a fruitful cause of error and heresy.