On either side of the Temple court stood a huge golden candelabrum. On the first and each succeeding night of the week of the Feast of Tabernacles these were lit, and they poured a brilliant flood of light over the Temple and the city. It was to these that our Lord alluded in v. 12. They were symbolic and intended to recall the pillar of cloud which led the pilgrim march through the desert, and at night disclosed a heart of illuminating fire. Our Lord compared himself to the manna in chapter 6, to the smitten rock in chapter 7, and to the cloud here in chapter 8, v. 12.

What the pillar of cloud and fire was to Israel, Jesus will be to his Church and the individual soul. See Exod. 13:21; Num. 9:15-23. The fire in the cloud was prophetic of his deity enshrined in his humanity. It was this consciousness of the union of the divine and human that enabled our Lord to speak as he did of himself. There was no egotism or self-assumption in his claim. It was the literal truth. He bare record of himself, because he could say nothing less, and knew whence he came and whither he went; and the miracles which

he wrought in union with the Spirit of God ratified his witness.