What is the symbolic meaning of a pillar in the bible?

Answer 1

In The Bible a pillar represents various things: God's house, a witness, where God appears to His people, a memorial, a support of the Temple of God, a signpost, where God speaks, a support of God's Church, and an overcomer. They are all related in some way to Truth:-

1).God's house:-

Gen 28:22 And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.

2).A witness:-

Gen 31:52 This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm.

3). Where God appears to His people:-

Num 14:14 And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou LORD art among this people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou [the LORD] goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.

Deu 31:15 And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.

4).A memorial:-

2Sa 18:18 Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance: and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is called unto this day, Absalom's place.

5). A support of the Temple of God:-

2Ki 11:14 And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar [of the Temple], as the manner was, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king, and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew with trumpets: and Athaliah rent her clothes, and cried, Treason, Treason.

2Ki 23:3 And the king stood by a pillar[of the temple], and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

6). To lead people in the way and show them where to go:in short, a signpost:-

Neh 9:19 Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the clouddeparted not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go.

7). Where God speaks :-

Psa 99:7 He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar: they kept his testimonies, and the ordinance that he gave them.

8). A support of God's Church:-

1Ti 3:15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground ofthe truth.

9). An overcomer :-

Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.