Zechariah 4:1-7 - Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit

4:1-4

Zechariah receives another vision, again from the angel. And again the angel asks Zechariah what he sees.The bowl in the vision would hold the oil. This would flow through the pipes to the wicks at the end of the channels. Seven represents perfection in the Bible. Beside the lampstand are two olive trees. Zechariah doesn’t know what the olive trees represent, which is fortunate for us as I guess we don’t either!

4:5-7

This section includes perhaps the best known verse from Zechariah, one which most Christians know, but whose context we usually forget, or never knew in the first place. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit”. The angel tells Zechariah that the word os for Zerubbabel. So we see an example of God giving a word to a prophet to give to a civic leader. We should not be surprised if God does the same thing today (though probably not as often as some people imagine!). Zerubbabel is the governor, he would expect to govern by normal human means, and this relies on might and power! God declares to him that His purposes are not achieved through human power, but by His Spirit. The mountains opposing Zerubbabel would become as nothing before him if he relied on the Spirit of God. We all need to take a hold of this. We should not be intimidated by human power, nor should we seek to emulate human power. Look at 2 Cor 10:4 where Paul says we do not fight with the weapons of this world, but nevertheless our weapons can pull down mighty strongholds.