Zechariah 4:6

"Then he answered and spake unto me saying, This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith Jehovah of hosts."

The first six words of the angel's explanation contain the whole explanation: THIS IS THE WORD OF JEHOVAH! As Unger observed:

"Zechariah's vision was THE WORD OF THE LORD, vitally real and effective for the pressing problems of the hour in which it was initially revealed."[10]

Nor should the meaning of it be restricted to that immediate portion of the word of the Lord addressed to Zerubbabel. (See a full discussion of this candlestick as the word of God in my commentary on Hebrews, pp. 181-183.)

Watts thought that this candlestick represents "The Lord's presence and blessing in the holy offices of the Temple."[11] However, this vision does not show the candlestick as being in any kind of building or enclosure whatever. Besides that, God's presence never pertained to the second temple at all, and only typically in the first.

Gill properly discerned the meaning thus: "The multiple menorah of the vision represents the Word of God to Zerubbabel and through him to the people,"[12] a most excellent demonstration that it is the candlestick of God's Word that provided guidance for Israel.

Still another viewpoint of what the candlestick meant was given by Ellis: "It does not represent the Lord, but the testimony of the Temple and its people to him."[13] We believe that the thing represented is the witness of the Word of God to all mankind as intended to be accomplished by the faithfulness of Israel, or the Jewish Theocracy, alas, an event that did not take place, except in the instance of the righteous remnant actually bringing in the Messiah through their flesh and hailing him as "The Son of God" through the testimony of the holy apostles.

"The word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel ..." Dummelow has an excellent thumbnail summary concerning Zerubbabel:

"Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, but called in 1 Chronicles 3:19, son of Pedaiah, was governor of Judah at the time of Haggai and Zechariah. Shealtiel was the son of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, so that Zerubbabel was of royal blood. He returned from exile, probably in 528 B.C., along with his uncle Sheshbazzar, who was the first governor of Judah after the return: He probably succeeded his uncle as governor some time in 522-520 B.C. He is recognized by Zechariah as the head of Jerusalem, and as such, is encouraged to proceed with the work of rebuilding the Temple. Of his ultimate fate, nothing is known."[14]

"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts ..." Hailed by many as one of the great texts of the Old Testament, this admonition conveyed the warning of Zerubbabel that the political and secular assets which he possessed were not in any sense the key to his success. Just as God had, by providential over-rulings, far beyond anything that could have been maneuvered by the captives, and for that matter totally unpredictable and unthinkable, brought the captives back to their city, God's power was to be understood as more than sufficient to accomplish his holy designs, with or without the aid of prevailing powers upon which men were accustomed to rely.

"Not by might ..." The Douay version renders this phrase, "Not with an army."[15] It was most appropriate that Zerubbabel should have received this solemn reminder from the Word of God. Israel's long mistake had been their reliance upon their own fortifications, military prowess, and political alliances; and, even at the time of this prophecy, there were apparently many who believed that the first order of business should have been that of rebuilding the walls of the city, rather than pressing forward with the design of reconstructing the temple. As we noted in the discussion of Haggai, God had elected to commission the rebuilding of the temple as a unifying and encouraging device for Israel, despite the fact of the very conception of an earthly temple having been not at all God's plans from the beginning (2 Samuel 7). In this instance, God accommodated himself to the desires of his people, as he had done much earlier in the matter of the monarchy. In neither case did it achieve what would have been most desirable; because the temple fell into the hands of the unbelieving Sadducees who used it as a power base for crucifying the Messiah when he appeared, and for attempting to exterminate the Gospel of Christ. God eventually ordered its total destruction.