Zechariah’s book contains the phrase “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit.” It appears in Zechariah 4:6 as a message from God to Zerubbabel, the governor overseeing the restoration of Jerusalem’s Temple.
The verse belongs to a vision of a golden lampstand supplied by two olive trees. Its message reassures Zerubbabel that the rebuilding project will succeed through divine support rather than military strength or human resources. The phrase is therefore part of a wider promise about restoration after the Babylonian exile.
Zechariah was a late sixth-century BCE prophet whose ministry is associated with the return of Judean exiles under Persian rule. His book is one of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and contains visions, symbolic actions, calls to repentance, and hopes for Jerusalem’s renewal.
Readers sometimes confuse this saying with a general proverb or with Haggai, another prophet concerned with the Second Temple. Haggai and Zechariah were contemporaries, but the quoted wording belongs specifically to Zechariah 4:6.