power-of-God

I was looking at the often-quoted Zechariah 4:6 the other day and noticed something new. I always hear, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit” or maybe, “…by my Spirit, says the Lord.” But here’s the complete verse:

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

In most Bibles, you’ll see Lord written in small caps, like this: Lord. This variation in type is the standard denotation in Bibles that the word being translated is actually Yahweh. This distinguishes it from lord and Lord (regular type), which mean master. So, in this passage, we have both being used:

Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

When Zechariah says, “No, my lord,” he’s saying, “No, master.” And in reply, the angel tells the prophet that this isn’t the word of the master but the word of “the Lord”, Yahweh, and that Yahweh of hosts said it.

You may be thinking, “and so…? What’s here besides a lesson in typography and translation?”

God’s choices about how He represents Himself are worth noting, because they give us insight into the character and nature of God. read the complete post

Tagged as: Bible translation, God, Holy Spirit, Lord-of-hosts, might, names-of-God, nature-of-God, power, power-of-God, Yahweh, Zechariah