Zechariah 4:6-7

4:6 Therefore he told me, “These signify the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength and not by power, but by my Spirit,’ ¹  says the Lord who rules over all.”

Oracle of Response

4:7 “What are you, you great mountain? ²  Because of Zerubbabel you will become a level plain! And he will bring forth the temple ³  capstone with shoutings of ‘Grace! Grace!’ ⁴  because of this.”

Matthew 21:21-22

21:21 Jesus ⁵  answered them, “I tell you the truth, ⁶  if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 21:22 And whatever you ask in prayer, if you believe, ⁷  you will receive.”

Mark 11:22-24

11:22 Jesus said to them, “Have faith in God. 11:23 I tell you the truth, ⁸  if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 11:24 For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Luke 17:6

17:6 So ⁹  the Lord replied, ¹⁰  “If ¹¹  you had faith the size of ¹²  a mustard seed, you could say to this black mulberry ¹³  tree, ‘Be pulled out by the roots and planted in the sea,’ ¹⁴  and it would obey ¹⁵  you.

¹ sn It is premature to understand the Spirit here as the Holy Spirit (the third Person of the Trinity), though the OT prepares the way for that NT revelation (cf. Gen 1:2; Exod 23:3; 31:3; Num 11:17-29; Judg 3:10; 6:34; 2 Kgs 2:9, 15, 16; Ezek 2:2; 3:12; 11:1, 5).

² sn In context, the great mountain here must be viewed as a metaphor for the enormous task of rebuilding the temple and establishing the messianic kingdom (cf. TEV “Obstacles as great as mountains”).

³ tn The word “temple” has been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent (cf. NLT “final stone of the Temple”).

⁴ sn Grace is a fitting response to the idea that it was “not by strength and not by power” but by God’s gracious Spirit that the work could be done (cf. v. 6).

⁵ tn Grk “And answering, Jesus said.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.

⁶ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

⁷ tn Grk “believing”; the participle here is conditional.

⁸ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous action(s) in the narrative.

¹⁰ tn Grk “said.”

¹¹ tn This is a mixed condition, with ἄν (an) in the apodosis.

¹² tn Grk “faith as,” “faith like.”

¹³ sn A black mulberry tree is a deciduous fruit tree that grows about 20 ft (6 m) tall and has black juicy berries. This tree has an extensive root system, so to pull it up would be a major operation.

¹⁴ tn The passives here (ἐκριζώθητι and φυτεύθητι, ekrizwqhti and futeuqhti) are probably a circumlocution for God performing the action (the so-called divine passive, see ExSyn 437-38). The issue is not the amount of faith (which in the example is only very tiny), but its presence, which can accomplish impossible things. To cause a tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea is impossible. The expression is a rhetorical idiom. It is like saying a camel can go through the eye of a needle (Luke 18:25).

¹⁵ tn The verb is aorist, though it looks at a future event, another rhetorical touch to communicate certainty of the effect of faith.