Zechariah 1:5

5 "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?

Zechariah 1:5 Meaning and Commentary

Zechariah 1:5

Your fathers, where [are] they?
&c.] They are not in the land of the living; they perished by the sword of the Chaldeans, or died in captivity: and the prophets, do they live for ever?
meaning either the false prophets, as Hananiah and Shemaiah, ( Jeremiah 28:17 ) ( 29:32 ) or the true prophets of the Lord; and the words may be considered as a prevention of an objection the people might make, taken from their prophets dying in common with their fathers; and so the Targum paraphrases them, "and if you should say, the prophets, do they live for ever?" which is followed by Jarchi, and embraced by many interpreters: the answer is, it is true they died; but then their words live, and have had their full accomplishment.

Zechariah 1:5 In-Context

3 Therefore say to them, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Return to Me," says the Lord of hosts, "and I will return to you," says the Lord of hosts.

4 Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds." ' But they did not hear nor heed Me," says the Lord.

5 "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?

6 Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? "So they returned and said: 'Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us.' " ' "

7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet: