Zechariah 1:5

5 Your fathers, where [are] they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?

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 thou to them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye to me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn to you, saith the LORD of hosts.

4 Be ye not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and [from] your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken to me, saith the LORD.

5 Your fathers, where [are] they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?

6 But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, As the LORD of hosts thought to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.

7 Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which [is] the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD to Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,