Zechariah 1:5
in Zechariah 1Where are your fathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?
KJV
Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?
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This verse in Zechariah 1
Commentary
8 notes on this verse(Vers. 5, 6.) Where are your fathers and the prophets? Will they live forever? However, my words and my ordinances that I commanded my servants the prophets, did not your fathers understand them? And they turned and said: Just as the Lord of hosts planned to do to us according to our ways and according to our inventions, He has done to us. LXX: Where are your fathers and the prophets? Will they live forever? However, listen to my words and accept my law, which I command in my spirit to my servants, the prophets who have understood your ancestors.
This site's exposition
In the eighth month
on Zechariah 1:1-6
The date fixes the moment precisely: the eighth month of Darius's second year, roughly October 520 BC, two months after Haggai's first oracle and while the temple foundation still lay stalled. Zechariah's opening word is not a vision but a plain summons to repentance, framed as a two-way turning, Turn ye unto me... and I will turn unto you, the covenant relationship restored from the human side first. The fathers who ignored the former prophets are held up as a warning, and the returned exiles themselves are made to confess the point: Like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, so hath he dealt with us, the exile itself standing as proof that the prophetic word does not fail.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
They are somewhere still; when they died there was not an end of them. They are in eternity, in the world of spirits, the unchangeable world, to which we are hastening apace. Those of them that lived and died in sin are in torment, and we are warned by Moses and the prophets, Christ and his apostles, to look to it that we come not to that place of torment, Luke xvi.
Where are they - But where are your disobedient fathers? Were they not consumed with famine and sword, as I threatened them? Do they live - The prophets died as others; they must not live always to warn you.
Your fathers, where are they?....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Your fathers, where are they? - The abrupt solemnity of the question seems to imply an unexpected close of life which cut short their hopes, plans, promises to self. “When they said, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them” 1Th 5:3. Yet not they only but the prophets too, who ministered God’s Word to them, these also being human beings, passed away, some of them before their time as people, by the martyr’s death. Many of them saw not their own words fulfilled. But God’s word which they spake, being from God, passed not away.
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
"Your fathers have perished, as was foretold; and their fate ought to warn you. But you may say, The prophets too are dead. I grant it, but still My words do not die: though dead, their prophetical words from Me, fulfilled against your fathers, are not dead with them.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
Your fathers, where are they? - Israel has been destroyed and ruined in the bloody wars with the Assyrians; and Judah, in those with the Chaldeans. The prophets, do they live for ever? - They also, who spoke unto your fathers, are dead; but their predictions remain; and the events, which have taken place according to those predictions, prove that God sent them.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| אֲבֽוֹתֵיכֶ֖ם | ʾavoteikhem | ancestors your | H1 → | 1212 times |
| אַיֵּה־ | ʾaiyeh- | where? | H346 → | |
| הֵ֑ם | hem | [are] they | H1992 → | 553 times |
| וְהַ֨נְּבִאִ֔ים | vehaneviim | and the prophets | H5030 → | 314 times |
| הַלְעוֹלָ֖ם | halolam | ¿ to forever | H5769 → | |
| יִֽחְיֽוּ׃ | yichyu | do they live | H2421 → | 282 times |
אֲבֽוֹתֵיכֶ֖םancestors your
ʾavoteikhemH1 →1212 times
אַיֵּה־where?
ʾaiyeh-H346 →
הֵ֑ם[are] they
hemH1992 →553 times
וְהַ֨נְּבִאִ֔יםand the prophets
vehaneviimH5030 →314 times
הַלְעוֹלָ֖ם¿ to forever
halolamH5769 →
יִֽחְיֽוּ׃do they live
yichyuH2421 →282 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Hebrews 9:27Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment,
it leads to
- 2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.
- Ecclesiastes 12:7
before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Ecclesiastes 12:14
For God will bring every deed into judgment, along with every hidden thing, whether good or evil.
- Acts 17:31
For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”
- 2 Samuel 14:14
For surely we will die and be like water poured out on the ground, which cannot be recovered. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises ways that the banished one…
- 2 Corinthians 5:10
Through
Psalms 90:10The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty if we are strong— yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
it leads to
- James 4:14
You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
- Psalms 78:39
He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.
- 2 Samuel 19:35
I am now eighty years old. Can I discern what is good and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or drinks? Can I still hear the voice of singing men…
- James 4:14
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies3
On this verse
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About Zechariah
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Zechariah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.