Zechariah 1:5 BSB — MannaFest

Zechariah 1:5

Where are your fathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?

BSB

Parallel translations (2) ▾

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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Commentary

3 voices

Jerome

Commentary on Zechariah (420)

(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.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

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.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

Albert Barnes

1798–1870

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.

Voices on this verse

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Original language & word study

6 tagged words

Original	Transliteration	Meaning	Word study
אֲבֽוֹתֵיכֶ֖ם	'a.vo.tei.Khem	ancestors your	H1 →
אַיֵּה־	'ai.yeh-	where?	H346 →
הֵ֑ם	Hem	[are] they	H1992 →
וְהַ֨נְּבִאִ֔ים	ve.Ha.ne.vi.'Im	and the prophets	H5030 →
הַלְעוֹלָ֖ם	hal.'o.Lam	¿ to forever	H5769 →
יִֽחְיֽוּ׃	Yich.Yu	do they live	H2421 →

Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.

The walk

The walk8

Where the connections lead

Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.

Through
Hebrews 9:27
Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment,
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…
Through
Psalms 90:10
The 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.
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…

Featured studies on this passage

The Prophet Zechariah (Sistine Chapel ceiling) — Michelangelo

On Zechariah 1:5

Zechariah: the Study Guide

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Every appearance of the malʾak YHWH — one figure identified with God and distinguished from him — and the five readings of who he is, each given its strongest voice.

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About Zechariah

Zechariah's Vision of Four Chariots — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain

Zechariah: the study guide →Read chapter 1 →The featured study →

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01Commentary

The record, by era

Voices on this verse

02Original language & word study

03The walk

Where the connections lead

04Related verses

05Featured studies on this passage

06About Zechariah

The record, by era

Where the connections lead

Commentary

Original language & word study

The walk

Related verses

Featured studies on this passage

About Zechariah