Zechariah 1:5

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹In the eighth month of the second year of the reign of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, saying: ²"The LORD was very angry with your forefathers. ³So tell the people that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: 'Return to Me,' declares the LORD of Hosts, 'and I will return to you,' says the LORD of Hosts. ⁴Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD of Hosts says: 'Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.' But they did not listen or pay attention to Me, declares the LORD. ⁵Where are your forefathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?⁶But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers? They repented and said, 'Just as the LORD of Hosts purposed to do to us according to our ways and deeds, so He has done to us.'"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Job 14:10-12, Psalms 90:10, Ecclesiastes 1:4, Ecclesiastes 9:1-3, Ecclesiastes 12:5, Ecclesiastes 12:7, Acts 13:36, Hebrews 7:23, Hebrews 7:24, Hebrews 9:27, 2 Peter 3:2-4

Reciprocal: Genesis 48:21 - Behold Deuteronomy 18:22 - if the thing Joshua 24:33 - died 1 Samuel 9:6 - all that he saith 1 Kings 16:34 - General 2 Kings 13:14 - he died Ezra 9:7 - Since the days Psalms 49:9 - That he Jeremiah 9:14 - which Jeremiah 25:5 - Turn Jeremiah 36:28 - General Lamentations 3:42 - thou Lamentations 5:7 - and are John 6:49 - and are John 8:52 - Abraham

Cross-References

Genesis 1:8
God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day.

Genesis 1:13
And there was evening, and there was morning-the third day.

Genesis 1:19
And there was evening, and there was morning-the fourth day.

Genesis 1:23
And there was evening, and there was morning-the fifth day.

Genesis 1:31
And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day.

Genesis 8:22
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease."

Psalms 19:2
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

Psalms 74:16
The day is Yours, and also the night; You established the moon and the sun.

Psalms 104:20
You bring darkness, and it becomes night, when all the beasts of the forest prowl.

Isaiah 45:7
I form light and create darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the LORD, do all these things.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Your fathers, where [are] they?.... 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 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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” 1 Thessalonians 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.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Zechariah 1:5. 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.