Zechariah 1:5

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?

Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever? Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live forever? - In contrast to "my words" (Zechariah 1:6), "which endure forever" (1 Peter 1:25).

Your fathers, where are they? but where are your disobedient fathers? Are they not buried in a strange land? Did they not die of those diseases? Were they not consumed with famine and the sword, as was menaced against them? And the prophets: some apply this to the false prophets who promised peace, but where are they now? But it is better understood of the true prophets, who died as others; they do not nor must live always to warn you.

Zechariah 1:5 Your fathers, where [are] they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?Ver. 5. Your fathers, where are they?] Is not the grave their house? have they not made their beds in the dark? are not they gone down to the congregation of all living? Job 30:23. Every man should die the same day as he is born; as being born a child of death; the wages of sin is death, and this wages should be paid him down presently. But Christ begs their lives for a season, 1 Timothy 4:10; he is the Saviour of all men, not of eternal preservation, but of temporal reservation. But what a sad thing is it for men to die in their sins, as these in the text and their nephews did, John 8:21; John 8:24. How may such men, on their deathbeds, say to their sins, as Charles V did of his honours, victories, riches, Abite hinc, abite longe, Go, go, get you out of my sight (Mornaeus); or as Cornelius Agrippa, the conjuror, did to his familiar that used to accompany him in the shape of a dog, Abi a me perdita bestia, quae me perdidisti, Begone, thou wretched beast that hast wrought my ruin (Joh. Manl.). Petrius Sutorius speaks of one that, preaching a funeral sermon on a religious man (as he calls him), and giving him large commendations, heard at the same time a voice in the church, mortuus sum, iudicatus sum, damnatus sum, I am dead, judged, and damned. The devil preached Saul’ s funeral, 1 Samuel 28:19, though David made his epitaph, 2 Samuel 1:19-27. And do the prophets live for ever?] Those false prophets (so Jerome senseth it) that cried peace, peace, to your fathers, and made all fair weather before them, when the fierce wrath of God was even ready to burst out upon them as an overflowing scourge. But they do better that understand it of God’ s true prophets, who are dead indeed (for wise men die as well as fools, Psalms 44:10, good men die as well as bad, Ezekiel 21:4, yea, good men often before the bad, Isaiah 57:1), but their words died not with them; the truth of their prophecies not only lived for ever (for ever, O Lord, thy word is stablished in heaven, Psalms 119:89), but struck in the hearts and flesh of their perverse hearers like the envenomed arrows of the Almighty throughout all eternity. Wicked men may, as the wounded hart, frisk and skip up and down when the deadly arrow sticks in their ribs, but not so easily shake it off, Haeret lateri lethalis arundo.

(5) Fathers . . . prophets.—To show the evil result of the obstinate disobedience of their fathers, the prophet asks, “Your fathers, where are they?”—i.e., they are perished through their iniquity. To this the people answer, “But the prophets, do they live [or did they go on living] for ever?”—i.e., the prophets, who did not sin, they are dead too; so what is your argument worth?

Verse 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.

2–6. The call to Repentance. Zechariah’s first message is one of warning, by the example of their fathers and the earlier prophets. On their fathers, as they well knew, the displeasure of Almighty God had fallen heavily (Zechariah 1:2). Now, for the first time in this new era of their history, God is sending to them, as He did to their fathers of old, His servants the prophets, himself and Haggai, with a call to repentance and a promise of reconciliation, Zechariah 1:3. Let them not be like their fathers, who turned a deaf ear to the remonstrances of the prophets and refused to amend, Zechariah 1:4; lest, being like them in their sin, they should be like them in their punishment also, and should have with them to confess, in the bitter experience of their accomplishment, that God’s unheeded threatenings would surely take effect, Zechariah 1:5-6.

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.

4-6. Similar appeals were made to former generations, but they would not heed; therefore they were cut off. The former prophets — All the predecessors of Zechariah.