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.

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.

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.

A reason for the warning not to resist the words of the Lord, like the fathers, is given in Zechariah 1:5, Zechariah 1:6, by an allusion to the fate which they brought upon themselves through their disobedience. Zechariah 1:5. "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, can they live for ever? Zechariah 1:6. Nevertheless my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers, so that they turned and said, As Jehovah purposed to do to us according to our ways and our actions, so has He done to us?" The two questions in Zechariah 1:5 are meant as denials, and are intended to anticipate the objection which the people might have raised to the admonitions in Zechariah 1:4, to the effect that not only the fathers, but also the earlier prophets, had died long ago; and therefore an allusion to things that had long since passed by could have no force at all for the present generation. Zechariah neutralizes this objection by saying: Your fathers have indeed been long dead, and even the prophets do not, or cannot, live for ever; but notwithstanding this, the words of the earlier prophets were fulfilled in the case of the fathers. The words and decrees of God uttered by the prophets did reach the fathers, so that they were obliged to confess that God had really done to them what He threatened, i.e., had carried out the threatened punishment. אך, only, in the sense of a limitation of the thing stated: yet, nevertheless (cf. Ewald, 105, d). דּברי and חקּי are not the words of Zechariah 1:4, which call to repentance, but the threats and judicial decrees which the earlier prophets announced in case of impenitence. דּברי as in Ezekiel 12:28; Jeremiah 39:16. חקּי, the judicial decrees of God, like chōq in Zephaniah 2:2. Hissı̄g, to reach, applied to the threatened punishments which pursue the sinner, like messengers sent after him, and overtake him (cf. Deuteronomy 28:15, Deuteronomy 28:45). Biblical proofs that even the fathers themselves did acknowledge that the Lord had fulfilled His threatenings in their experience, are to be found in the mournful psalms written in captivity (though not exactly in Psalm 126:1-6 and Psalm 137:1-9, as Koehler supposes), in Lamentations 2:17 (עשׂה יהוה אשׁר זמם, upon which Zechariah seems to play), and in the penitential prayers of Daniel (Daniel 9:4.) and of Ezra (Ezra 9:6.), so far as they express the feeling which prevailed in the congregation.

Your fathers, where {e} are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?

(e) Though your fathers are dead, yet God's judgments in punishing them ought still to be before your eyes: and though the prophets are dead, yet their doctrine remains for ever; 2Pe 1:15.

1:5 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.

5. Your fathers . and the prophets, do they live for ever?-In contrast to "My words" (Zec 1:6), which "endure for ever" (1Pe 1:25). "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. Beware, then, lest ye share their fate."

1:1-6 God's almighty power and sovereign dominion, should engage and encourage sinners to repent and turn to Him. It is very desirable to have the Lord of hosts for our friend, and very dreadful to have him for our enemy. Review what is past, and observe the message God sent by his servants, the prophets, to your fathers. Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings. Be persuaded to leave your sins, as the only way to prevent approaching ruin. What is become of our fathers, and of the prophets that preached to them? They are all dead and gone. Here they were, in the towns and countries where we live, passing and repassing in the same streets, dwelling in the same houses, trading in the same shops and exchanges, worshipping God in the same places. But where are they? 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 hasten apace. Where are they? Those of them who lived and died in sin, are in torment. Those who lived and died in Christ, are in heaven; and if we live and die as they did, we shall be with them shortly and eternally. If they minded not their own souls, is that a reason why their posterity should ruin theirs also? The prophets are gone. Christ is a Prophet that lives for ever, but all other prophets have a period put to their office. Oh that this consideration had its due weight; that dying ministers are dealing with dying people about their never-dying souls, and an awful eternity, upon the brink of which both are standing! In another world, both we and our prophets shall live for ever: to prepare for that world ought to be our great care in this. The preachers died, and the hearers died, but the word of God died not; not one jot or title of it fell to the ground; for he is righteous.