Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?
Parallel translations
- WEB Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
- BSB Where are your fathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?
- NKJV “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
- NASB “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
- NLT “Where are your ancestors now? They and the prophets are long dead.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God asks pointedly: the fathers and even the prophets have died, but His word endures. Human generations pass, yet God's word outlasts them all.
Overview
Both the disobedient fathers and the prophets who warned them are now gone, but the message remains in force. This rhetorical question presses the hearers to take God's enduring word seriously while they live. It echoes the truth that the word of the Lord stands forever, fulfilled supremely in Christ, the living Word.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- 2 Pet 3:2–4That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
- Eccl 12:5Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
- Job 14:10–12But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
- Heb 9:27And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
- Eccl 12:7Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
- Ps 90:10The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
- Acts 13:36For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption:
- Eccl 9:1–3For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
- John 8:52Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
- Heb 7:23–24And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death:
- Eccl 1:4One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Branch who is both priest and king, the shepherd struck and the flock scattered, the king coming humble on a donkey, the one they pierced, the fountain opened for sin — Zechariah is dense with Christ.
How Zechariah 1:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.