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I. THE LAW OF HUMAN MORTALITY AND SUCCESSION IS FULL OF SUGGESTION. Death is the law of all life, vegetable and animal, as well as human. Had man not sinned, the mortality of his human body would probably have been the same. The death to which sin doomed man was spiritual, not fleshly death. He could scarcely have remained permanently in a world subject to the conditions of this. The death of the body is sorrowful enough, because of our human affections and sensibilities. The prophets die. Even their high vocation does not exempt them from the law of death. It may be that God would teach us that He can do His work without the best and greatest. Instead of Stephen God raises up Paul. A prophet's work may seem indispensable to an age, yet he dies.

II. IS THERE NOT HIGH BENEFIT IN THE PROPHETICAL SUCCESSION? If the wise and experienced die, they give place to the young and ardent, who, with fresh impulse and newer lights, enter into their wealth of wisdom. Else might the prophet become a stereotype. The wisest may outlive their wisdom, and the most useful their usefulness. Sometimes the greatest are the greatest hindrance. Every generation rises to higher and broader spiritual conception than its predecessor. Whether is the greater evil, the mistakes of impetuous youth, or the paralysis of incapable age; the zeal without knowledge of experience, or the knowledge without zeal of over caution; the Radical revolutionist, who would make all things new, or the Conservative revolutionist, who stands still in the stream of advancing thought and spirituality — the one too fast for his age, and the other too slow? Have we not a great law of compensation in the succession of God's prophets, especially as the generations overlap each other, and the Church possesses both at the same time?

(Henry Allon, D. D.)

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KJV: Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?

WEB: Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?