John Lightfoot on John 1:21

[Art thou that prophet?] That is, Luke 9:8,19, one of the old prophets that was risen again.

I. The Masters of Traditions were wont to say that "the spirit of prophecy departed from Israel after the death of Zechariah and Malachi." So that we do not find they expected any prophet till the days of the Messiah; nor indeed that any, in that interim of time, did pretend to that character.

II. They believed that at the coming of the Messiah the prophets were to rise again.

"'Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice, with the voice together shall they sing,' Isaiah 52:8. R. Chaia Bar Abba and R. Jochanan say, All the prophets shall put forth a song with one voice."

"All the just whom God shall raise from the dead shall not return again into the dust." Gloss, "Those whom he shall raise in the days of the Messiah."

To this resurrection of the saints they apply that of Micah 5:5: "We shall raise against him seven shepherds; David in the middle, Adam, Seth, Methuselah on his right hand; Abraham, Jacob, and Moses on his left. And eight principal men: but who are these? Jesse, Saul, Samuel, Amos, Zephaniah, Zedekiah [or rather Hezekiah, as Kimch. in loc.], Messiah and Elijah. But indeed [saith R. Solomon] I do not well know whence they had these things." Nor indeed do I.

The Greek interpreters, instead of eight principal men have eight bitings of men, a very foreign sense.

Hence by how much nearer still the 'kingdom of heaven,' or the expected time of Messiah's coming, drew on, by so much the more did they dream of the resurrection of the prophets. And when any person of more remarkable gravity, piety, and holiness appeared amongst them, they were ready to conceive of him as a prophet raised from the dead, Matthew 16:14. That therefore is the meaning of this question, "Art thou one of the prophets raised from the dead?"