'Forefathers' in the Bible

“The blessings of your fatherAre greater than the blessings of my ancestors [Abraham and Isaac]Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills;They shall be on the head of Joseph,Even on the crown of the head of him who was the distinguished one and the one who is prince among (separate from) his brothers.

He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers.

So those of you who may be left will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their forefathers they will rot away with them.

‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me—

But I will, for their sake, [earnestly] remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I have brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.’”

Did I conceive this people or give birth to them, so that you would tell me to carry them near my heart like a wet nurse carries a suckling baby to the land that you promised to their forefathers?

but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

“Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers.

He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you.

“All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers.

For the Lord will strike Israel and the people will shake as a reed shakes in water. He will uproot Israel from this good soil that He gave to their ancestors. He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates because they made their Asherah poles, provoking the Lord.

So Jehoash the king of Judah took all the sacred things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own sacred things and all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house (temple) of the Lord and of the king’s house, and sent them to Hazael king of Aram; and Hazael departed from Jerusalem.

‘Behold, the time is coming when everything that is in your house, and that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

he abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, in accordance with everything that his forefathers had done.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, in accordance with everything that his forefathers had done.

also 220 of the temple servants, whom David and the leaders had set apart [with their descendants] for the service of the Levites. They were all designated by name.

"Inquire of the previous generation, won't you please? Consider what their forefathers searched out.

“Will they (the fathers) not teach you and tell you,And utter words from their hearts [the deepest part of their nature]?

For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.God, we have heard with our ears—our ancestors have told us—the work You accomplished in their days,in days long ago:

Remember not for us the iniquities of forefathers, Haste, let Thy mercies go before us, For we have been very weak.

Let his ancestors’ guiltbe remembered before the Lord,and do not let his mother’s sin be blotted out.

Prepare a massacre for his sons because of the guilt of their forefathers! They are not to rise and inherit the earth, and cover the surface of the world with cities."

But your ancestors did not listen to me nor pay attention to me. They became obstinate and were more wicked than even their own forefathers.'"

which I commanded your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, ‘Listen to My voice, and do according to all which I command you; so you shall be My people, and I will be your God,’

in order to confirm the oath which I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day.”’” Then I said, “Amen, O Lord.”

They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and have followed other gods and served them and bowed down to them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law.

You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me.

You shall not bring a load out of your houses on the sabbath day nor do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers.

Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent

I will send the sword, the famine and the pestilence upon them until they are destroyed from the land which I gave to them and their forefathers.’”

saying, ‘Turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell on the land which the Lord has given to you and your forefathers forever and ever;

For behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The Lord says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it.’”

and gave them this land, which You swore to their forefathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.

“Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, saying,

“At the end of seven years each of you shall set free his Hebrew brother who has been sold to you and has served you six years, you shall send him out free from you; but your forefathers did not obey Me or incline their ear to Me.

Also I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, sending them again and again, saying: ‘Turn now every man from his evil way and amend your deeds, and do not go after other gods to worship them. Then you will dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your forefathers; but you have not inclined your ear or listened to Me.

But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune.

“As for the smoking sacrifices that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your forefathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and did not all this come into His mind?

Our forefathers sinned and are dead, but we suffer their punishment.

And you will know that I am the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the land which I swore to give to your forefathers.

You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.

You shall divide it for an inheritance, each one equally with the other; for I swore to give it to your forefathers, and this land shall fall to you as an inheritance.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame,And they became as detestable as that which they loved.

You will give truth to JacobAnd unchanging love to Abraham,Which You swore to our forefathersFrom the days of old.

He replied to them, “Why also do you violate the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition [handed down by the elders]?

he is not to honor his father or his mother [by helping them with their need].’ So by this you have invalidated the word of God [depriving it of force and authority and making it of no effect] for the sake of your tradition [handed down by the elders].

and you say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have joined them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Fill up the measure of your forefathers' guilt.

(For the Pharisees and all of the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, holding firmly to the traditions of the elders;

So the Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus, “Why do Your disciples not live their lives according to the tradition of the elders, but [instead] eat their bread with [ceremonially] unwashed hands?”

Just as He promised to our fathers,To Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

To show mercy [as He promised] to our fathers,And to remember His holy covenant [the promised blessing],

Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for your reward in heaven is great [absolutely inexhaustible]; for their fathers used to treat the prophets in the same way.

Woe to you when all the people speak well of you and praise you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.

Alas for you! for you repair the tombs of the Prophets, whom your forefathers killed.

It follows that you bear testimony to the actions of your forefathers and that you fully approve thereof. They slew, you build.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one ought to worship is in Jerusalem [at the temple].”

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written [in Scripture], ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’”

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

This is the Bread which came down out of heaven. It is not like [the manna that] our fathers ate and they [eventually] died; the one who eats this Bread [believes in Me, accepts Me as Savior] will live forever.”

However, because Moses gave you the practice of circumcision (not that it came from Moses, but from the forefathers), you circumcise a male child on the Sabbath.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate after he had decided to release him.

Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your countrymen; you shall listen to Him and obey everything He tells you.

You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, And all the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring.

The God of our forefathers raised up Jesus, whom you seized and killed by hanging him on a tree.

Then a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food.

When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors the first time.

and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there,

He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them leave their infants outside, so they wouldn’t survive.

I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. So Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look.

He is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us.

Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him, but pushed him away, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

“Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.

Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers, until the days of David.

“You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit; as your ancestors did, so do you.

Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who proclaimed beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become;

The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors, exalted the people during their stay in the land of Egypt, and led them out of it with a mighty arm.

And we ourselves proclaim to you the good news of the promise that was made to our ancestors.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was buried among his fathers and experienced decay [in the grave];

Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?

"I am a Jew, born at Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I was carefully trained at the feet of Gamaliel in the Law of our forefathers, and, like all of you to-day, was zealous for God.

And he said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will, [and to progressively understand His plan with clarity and power] and to see the Righteous One [Jesus Christ, the Messiah] and to hear a message from His [own] mouth.

But this I confess to you--that in the way which they style a heresy, I worship the God of our forefathers, believing everything that is taught in the Law or is written in the Prophets,

And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.

After three days he called together the leaders of the Jews. When they had gathered he said to them: “Brothers, although I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

Disagreeing among themselves, they began to leave after Paul made one statement: “The Holy Spirit correctly spoke through the prophet Isaiah to your ancestors

The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Messiah, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.

Regarding the gospel, they are enemies for your advantage, but regarding election, they are loved because of the patriarchs,

My meaning is that Christ has become a servant to the people of Israel in vindication of God's truthfulness-- in showing how sure are the promises made to our forefathers--

For I do not want you to be unaware, believers, that our fathers were all under the cloud [in which God’s presence went before them] and they all passed [miraculously and safely] through the [Red] Sea;

and was progressing in Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my nation, [because] I was a far more zealous adherent of the traditions handed down by my forefathers.

I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;

God, having spoken in former times in fragmentary and varied fashion to our forefathers by the prophets,

do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time of the provocation on the day of the temptation in the Desert,

where your forefathers so sorely tried My patience and saw all that I did during forty years.

seeing that the warning still comes to us, "To-day, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time of the provocation."

Not like the covenant that I made with their fathersOn the day when I took them by the handTo lead them out of the land of Egypt;For they did not abide in My covenant,And so I withdrew My favor and disregarded them, says the Lord.

knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,