'Fathers' in the Bible

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?