'Fathers' in the Bible

I said to the king, “Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire?”

I said to the king, “If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.”

These were they who came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon and Immer; but they could not show their fathers’ houses or their descendants, whether they were of Israel:

Some from among the heads of fathers’ households gave to the work. The governor gave to the treasury 1,000 gold drachmas, 50 basins, 530 priests’ garments.

Some of the heads of fathers’ households gave into the treasury of the work 20,000 gold drachmas and 2,200 silver minas.

Then on the second day the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe that they might gain insight into the words of the law.

The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

“You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt,And heard their cry by the Red Sea.

“But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly;They became stubborn and would not listen to Your commandments.

“You made their sons numerous as the stars of heaven,And You brought them into the landWhich You had told their fathers to enter and possess.

“Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness,Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You,Which has come upon us, our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people,From the days of the kings of Assyria to this day.

“For our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers have not kept Your lawOr paid attention to Your commandments and Your admonitions with which You have admonished them.

“Behold, we are slaves today,And as to the land which You gave to our fathers to eat of its fruit and its bounty,Behold, we are slaves in it.

Likewise we cast lots for the supply of wood among the priests, the Levites and the people so that they might bring it to the house of our God, according to our fathers’ households, at fixed times annually, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law;

and his kinsmen, heads of fathers’ households, 242; and Amashsai the son of Azarel, the son of Ahzai, the son of Meshillemoth, the son of Immer,

Now in the days of Joiakim, the priests, the heads of fathers’ households were: of Seraiah, Meraiah; of Jeremiah, Hananiah;

As for the Levites, the heads of fathers’ households were registered in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, and Johanan and Jaddua; so were the priests in the reign of Darius the Persian.

The sons of Levi, the heads of fathers’ households, were registered in the Book of the Chronicles up to the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib.

Did not your fathers do the same, so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble? Yet you are adding to the wrath on Israel by profaning the sabbath.”