'Forefather' in the Bible
Then a letter came to Jehoram from Elijah the prophet, saying, “Thus says the Lord God of David your father (ancestor): ‘Because you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah,
Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do right in the sight of the Lord, as his father (forefather) David had done.
He did right in the sight of the Lord, in accordance with everything that David his father (forefather) had done.
Hezekiah stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with harps, and with lyres, in accordance with the command of David [his ancestor] and of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet; for the command was from the Lord through His prophets.
He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father (forefather) and did not turn aside either to the right or to the left.
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young (sixteen), he began to seek after and inquire of the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and cast images.