'Forefathers' in the Bible

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.’

(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.

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.”

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His Servant and Son Jesus [doing Him this honor], the One whom you handed over and disowned and rejected before Pilate, when 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 (descendants) of the prophets and [heirs] of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed (descendant) all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross [and you are responsible].

“Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great distress and our fathers could not find food [for their households and livestock].

But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time.

And Jacob (Israel) went down into Egypt, and there he died, as did our fathers;

He shrewdly exploited our race and mistreated our fathers, forcing them to expose their [male] babies so that they would die.

‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles [divine words that still live] to be handed down to you.

Our fathers were unwilling to be subject to him [and refused to listen to him]. They rejected him, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

“Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God directed Moses to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.

Our fathers also brought it in [with them into the land] with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, [and so it remained here] until the time of David,

“You stiff-necked and stubborn people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are always actively resisting the Holy Spirit. You are doing just as your fathers did.

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 fathers and made the people great and numerous during their stay [as foreigners] in the land of Egypt, and then with an uplifted arm He led them out of there.

And we are bringing you the good news of the promise made to our fathers (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 placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to endure?

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.

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

Three days later he called together the leaders of the Jews; and when they had gathered, he said to them, “Kinsmen, though I have done nothing against our people or against the customs of our fathers, yet I was turned over as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

They disagreed among themselves and they began to leave after Paul had made one last statement: “The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying,

From the standpoint of the gospel, the Jews [at present] are enemies [of God] for your sake [which is for your benefit], but from the standpoint of God’s choice [of the Jews as His people], they are still loved by Him for the sake of the fathers.

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;

God, having spoken to the fathers long ago in [the voices and writings of] the prophets in many separate revelations [each of which set forth a portion of the truth], and in many ways,

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.

For you know that you were not redeemed from your useless [spiritually unproductive] way of life inherited [by tradition] from your forefathers with perishable things like silver and gold,

and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming [what has become of it]? For ever since the fathers fell asleep [in death], all things have continued [exactly] as they did from the beginning of creation.”