אָב ʼâb

Meaning

father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote application

In the King James Version: chief, (fore-) father(-less), [idiom] patrimony, principal. Compare names in 'Abi-'.

Derivation: a primitive word;

Where it is used

• Ezra 1:5 So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites—everyone whose spirit God had stirred—prepared to go up and rebuild the house of the LORD in Jerusalem.
• Ezra 2:59 The following came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer, but they could not prove that their families were descended from Israel:
• Ezra 2:68 When they arrived at the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, some of the heads of the families gave freewill offerings to rebuild the house of God on its original site.
• Ezra 3:12 But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. Still, many others shouted joyfully.
• Ezra 4:2 they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the families, saying, “Let us build with you because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to Him since the time of King Esar-haddon of Assyria, who brought us here.”
• Ezra 4:3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other heads of the families of Israel replied, “You have no part with us in building a house for our God, since we alone must build it for the LORD, the God of Israel, as Cyrus king of Persia has commanded us.”
• Ezra 7:27 Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who has put into the heart of the king to so honor the house of the LORD in Jerusalem,
• Ezra 8:1 These are the family heads and genealogical records of those who returned with me from Babylon during the reign of King Artaxerxes:
• Ezra 8:28 Then I told them, “You are holy to the LORD, and these articles are holy. The silver and gold are a freewill offering to the LORD, the God of your fathers.
• Ezra 8:29 Guard them carefully until you weigh them out in the chambers of the house of the LORD in Jerusalem before the leading priests, Levites, and heads of the Israelite families.”
• Ezra 9:7 From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.
• Ezra 10:11 Now, therefore, make a confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”
• Ezra 10:16 So the exiles did as proposed. Ezra the priest selected men who were family heads, each of them identified by name, to represent their families. On the first day of the tenth month they launched the investigation,
• Nehemiah 1:6 let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to hear the prayer that I, Your servant, now pray before You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins that we Israelites have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned.
• Nehemiah 2:3 and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
• Nehemiah 2:5 and answered the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city where my fathers are buried, so that I may rebuild it.”
• Nehemiah 7:61 The following came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer, but they could not prove that their families were descended from Israel:
• Nehemiah 7:70 Some of the heads of the families contributed to the project. The governor gave to the treasury 1,000 darics of gold, 50 bowls, and 530 priestly garments.
• Nehemiah 7:71 And some of the heads of the families gave to the treasury for the project 20,000 darics of gold and 2,200 minas of silver.
• Nehemiah 8:13 On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to study the words of the Law.
• Nehemiah 9:2 Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all the foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
• Nehemiah 9:9 You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt; You heard their cry at the Red Sea.
• Nehemiah 9:16 But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments.
• Nehemiah 9:23 You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven and brought them to the land You had told their fathers to enter and possess.
• Nehemiah 9:32 So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.
• Nehemiah 9:34 Our kings and leaders and priests and fathers did not obey Your law or listen to Your commandments and warnings that You gave them.
• Nehemiah 9:36 So here we are today as slaves in the land You gave our fathers to enjoy its fruit and goodness—here we are as slaves!
• Nehemiah 10:34 We have cast lots among the priests, Levites, and people for the donation of wood by our families at the appointed times each year. They are to bring it to the house of our God to burn on the altar of the LORD our God, as it is written in the Law.
• Nehemiah 11:13 and his associates, the leaders of families—242 men; Amashai son of Azarel, the son of Ahzai, the son of Meshillemoth, the son of Immer;
• Nehemiah 12:12 In the days of Joiakim, these were the heads of the priestly families: of the family of Seraiah, Meraiah; of Jeremiah, Hananiah;
• Nehemiah 12:22 In the days of Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua, during the reign of Darius the Persian, the heads of the families of the Levites and priests were recorded.
• Nehemiah 12:23 As for the descendants of Levi, the family heads up to the days of Johanan son of Eliashib were recorded in the Book of the Chronicles.
• Nehemiah 13:18 Did not your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this disaster on us and on this city? And now you are rekindling His wrath against Israel by profaning the Sabbath!”
• Esther 2:7 And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah (that is, Esther), the daughter of his uncle, because she did not have a father or mother. The young woman was lovely in form and appearance, and when her father and mother had died, Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter.
• Esther 4:14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
• Job 8:8 Please inquire of past generations and consider the discoveries of their fathers.
• Job 15:10 Both the gray-haired and the aged are on our side—men much older than your father.
• Job 15:18 what was declared by wise men and was not concealed from their fathers,
• Job 17:14 and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
• Job 29:16 I was a father to the needy, and I took up the case of the stranger.
• Job 30:1 “But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to put with my sheep dogs.
• Job 31:18 though from my youth I reared him as would a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow—
• Job 38:28 Does the rain have a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew?
• Job 42:15 No women as beautiful as Job’s daughters could be found in all the land, and their father granted them an inheritance among their brothers.
• Psalms 22:4 In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them.
• Psalms 27:10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.
• Psalms 39:12 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. For I am a foreigner dwelling with You, a stranger like all my fathers.
• Psalms 44:1 For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.
• Psalms 45:10 Listen, O daughter! Consider and incline your ear: Forget your people and your father’s house,
• Psalms 45:16 Your sons will succeed your fathers; you will make them princes throughout the land.
• Psalms 49:19 he will join the generation of his fathers, who will never see the light of day.
• Psalms 68:5 A father of the fatherless and a defender of widows is God in His holy habitation.
• Psalms 78:3 that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.
• Psalms 78:5 For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,
• Psalms 78:8 Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.
• Psalms 78:12 He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
• Psalms 78:57 They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.
• Psalms 89:26 He will call to Me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock of my salvation.’
• Psalms 95:9 where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.
• Psalms 103:13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.