Great Men Part 3

THE OFFSPRING OF GREAT MEN SOMETIMES ALSO BECOME GREAT MEN -- "And their brethren, mighty men of valour, an hundred twenty and eight: and their overseer was Zabdiel, the son of one of the great men" (Nehemiah 11:14). Of whatever sort, greatness often begets greatness. At least sometimes the old adage "like father, like son" comes true when the son of a great man becomes such himself. In the case above, Zabdiel was the son of a great man who became one of Nehemiah's "mighty men of valor," yea, even their overseer. 

So, Zabdiel's father was a great man, and Zabdiel himself became a great man in his own right. Perhaps his name gives us a clue about why Zabdiel followed his father's example of greatness. According to Strong's Concordance, "Zabdiel"  means: "Gift of God". We might see in this that Zabdiel's father was a great man of God who considered his son to be, as it were, "a talent on loan from Jehovah" -- a son who after having been given of God was to be carefully and prayerfully raised for God. This, it seems, may have been the very reason why Zabdiel also became a great man, zealous in his work for the God of Israel.

Many a godly and great father and mother in spiritual Israel who have dedicated their children to God at, or even before, the time of their birth have lived to see those "Gifts of God" become great men and women of God themselves. Were I to do a detailed research on such cases, I venture to say that I could probably fill many pages with such examples. Yea, perhaps even now the reader can call to mind one or more such cases where spiritual greatness begat spiritual greatness -- where concerning a Christian giant the adage "like father, like son" came true, and where regarding great piety the Scripture, "As is the mother, so is her daughter" (Ezek. 16:44) has been literally fulfilled.

Conversely, that same adage and that same Scripture have proven true in other realms of greatness -- many of which have been a curse to the world:-- great men of greed and wealth have often brought forth greatly avaricious sons; great men of ambition have introduced into society sons with huge aspirations to be somebody; great men of political power have begotten sons with a hunger for even greater dictatorial designs; and similar curses have come into our world when the daughter of many a Jezebel mother has more than proven that "as is the mother, so is her daughter" to degrade the morals of mankind.

Happy the case, when it is otherwise, and great men and women of God bring forth and raise up for the world sons and daughters who become even greater spiritual giants "that do know their God, [and who are] strong, and do exploits" for Christ exceeding those of their forebears (Dan. 11:32).