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father (1 Sam. 2:22–25). As a result, God took their lives in judgment. It seems inconceivable that the top priest in the land could produce such wicked offspring.
    Samuel
    If any parent should have been alert to the danger of poor parenting, it ought to have been Samuel. After all, he had witnessed firsthand the pain that two wayward sons caused his mentor Eli to suffer. You would assume Samuel would have fervently sought to raise his offspring to walk closely with the Lord. Inexplicably, Samuel neglected his children, and as a consequence his sons Joel and Abijah made Eli’s sons look like choirboys! They took bribes and so perverted justice that the Israelites demanded that Samuel appoint them a king, fearing his two corrupt sons would take over after he was gone (1 Sam. 8:1–8). Samuel proved blameless in his personal conduct as Israel’s leader, but he failed miserably to raise his children to follow and honor his God.
    David
    David was a man’s man. He single-handedly fought lions, bears, and giants. He led a band of battle-hardened warriors through perilous times until he ultimately ascended the throne of Israel. He defeated his nation’s enemies. He organized his people’s worship. He gathered the resources to build a dazzling temple for his God. But he repeatedly failed as a father.
    His son Amnon raped his daughter Tamar, yet David did nothing about it (2 Sam. 13:1–22). In revenge, Tamar’s brother Absalom murdered his half brother Amnon (2 Sam. 13:28–29), but again David did nothing (2 Sam. 13:37-39). When Absalom returned to live in Jerusalem, he spent two full years in the city without his father coming to see him (2 Sam. 14:28). Later Absalom initiated a revolt against his father, David, that threw the entire nation into civil war and ultimately led to Absalom’s death (2 Sam. 16–18). At the close of David’s life, his son Adonijah, Absalom’s brother, promoted himself to be the next king even though that position had been promised to Solomon. Yet despite this flagrant self-promotion, David did nothing to rebuke his ambitious child (1 Kings 1:6). Only when a coup was imminent did David arise and thwart the schemes of his son. Even then, there is no record that he spoke to Adonijah or sought to guide him into making wise choices with his life. David enjoyed far more successes on the battlefield than he did on the domestic front.
    Kings Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah
    A puzzling feature of so many of the godly leaders of the Bible is how they could be so righteous and yet could raise such ungodly offspring. Jehoshaphat, for example, was one of the godliest kings to rule Judah. His father, Asa, had been a righteous king (1 Kings 15:11). Throughout his reign, King Jehoshaphat sought to honor God and to be at peace with the kingdom of Israel, ruled by the wicked King Ahab (1 Kings 22:44). However, in his desire to make peace with his northern brothers, Jehoshaphat allowed his son Jehoram to marry the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. In his misguided effort at alliance building, Jehoshaphat sowed the seeds of his son’s apostasy. For rather than following the godly example of his father, King Jehoram modeled his reign after his wicked father-in-law, Ahab (2 Kings 8:18).
    King Hezekiah was one of the godliest kings to rule Judah. His father, Ahaz, had been unfaithful to God (2 Kings 16:2) and had introduced pagan worship into Judah. Yet, Hezekiah forsook his father’s wicked example and served God wholeheartedly. Scripture says of him: “He trusted in the L ord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him” (2 Kings 18:5). Yet Hezekiah’s son Manasseh became arguably the wickedest king ever to rule Judah (2 Kings 21:1-18). What a contrast! Judah’s godliest king produced its wickedest.
    Finally we see King Josiah . His father, Amon, was wicked, and his grandfather, Manasseh, was even worse. Yet as a boy, Josiah had a heart for God. He