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PART 3
OLD TESTAMENT EXAMPLES OF A GOOD MAN

Dr. Andrew Corbett, 4th June 2026, writing from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

I am going to offer a brief list of some of the good men mentioned in the Old Testament. Three of these men receive a lot more attention than the first three men I will discuss. Four of these men were fathers, and I will point out that the implication of the biblical data is that they fathered their children after they had fathered them. Each of these six men were manly. They demonstrated diligence to serve as providers and protectors. They showed genuine car and concern for others. They were examples of authentic spirituality—and did so in an environment that was often difficult. The order of this list is as they occur in the Bible.

Adam

What do we know about Adam? I suspect that the list of what is known about Adam is probably quite short. It might include:

• The first created man (Gen. 2:7).
• The progenitor of all human beings (Gen. 1:28).
• The perfect man who was originally sinless (Gen. 1-2).
• He married the perfect woman (Gen. 2:23-24)
• He and his wife, ’Isha, spent their honeymoon completely naked (Gen. 2:25).
• He and his wife disobeyed God’s one command for them and introduced sin into the human race:

¶ Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Romans 5:12

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
First Corinthians 15:22

After Adam’s sin, “the LORD God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). This appears to be the first act of atonement in the bible. Acts of atonement in the Old Testament prefigured the antitype of Christ’s work of atonement on the Cross. Thus, Adam’s sin was atoned for. After Adam’s first two sons resulted in fratricide, it seems to me that Adam realised that becoming a father was not the same as being a father.

¶ And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.
Genesis 4:25-26

I imagine that Adam did for Seth his son, and Enosh his Grandson, what he possibly had not done for Cain. I see the last phrase in Genesis 4:26 “At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD” as a possible testimony to Adam’s fathering. This is why I believe Adam became a positive role model of manhood. This is especially considering his designation in Luke 3:38, which directly makes him a type of Christ:

the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
Luke 3:38

Seth

Seth, the son of Adam, continued his father’s mission as part of the original creation mandate. “He had other sons and daughters” (Gen. 5:7). As indicated in Genesis 4:26, Seth fathered his children at a time when “people began to call upon the name of the LORD.” This suggests to me that Seth had learned from his father that becoming a father is meant to involve fathering those you have fathered. In this sense, I am offering Seth as a positive example of masculinity.

Enoch

¶ When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years.  Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
Genesis 5:21-24

There is a lot of eschatological speculation about Enoch. Much of this speculation is based on a passage in Hebrews:

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:27-28

This reference to each person being appointed to die is pointed at Enoch, who apparently, based on a reading of Genesis 5:24, did not die. The speculation is that since the Hebrew passage states that all men are appointed to die — and that it links this reference to Christ appearing “a second time”, Enoch must therefore be one of th two witnesses referred to Revelation 11.

And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”

¶ These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.
Revelation 11:3-8

However, the description of the two witnesses hardly describes what we are told about Enoch in Genesis 5. If you would like my further consideration of this Revelation 11 passage, you will find it on my eschatology website. What we can surmise about Enoch is that at a time when humankind was being increasingly corrupted, which culminated in the events of Noah’s flood (Genesis 6 – 9), Enoch maintained and developed a strong relationship with GOD. The fact that “God took him” seems to confirm that Enoch was a godly man who obeyed God at a time when it was becoming increasingly hostile to do so.

Joseph

In my recent series about the imago Dei revealed through the book of Genesis, I devoted a chapter to how Genesis concludes with its last third of its contents being focused on Joseph. He was impeccable. In that article I not at least ten similarities between him and Christ. Perhaps, like me, you have heard sermons about Joseph being a young upstart who arrogantly bragged about his two prophetic dreams to his brothers and parents. I have come to see this interpretation as a complete mischaracterisation of Joseph and an incorrect interpretation of the Genesis 37 narrative. 

Joseph exhibited unusual spirituality. His two prophetic dreams about ruling over his brothers and father and mother are an indication of this. When his brothers betrayed him, his enslavement in Egypt reveals two important attributes of what a good man is. Firstly, his diligence when working for Potiphar demonstrated his outstanding work ethic.

¶ Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The LORD was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. So Joseph found favour in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field.
Genesis 39:1-5

Secondly, when Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce Joseph sexually, Joseph remained morally upright and resisted her approaches.

¶ Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.
Genesis 39:6b – 10

When he was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife of attempted rape, Joseph was imprisoned for thirteen years. During that time he continued to develop his relationship with the LORD and was used to accurately and prophetically interpret the dreams of Pharaoh’s two imprisoned servants. Ultimately he then interpret Pharaoh’s dreams and was then appointed by Pharaoh as the Governor of Egypt – which fulfilled his two dreams which he had originally shared with his brothers and parents. For these reasons and more, Joseph exemplified the traits of a good man.

Jeremiah

¶ Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
Matthew 16:13-14

The fact that many of Christ’s contemporaries considered that Jesus was Jeremiah the prophet, tells us a lot about Jeremiah. As with Joseph, there are many similarities between Jeremiah and Jesus. From a young age he was very sensitive to the voice of God. He was largely rejected by those he came to minister to. He prophesied of events that were fulfilled during his lifetime. His most significant prophecies related to the coming of a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34).

¶ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
Jeremiah 31:31

Jeremiah remained faithful to God at a time when hardly anyone else was. Ultimately, Jeremiah would be taken to Egypt against his will, and legend has it, that it was there that he was stoned to death by those whom he had prophesied not to go down to Egypt. Overall, the bible presents Jeremiah as a good man. You might be interested in the podcast series I did about Jeremiah, which you can listen to here – https://soundcloud.com/drandrewc/sets/jeremiah .

Daniel

When Jeremiah was prophesying in Judah for the King to repent and to lead the nation in repentance, Daniel was very young. When Jeremiah’s prophetic warnings began to be fulfilled with the invasion of the Babylonian emperor, Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel would have been about fifteen-years-old when he was exiled from his homeland to Babylon. How Daniel responded to this upheaval is remarkable.

Daniel was taken from his parents, his home, nearly all of his friends, his synagogue community, the ceremonies and rituals of the Jerusalem Temple, and, the cultural expectations he had only ever known that was grounded in the Torah. When he arrived in Babylon he was to be put into the service of the emperor. This probably meant that he was neutered (since the emperor would not want young men associating with the emperor’s harem of concubines!).

The first thing Daniel experienced was a demand that he, and his colleagues, eat forbidden food. Daniel and his friends refused to do this. If you know the story of Daniel, you’ll know that he also survived death threats, being thrown to the lions, and the overturning of emperors. What Daniel exhibited throughout all of these trials was: courage, bold devotion to GOD, and dedication to the reading of the TANAHK (especially the book of Jeremiah).

In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
Daniel 9:2

He was also a deeply prayerful man who received several heavenly visions about the future, including the coming of the Christ.

Conclusion

This short and brief sample of positive Old Testament examples of manhood and masculinity serves to illustrate that true manliness is exhibited as:

1. Faithful and diligent acceptance of responsibilities.
2. Not just having fathered a child or children, but fathering them as well.
3. Living a godly life of faithful obedience to God, even in the midst hostile adversaries.
4. Being authentically spiritual as a person who prays to and worships God.

May God grant to each of us men the grace and equipping to live like true men who also exhibit these traits.

Next: Jesus Christ, the Preeminent Man.