¶ … family god mean? In my opinion, I believe that a family god should always take care of the family as well as their lineal descendants without ever breaking away from them. Also, being a family god, I think the god also has to love this family, and the family who gets blessings from the god should also have to love the god, worship the god without doubt, and not betray his love. It is like a relationship, both side have to put their heart into it. In other hand, if everyone can worship this god, and get blessings from this god, it would not be considered as a family god, so it is more likely to be a one to one relationship. One of the reason for having a family god is that the god would separate your family and your lineal descendants with rest of the people in the world. So the people who get their blessings from their family god would feel more special, and different with the rest of the people. It's like there have a special person that can help a group of people to cheat on everything, but rest people have to follow the rule, and no one help them cheat.

Finally, the most important characteristic I think a family god should have is that they should not use the god's power to intimidate the people under his blessing, and ask something for the purpose of testing someone's faith. In my opinion, if someone or someone's family has a family god then they must have prayed to the god to become their family god, because the thing is if you have a family god, you immediately become rich in many ways. So it is the people who get most benefit from this relationship, not the god. Said another way, they are the people who should beg for the god come to their family, and become their family god. So there is no need for a family god to intimidate the people, since the god can leave them anytime, and the person and his lineal descendants would lose every privilege they get from the god.

Is Jehovah should be the best understood as the family god of Abraham and his lineal descendants?

In my point-of-view, I do not think Jehovah would be considered as a family god to Abraham and his lineal descendants. First, Jehovah is almost forgetting he had a covenant with Abraham about helping his family get stronger and grown bigger. In Exodus it said, " During that long period, the king of Egypt died The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out God heard their groaning and he remembered...

How does a family god forget the family he should bless, and letting the Israelites become someone's slaves. Not only the god forgets the Israelites but also the Israelites forget their family god Jehovah. Because the Israelites did not ask for help from the god, instead they just did what Egyptians asked them to do.
Second, when the Israelites ran away from the Egyptians, many of them did not feel confident that Jehovah could help them. They even blamed Moses who took them away from Egypt, even though, they know Moses represented Jehovah, and it was Jehovah's order to let Moses lead them to the new land. The Israelites also tried to test Jehovah to see if he really going to help them or not; in Exodus, Moses replied, "why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the rest?" But the people where thirsty for water and they grumbled against Moses. They said "why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst ... Is the LORD among us or not?" (Exodus 17, 1-7). If Jehovah had relationship with Abraham, I feel Jehovah does not keep the covenant with Abraham's lineage. Since it has been a long time, Jehovah left them alone. People start question him, so Jehovah is already not a family god anymore and the relationship did not continue.

Third, in Exodus, and Deuteronomy, there has one idea that is mentioned in these two books. This idea is that is Jehovah is the only god, and the Israelites cannot betray him, and also the traitors would get punish harshly. So Jehovah started using his power to show people that they need to be afraid of him, and keep the Israelites around him. They keep worshiping him without a real choice, because anyone who did not worship Jehovah would get punish by him. In Exodus, "I am the LOARD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other god before me but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20, 1-4). At this point Jehovah is start asking for a relationship with the Israelites, but if you are family god, you would not asking for a relationship with the people under your blessing, so you can assume Jehovah is not a family god to Abraham and his lineal descendants. Jehovah just favors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but after they died, Jehovah leaves for long…