Reference: Heathen
Easton
(Heb plural goyum). At first the word goyim denoted generally all the nations of the world (Ge 18:18; comp. Ga 3:8). The Jews afterwards became a people distinguished in a marked manner from the other goyim. They were a separate people (Le 20:23; 26:14-45; De 28), and the other nations, the Amorites, Hittites, etc., were the goyim, the heathen, with whom the Jews were forbidden to be associated in any way (Jos 23:7; 1Ki 11:2). The practice of idolatry was the characteristic of these nations, and hence the word came to designate idolaters (Ps 106:47; Jer 46:28; La 1:3; Isa 36:18), the wicked (Ps 9:5,15,17).
The corresponding Greek word in the New Testament, ethne, has similar shades of meaning. In Ac 22:21; Ga 3:14, it denotes the people of the earth generally; and in Mt 6:7, an idolater. In modern usage the word denotes all nations that are strangers to revealed religion.
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since Abraham has surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him?
You shall not walk in the customs of the nation, which I am casting out before you: for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.
"'But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; read more. I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you. "'If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass; and your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won't yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit. "'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your roads will become desolate. "'If by these things you won't be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me; then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. "'If you in spite of this won't listen to me, but walk contrary to me; then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn't have in your sabbaths, when you lived on it. "'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues. They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up. Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me, I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God; but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.'"
that you not come among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow down yourselves to them;
You have rebuked the nations. You have destroyed the wicked. You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made. In the net which they hid, their own foot is taken.
The wicked shall be turned back to Sheol, even all the nations that forget God.
Save us, Yahweh, our God, gather us from among the nations, to give thanks to your holy name, to triumph in your praise!
Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, "Yahweh will deliver us." Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?
Don't you be afraid, O Jacob my servant, says Yahweh; for I am with you: for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you; but I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.
Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: all her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
In praying, don't use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.
"He said to me, 'Depart, for I will send you out far from here to the Gentiles.'"
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you all the nations will be blessed."
that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Fausets
(See GENTILES .)
Hastings
Morish
The Hebrew word goi is also translated 'Gentiles,' and 'people,' and very often 'nations:' it is used in contrast to Israel irrespective of those designated being civilised or not. All the nations were idolaters, but this is not implied in the word goi, nor in the qno" -->????? of the N.T., which is more frequently translated 'nations' and 'Gentiles.' In Mt 18:17 ??????? has a peculiar application: if an offending brother will not bear the church, the injunction is "let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican," that is, as an outsider, the heathen being outside the privileges of Israel, as one to be avoided: cf. Ro 16:17; 2Th 3:6,14.
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If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.
Now I beg you, brothers, look out for those who are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and turn away from them.
Smith
Hea'then.
[GENTILES]
See Gentiles