Reference: Nations
Hastings
In many places where in the AV we have 'Gentiles' and 'heathen' the RV bas rightly substituted 'nations,' and it might with advantage have carried out the change consistently.
The Heb. (goi) and Greek (ethnos) words denote invariably a nation or a people, never a person. Where in the AV (only NT) we find 'Gentile' in the singular (Ro 2:9 f.) the RV has 'Greek,' following the original. In nearly every example the singular 'nation' stands for 'Israel,' though we have a few exceptions, as in Ex 9:24 (of Egypt), Pr 14:34 (general), and Mt 21:43. It is often applied to Israel and Judah when there is an implication of disobedience to God, sinfulness and the like: see De 32:28; Jg 2:10; Isa 1:4 etc. This shade of meaning became very common in the later writings of the OT. Quite early in Israelitish history the singular as a term for Israel was discarded for the word translated 'people' ('am), so that 'am ('people') and goi ('nation') came to be almost antithetic terms = 'Israelites' and 'non-Israelites,' as in Rabbinical Hebrew. For the reason of the change in the use of goi ('nation'), see below.
In the AV 'Gentiles' often corresponds to 'Greeks' in the original, as in Joh 7:35; Ro 3:9 etc. In the RV the word 'Greeks' is rightly substituted, though the sense is the same, for to the Jews of the time Greek culture and religion stood for the culture and religion of the non-Jewish world.
The two words (Heb. and Greek) translated 'nation' have their original and literal sense in many parts of the OT and NT, as in 10/5/type/bbe'>Ge 10:5,10 etc., Isa 2:4 (= Mic 4:2 f.), Job 12:23; 34:20; Ac 17:28; Ga 3:14. In other passages this general meaning is narrowed so as to embrace the descendants of Abraham, e.g. in Ge 12:2; 18:18; 17:4-6,15. But it is the plural that occurs by far the most frequently, standing almost invariably for non-Israelitish nations, generally with the added notion of their being idolatrous and immoral: see Ex 9:24; 34:10; Le 25:44 ff., Nu 14:15; De 15:5; 1Ki 4:31; Isa 11:10,12, and often. These are contrasted with Israel 'the people of Jahweh' in 2Sa 7:22; 1Ch 17:21 etc.
This contrast between Israel (united or divided into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah) as Jahweh's people, and all the rest of the human race designated 'nations,' runs right through the OT. Such a conception could have arisen only after the Israelites bad developed the consciousness of national unity. At first, even among the Israelites, each nation was thought to be justified in worshipping its deity (see De 3:24; 10:17; 1Ki 8:23; Isa 19:1 etc.). As long as this idea prevailed there could be no necessary antagonism between Israelites and foreign nations, except that which was national, for the nation's god was identified with the national interests. But when the belief in Jahweh's absolute and exclusive claims possessed the mind of Israel, as it began to do in the time of the earliest literary prophets (see Am 9 ff., Mic 7:18 etc.), the nations came to be regarded as worshippers of idols (Le 18:20), and in Ps 9:5,15,17 (cf. Eze 7:21) 'nations' and 'wicked people' are, as being identical, put in parallelism. It will be gathered from what has been said, that the hostile feelings with which Israelites regarded other peoples varied at various times. At all periods it would be modified by the laws of hospitality (see art. Stranger), by political alliances (cf. Isa 7:1 ff., and 2Ki 16:5 ff., Ahaz and Assyria against Israel and Syria), and by the needs of commerce (see Eze 27:11 [Tyre], 1Ki 9:28; 10:11; 22:28 etc.).
The reforms instituted by king Josiah in the Southern Kingdom (2Ki 22:1 f.), based upon the Deuteronomic law newly found in the Temple, aimed at stamping out all syncretism in religion and establishing the pure religion of Jahweb. This reformation, as also the Rechabite movement (Jer 35), had a profound influence upon the thoughts and feelings of Jews, widening the gulf between them and alien nations. The teaching of the oldest prophets looked in the same direction (see Am 2:11; 3:15; 5:11,25; 6:8; 8:5; Ho 2:19; 8:14; 9:10; 10:13; 12:7 ff; Ho 14:4; Isa 2:6; 10:4; 17:10; Zep 1:8,11; Jer 35:1 ff; Jer 37:6 f. etc.).
But the Deuteronomic law (about b.c. 620) made legally obligatory what earlier teachers had inculcated. Israelites were not to marry non-Israelites (De 7:3), or to have any except unavoidable dealings with them.
The feeling of national exclusiveness and antipathy was intensified by the captivity in Babylon, when the prophetic and priestly instructors of the exiled Jews taught them that their calamities came upon them on account of their disloyalty to Jahweh and the ordinances of His religion, and because they compromised with idolatrous practices and heathen nations. It was in Babylon that Ezekiel drew up the programme of worship and organization for the nation after the Return, laying stress on the doctrine that Israel was to be a holy people, separated from other nations (see Eze 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48). Some time after the Return, Ezra and Nehemiah had to contend with the laxity to which Jews who had remained in the home land and others had yielded; but they were uncompromising, and won the battle for nationalism in religion.
Judaism was in even greater danger of being lost in the world-currents of speculation and religion soon after the time of Alexander the Great. Indeed, but for the brave Maccab
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From these came the nations of the sea-lands, with their different families and languages.
And at the first, his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
And I will make of you a great nation, blessing you and making your name great; and you will be a blessing:
As for me, my agreement is made with you, and you will be the father of nations without end. No longer will your name be Abram, but Abraham, for I have made you the father of a number of nations. read more. I will make you very fertile, so that nations will come from you and kings will be your offspring.
And God said, As for Sarai, your wife, from now her name will be not Sarai, but Sarah.
Seeing that Abraham will certainly become a great and strong nation, and his name will be used by all the nations of the earth as a blessing?
So there was an ice-storm with fire running through it, coming down with great force, such as never was in all the land of Egypt from the time when it became a nation.
So there was an ice-storm with fire running through it, coming down with great force, such as never was in all the land of Egypt from the time when it became a nation.
And the Lord said, See, this is what I will undertake: before the eyes of your people I will do wonders, such as have not been done in all the earth or in any nation: and all your people will see the work of the Lord, for what I am about to do for you is greatly to be feared.
And you may not have sex relations with your neighbour's wife, making yourself unclean with her.
But you may get servants as property from among the nations round about; from them you may take men-servants and women-servants.
Now if you put to death all this people as one man, then the nations who have had word of your glory will say,
O Lord God, you have now for the first time let your servant see your great power and the strength of your hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth able to do such great works and such acts of power?
Do not take wives or husbands from among them; do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons.
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, strong in power and greatly to be feared, who has no respect for any man's position and takes no rewards:
If only you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to keep all these orders which I give you today.
For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them.
And in time death overtook all that generation; and another generation came after them, having no knowledge of the Lord or of the things which he had done for Israel.
Truly you are great, O Lord God: there is no one like you and no other God but you, as is clear from everything which has come to our ears.
And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.
And the sea-force of Hiram, in addition to gold from Ophir, came back with much sandal-wood and jewels.
And Micaiah said, If you come back at all in peace, the Lord has not sent his word by me.
Then Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war; and they made an attack on Ahaz, shutting him in, but were not able to overcome him.
Josiah was eight years old when he became king; and he was ruling in Jerusalem for thirty-one years; his mother's name was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
Increasing nations, and sending destruction on them; making wide the lands of peoples, and then giving them up.
Suddenly they come to an end, even in the middle of the night: the blow comes on the men of wealth, and they are gone, and the strong are taken away without the hand of man.
You have said sharp words to the nations, you have sent destruction on the sinners, you have put an end to their name for ever and ever.
The nations have gone down into the hole which they made: in their secret net is their foot taken.
The sinners and all the nations who have no memory of God will be turned into the underworld.
By righteousness a nation is lifted up, but sin is a cause of shame to the peoples.
O nation full of sin, a people weighted down with crime, a generation of evil-doers, false-hearted children: they have gone away from the Lord, they have no respect for the Holy One of Israel, their hearts are turned back from him.
And he will be the judge between the nations, and the peoples will be ruled by his decisions: and their swords will be turned into plough-blades, and their spears into vine-knives: no longer will the nations be turning their swords against one another, and the knowledge of war will be gone for ever.
For you, O Lord, have given up your people, the family of Jacob, because they are full of the evil ways of the east, and make use of secret arts like the Philistines, and are friends with the children of strange countries.
Now it came about in the days of Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war against it, but were not able to overcome it.
... For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
And in that day, the eyes of the nations will be turned to the root of Jesse which will be lifted up as the flag of the peoples; and his resting-place will be glory.
And he will put up a flag as a sign to the nations, and he will get together those of Israel who had been sent away, and the wandering ones of Judah, from the four ends of the earth.
For you have not given honour to the God of your salvation, and have not kept in mind the Rock of your strength; for this cause you made a garden of Adonis, and put in it the vine-cuttings of a strange god;
The word about Egypt. See, the Lord is seated on a quick-moving cloud, and is coming to Egypt: and the false gods of Egypt will be troubled at his coming, and the heart of Egypt will be turned to water.
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,
And I will give it into the hands of men from strange lands who will take it by force, and to the evil-doers of the earth to have for themselves; and they will make it unholy.
The men of Arvad in your army were on your walls, and were watchmen in your towers, hanging up their arms on your walls round about; they made you completely beautiful.
And I will take you as my bride for ever; truly, I will take you as my bride in righteousness and in right judging, in love and in mercies.
For Israel has no memory of his Maker, and has put up the houses of kings; and Judah has made great the number of his walled towns. But I will send a fire on his towns and put an end to his great houses.
I made discovery of Israel as of grapes in the waste land; I saw your fathers as the first-fruits of the fig-tree in her early fruit time; but they came to Baal-peor, and made themselves holy to the thing of shame, and became disgusting like that to which they gave their love.
You have been ploughing sin, you have got in a store of evil, the fruit of deceit has been your food: for you put faith in your way, in the number of your men of war.
As for Canaan, the scales of deceit are in his hands; he takes pleasure in twisted ways.
I will put right their errors; freely will my love be given to them, for my wrath is turned away from him.
And some of your sons I made prophets, and some of your young men I made separate for myself. Is it not even so, O children of Israel? says the Lord.
And I will send destruction on the winter house with the summer house; the ivory houses will be falling down and the great houses will come to an end, says the Lord.
So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine.
Did you come to me with offerings of beasts and meal offerings in the waste land for forty years, O Israel?
The Lord God has taken an oath by himself, says the Lord, the God of armies: the pride of Jacob is disgusting to me, and I have hate for his great houses: so I will give up the town with everything in it.
Saying, When will the new moon be gone, so that we may do trade in grain? and the Sabbath, so that we may put out in the market the produce of our fields? making the measure small and the price great, and trading falsely with scales of deceit;
And a number of nations will go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will give us knowledge of his ways and we will be guided by his word: for from Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy.
And it will come about in the day of the Lord's offering, that I will send punishment on the rulers and the king's sons and all who are clothed in robes from strange lands.
Because of the downfall of all the people of Canaan: all those who were weighted down with silver have been cut off.
For this reason I say to you, The kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation producing the fruits of it.
So the Jews said among themselves, To what place is he going where we will not see him? will he go to the Jews living among the Greeks and become the teacher of the Greeks?
And the Jews of the faith, who had come with Peter, were full of wonder, because the Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles,
For in him we have life and motion and existence; as certain of your verse writers have said, For we are his offspring.
Trouble and sorrow on all whose works are evil, to the Jew first and then to the Greek;
What then? are we worse off than they? In no way: because we have before made it clear that Jews as well as Greeks are all under the power of sin;
So that on the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; in order that we through faith might have the Spirit which God had undertaken to give.