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/ylt'>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
See Verses Found in Dictionary
By these have the isles of the nations been parted in their lands, each by his tongue, by their families, in their nations.
And the first part of his kingdom is Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar;
And I make thee become a great nation, and bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing.
I -- lo, My covenant is with thee, and thou hast become father of a multitude of nations; and thy name is no more called Abram, but thy name hath been Abraham, for father of a multitude of nations have I made thee; read more. and I have made thee exceeding fruitful, and made thee become nations, and kings go out from thee.
And God saith unto Abraham, 'Sarai thy wife -- thou dost not call her name Sarai, for Sarah is her name;
and Abraham certainly becometh a nation great and mighty, and blessed in him have been all nations of the earth?
and there is hail, and fire catching itself in the midst of the hail, very grievous, such as hath not been in all the land of Egypt since it hath become a nation.
and there is hail, and fire catching itself in the midst of the hail, very grievous, such as hath not been in all the land of Egypt since it hath become a nation.
And He saith, 'Lo, I am making a covenant: before all thy people I do wonders, which have not been done in all the earth, or in any nation, and all the people in whose midst thou art have seen the work of Jehovah, for it is fearful that which I am doing with thee.
'And unto the wife of thy fellow thou dost not give thy seed of copulation, for uncleanness with her.
And thy man-servant and thy handmaid whom thou hast are of the nations who are round about you; of them ye buy man-servant and handmaid,
'And Thou hast put to death this people as one man, and the nations who have heard Thy fame have spoken, saying,
Lord Jehovah, Thou -- Thou hast begun to shew Thy servant Thy greatness, and Thy strong hand; for who is a God in the heavens or in earth who doth according to Thy works, and according to Thy might?
'And thou dost not join in marriage with them; thy daughter thou dost not give to his son, and his daughter thou dost not take to thy son,
for Jehovah your God -- He is God of the gods, and Lord of the lords; God, the great, the mighty, and the fearful; who accepteth not persons, nor taketh a bribe;
'Only, if thou dost diligently hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, to observe to do all this command which I am commanding thee to-day,
For a nation lost to counsels are they, And there is no understanding in them.
and also all that generation have been gathered unto their fathers, and another generation riseth after them who have not known Jehovah, and even the work which He hath done to Israel.
Therefore Thou hast been great, Jehovah God, for there is none like Thee, and there is no God save Thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
and they come in to Ophir and take thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and bring it in unto king Solomon.
And also, the navy of Hiram that bore gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir almug-trees very many, and precious stone;
And Micaiah saith, 'If thou at all return in peace -- Jehovah hath not spoken by me;' and he saith, 'Hear, O peoples, all of them.'
Then doth Rezin king of Aram go up, and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel, to Jerusalem, to battle, and they lay siege to Ahaz, and they have not been able to fight.
A son of eight years is Josiah in his reigning, and thirty and one years he hath reigned in Jerusalem, and the name of his mother is Jedidah daughter of Adaiah of Boskath,
Magnifying the nations, and He destroyeth them, Spreading out the nations, and He quieteth them.
In a moment they die, and at midnight Shake do people, and they pass away, And they remove the mighty without hand.
Thou hast rebuked nations, Thou hast destroyed the wicked, Their name Thou hast blotted out to the age and for ever.
Sunk have nations in a pit they made, In a net that they hid hath their foot been captured.
The wicked do turn back to Sheol, All nations forgetting God.
Righteousness exalteth a nation, And the goodliness of peoples is a sin-offering.
Ah, sinning nation, a people heavy with iniquity, A seed of evil doers, sons -- corrupters! They have forsaken Jehovah, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have gone away backward.
And He hath judged between the nations, And hath given a decision to many peoples, And they have beat their swords to ploughshares, And their spears to pruning-hooks, Nation doth not lift up sword unto nation, Nor do they learn any more -- war.
For Thou hast left Thy people, the house of Jacob. For they have been filled from the east, And are sorcerers like the Philistines, And with the children of strangers strike hands.
And it cometh to pass in the days of Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, gone up hath Rezin king of Aram, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, to Jerusalem, to battle against it, and he is not able to fight against it.
Without Me it hath bowed down In the place of a bound one, And in the place of the slain they fall. With all this not turned back hath His anger, And still His hand is stretched out.
And there hath been, in that day, A root of Jesse that is standing for an ensign of peoples, Unto him do nations seek, And his rest hath been -- honour!
And He hath lifted up an ensign to nations, And gathereth the driven away of Israel, And the scattered of Judah He assembleth, From the four wings of the earth.
Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, And the rock of thy strength hast not remembered, Therefore thou plantest plants of pleasantness, And with a strange slip sowest it,
The burden of Egypt. Lo, Jehovah is riding on a swift thick cloud, And He hath entered Egypt, And moved have been the idols of Egypt at His presence, And the heart of Egypt melteth in its midst.
The word that hath been unto Jeremiah from Jehovah, in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, saying:
And I have given it into the hand of the strangers for a prey, And to the wicked of the land for a spoil, And they have polluted it.
The sons of Arvad, and thy force, Are on thy walls round about, And short swordsmen in thy towers have been, Their shields they have hung up on thy walls round about, They -- they have perfected thy beauty.
And I have betrothed thee to Me to the age, And betrothed thee to Me in righteousness, And in judgment, and kindness, and mercies,
And forget doth Israel his Maker, and buildeth temples, And Judah hath multiplied cities of defence, And I have sent a fire into his cities, And it hath consumed their palaces!
As grapes in a wilderness I found Israel, As the first-fruit in a fig-tree, at its beginning, I have seen your fathers, They -- they have gone in to Baal-Peor, And are separated to a shameful thing, And are become abominable like their love.
Ye have ploughed wickedness, Perversity ye have reaped, Ye have eaten the fruit of lying, For thou hast trusted in thy way, In the abundance of thy might.
Canaan! in his hand are balances of deceit! To oppress he hath loved.
I heal their backsliding, I love them freely, For turned back hath Mine anger from him.
And I raise of your sons for prophets, And of your choice ones for Nazarites, Is not this true, O sons of Israel? An affirmation of Jehovah.
And I have smitten the winter-house with the summer-house, And perished have houses of ivory, And consumed have been many houses, An affirmation of Jehovah!
Therefore, because of your trampling on the poor, And the tribute of corn ye take from him, Houses of hewn work ye have built, And ye do not dwell in them, Desirable vineyards ye have planted, And ye do not drink their wine.
Sacrifices and offering did ye bring nigh to Me, In a wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
Sworn hath the Lord Jehovah by Himself, An affirmation of Jehovah, God of Hosts: I am abominating the excellency of Jacob, And his high places I have hated, And I have delivered up the city and its fulness.
Saying, When doth the new moon pass, And we sell ground corn? And the sabbath, and we open out pure corn? To make little the ephah, And to make great the shekel, And to use perversely balances of deceit.
And gone have many nations and said, Come and we go up to the mount of Jehovah, And unto the house of the God of Jacob, And He doth teach us of His ways, And we do walk in His paths, For from Zion doth go forth a law, And a word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.
Who is a God like Thee? taking away iniquity, And passing by the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance, He hath not retained for ever His anger, Because He -- He delighteth in kindness.
And it hath come to pass, In the day of the sacrifice of Jehovah, That I have laid a charge on the heads, And on sons of the king, And on all putting on strange clothing.
Howl, ye inhabitants of the hollow place, For cut off hath been all the merchant people, Cut off have been all bearing silver.
'Because of this I say to you, that the reign of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth its fruit;
The Jews, therefore, said among themselves, 'Whither is this one about to go that we shall not find him? -- to the dispersion of the Greeks is he about to go? and to teach the Greeks;
and those of the circumcision believing were astonished -- as many as came with Peter -- because also upon the nations the gift of the Holy Spirit hath been poured out,
for in Him we live, and move, and are; as also certain of your poets have said: For of Him also we are offspring.
tribulation and distress, upon every soul of man that is working the evil, both of Jew first, and of Greek;
What, then? are we better? not at all! for we did before charge both Jews and Greeks with being all under sin,
that to the nations the blessing of Abraham may come in Christ Jesus, that the promise of the Spirit we may receive through the faith.