'Nations' in the Bible

From these the coastland peoples spread out through their lands, each according to his own language by their own families, in their nations.

These [are] the descendants of Ham, according to their families and their languages, in their lands, and in their nations.

These [are] the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, and according to their nations.

These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations [and] in their nations. And from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

"[As for] me, behold, my covenant [shall be] with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.

Your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.

And I will bless her; moreover, I give to you from her a son. And I will bless her, and {she shall give rise to nations}. Kings of peoples shall come from her."

Abraham will surely become a great and strong nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed on account of him.

All the nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring, because you have listened to my voice."

And Yahweh said to her, "Two nations [are] in your womb, and two peoples {from birth} shall be divided. And {one people shall be stronger than the other}. And [the] elder shall serve [the] younger."

And I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands. And all nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring,

Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you; Be lord of your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. Cursed be those cursing you, and blessed be those blessing you."

And God said to him, "I [am] El-Shaddai. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and an assemblage of nations shall be from you, and kings shall go out from your loins.

and said to me, 'Behold, I will make you fruitful and make you numerous, and will make you a company of nations. And I will give this land to your offspring after you [as] an everlasting possession.'

But his father refused and said, "I know, my son; I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great, but his younger brother shall be greater than him, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations."

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff between his feet, until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of nations.

And he said, "Look, I [am about to] make a covenant. In front of all your people I will do wonders that have not been created on all the earth and among all the nations, and all the people among whom you [are] will see Yahweh's work, because what I [am about to] do with you [will be] awesome.

because I will evict nations before you, and I will enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up to appear before Yahweh your God three times in the year.

" 'You must not make yourself unclean in any of these [things], because the nations whom I am driving out from your presence were made unclean by all of these.

So I said to you, "You yourselves shall take possession of their land, and I myself shall give it to you to possess it--a land flowing with milk and honey"; I [am] Yahweh your God, who {has set you apart} from the nations.

And you shall be holy for me, because I, Yahweh, [am] holy, and I have singled you out from the nations to be mine.

" 'As for your slave and your slave woman who are yours, from the nations that [are] all around you, from them you may buy a slave or a slave woman.

And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword behind you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a ruin.

And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you.

And I will remember [the] first covenant for them--whom I brought out from the land of Egypt {in the sight of} the nations {to be their God}. I [am] Yahweh.'"

But if you destroy this people {all at once}, the nations that will have heard your message will say,

Because from the top of [the] rocks I see him, from hilltops I watch him. Behold, a people [who] dwell alone, they do not consider themselves among the nations.

God, who brings him out from Egypt, [is] like the strength of a wild ox for him. He will devour [the] nations [who are] his enemies; he will break their bones; he will pierce [them with] his arrows.

And he looked [at] Amalek, {uttered} his oracle, and said, "Amalek [is] first of [the] nations, but his future [will be] forever ruin."

And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left {few in number} among the nations {to where Yahweh will lead you}.

to drive out nations greater and more numerous than you {from before you}, to bring you [and] to give to you their land [as] an inheritance, as [it is] this day.

"When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you [are] about to enter {into it} to take possession of it, and he drives out many nations {before you}, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you,

"If you think in your heart, 'These nations [are] more numerous than I, so how can I dispossess them?'

And Yahweh your God will clear away these nations {from before you} little by little; you will not be able to finish them off quickly, {lest} the {wild animals} {multiply} {against you}.

As [with] the nations that Yahweh [is] destroying {before you}, so you shall perish because you would not obey the voice of Yahweh your God.

"Hear, Israel, you [are] about to cross the Jordan today to go to dispossess nations larger and more numerous than you, great cities fortified {with high walls},

"You shall not say {to yourself} {when Yahweh your God is driving them out} {before you}, {saying}, 'Because of my righteousness Yahweh brought me to take possession of this land'; but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh [is] driving them out {before you}.

[It is] not because of your righteousness and because of the uprightness of your heart [that] you [are] coming to take possession of their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God [is] driving them {before you}, and in order to confirm the {promise} that Yahweh swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

then Yahweh will drive out all [of] these nations {before you}, and you will dispossess nations larger and more numerous than you.

You must completely demolish all [of] the places there where [they] served their gods, [that is], the nations whom you [are] about to dispossess, on the high mountains, and on the hills and under each leafy green tree.

"When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you [are] {about to go to}, to dispossess them {before you}, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land,

{take care} so that you are not ensnared {into imitating them} after their being destroyed from {before you}, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, {saying}, 'How did these nations serve their gods, and [thus] {I myself} want to do also.'

When Yahweh your God has blessed you, [just] as he {promised} to you, then you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow [from them], and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

"When you have come to that land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you and you have taken possession of it and you have settled in it, and you say, 'I will set over me a king like all the nations that [are] around me,'

"When you come to the land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you, you must not learn to do like the detestable practices of those nations.

For these nations that you [are] about to dispossess listen to interpreters of signs and to diviners, but Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do the same.

"When Yahweh your God has {exterminated} the nations [concerning whom] Yahweh your God [is] giving to you their land, and you have dispossessed them, and you have settled in their towns and in their houses,

Thus you shall do to all the far cities from you, which [are] not from the cities of these nations located {nearby}.

{and that he then will set you} high above all the nations that he has made for his praise and {for fame} and for honor and {for you to be a holy people} to Yahweh your God, as he {promised}."

"And it will happen [that] if you indeed listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, {to diligently observe} all his commandments that I [am] commanding you {today}, then Yahweh your God will set you above all the nations of the earth.

Yahweh shall open for you his {rich} storehouse, [even] the heavens, to give the rain for your land in its time and to bless all of the work of your hand, and you will lend to many nations; you will not borrow [from them].

And Yahweh shall make you as head and not the tail, and you shall be only at the top [of the nations], and you shall not be at the bottom, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God that I [am] commanding you {today} {and diligently observe them}.

And Yahweh shall scatter you among all the nations from [one] end of the earth up to the [other] end of the earth, and there you shall serve other gods that you have not known nor your ancestors, [gods of] wood and stone.

And among these nations you shall not find rest, and [there] shall not be a resting place for the sole of your foot, and Yahweh shall give you there an anxious heart and a weakening of eyes and a languishing of [your] inner self.

For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we traveled through the midst of the nations that you traveled through.

so that {there is not} among you a man or a woman or a clan or a tribe {whose heart} turns {today} from [being] with Yahweh our God to go to serve the gods of these nations, so that there is not among you a root sprouting poison and wormwood.

And all the nations will say, '{Why} has Yahweh done {such a thing} to this land? What [caused] the fierceness of this great anger?'

"And then when all of these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse that I have set {before you} {and you call them to mind} among the nations there where Yahweh your God [has] scattered you,

Yahweh your God [is about to] cross {before you}; he will destroy these nations {before you}, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua [will be] crossing {before you}, [just] as Yahweh {promised}.

{When the Most High apportioned} [the] nations, at his dividing [up] of the sons of humankind, he fixed the boundaries of [the] peoples, according to the number of the children of Israel.

Call for songs of joy, O nations, [concerning] his people, for the blood of his servants he will avenge, {and he will take reprisals against his foes}, and he will make atonement [for] his land, his people."

and you have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to all these nations {for your sake}, for Yahweh your God [is] fighting for you.

Look! I have allotted to you these remaining nations as an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, [with] all the nations that I have cut off, to the Great Sea {in the west}.

so as not to go among these remaining nations with you; {do not profess} the name of their gods, and do not swear by them, serve them, or {bow down to them}.

Yahweh has driven out before you great and strong nations; and as for you, {nobody has withstood} you to this day.

for if indeed you turn back and join these remaining nations {among you}, and you intermarry with them, {marrying their women and they yours},

know for certain that Yahweh your God {will not continue to drive out} these nations from before you; they will be for you a snare and a trap, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that Yahweh your God has given to you.

I will not again drive out anyone from before them from the nations that Joshua left when he died,

So Yahweh left those nations; he did not drive them out at once, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

These [are] the nations that Yahweh left, to test Israel by them ([that is, to test] all those who {had not experienced} any of the wars of Canaan,

They said to him, "Look, you are old and your sons do not follow in your ways. So then appoint a king for us to judge us, like all the nations.

so that we {also} may be like all the nations, and our king may rule us and go out before us and fight our battles."

Who [is] like your people, like Israel? [Israel is] the one nation on earth whose God {led them}, [in order] to redeem a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to do for you the great and awesome things for your land in the presence of your people whom he redeemed for himself from Egypt, [from the] nations and their gods.

King David dedicated them also to Yahweh [along] with the silver and the gold that he had dedicated from all of the nations which he had subdued;

You delivered me from the strife of my people; you preserved me as the head of the nations. A people I had not known served me.

Therefore I will extol you, Yahweh, among the nations! I will sing praises to your name!

They came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; from all the kings of the earth who had heard [of] his wisdom.

from the nations which Yahweh had said to the {Israelites}, "You shall not {marry them}, and they shall not {marry you}. They will certainly turn your heart after other gods." But Solomon clung to them to love.

There were also male shrine prostitutes in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which Yahweh had driven out from before the {Israelites}.

He walked in the way of the kings of Israel; he even let his son pass through the fire according to the detestable things of the nations which Yahweh drove out from before the {Israelites}.

They walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out from before the {Israelites}, which the kings of Israel had introduced.

They burned incense there on all the high places, like the nations which Yahweh deported before them, and they did evil things to provoke Yahweh.

They rejected his statutes, his covenant which he {made} with their ancestors, and his warnings which he gave to them; and they went after the idols, became vain, and [went] after all the nations which [were] all around them, which Yahweh had commanded them not to do as they [did].

So they said to the king of Assyria, "The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the customs of the God of the land, so he sent lions among them, and now they are killing them because they do not know the customs of the God of the land."

Yahweh they were fearing, but their gods they were serving, according to the customs of the nations from which they were deported.

So these nations were fearing Yahweh, but they were serving their idols, as were their children and their children's children; as their ancestors did, they [are] doing until this day.

Did the gods of each of the nations ever rescue the land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Did the gods of the nations that my {predecessors} destroyed deliver them? [Not] Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, [nor] the children of Eden who [were] in Tel Assar.

Truly, O Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have utterly destroyed the nations and their land.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, according to the detestable things of the nations that Yahweh had driven out from the presence of the {Israelites}.

But Manasseh did not listen and tempted them to do evil more than the nations that Yahweh destroyed before the presence of the {Israelites}.

And the fame of David went out through all the lands. And Yahweh put the fear of him upon all the nations.

Give thanks to Yahweh; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the nations!

Proclaim his glory among the nations, his wondrous works among the peoples!

For all the gods of the nations [are] idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.

Ascribe to Yahweh, O clans of the nations, ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength!

Then say, "Save us, O God of our salvation; gather us and rescue us from the nations that [we may] give thanks to your holy name [and] glory in your praise.

And who [is] like your people Israel, [the] one nation upon earth whom God went to redeem for himself, to establish for you a reputation for great and awesome things, to drive out nations from before your people whom you redeemed from Egypt?

King David dedicated these also to Yahweh, along with the silver and gold that he had taken from all the nations, from Edom, Moab, the sons of Ammon, the Philistines, and Amalek.

then I will uproot them from upon my land that I have given to them, and this house that I have consecrated for my name I will send away from before my face, and I will make it a proverb and a taunt among all the nations.