'People' in the Bible

Then he sent a message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?”Jehoshaphat said, “I will go. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

Then he said to Gehazi, “Say to her, ‘Look, you’ve gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’”She answered, “I am living among my own people.”

Then Elisha said, “Get some meal.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Serve it for the people to eat.” And there was nothing bad in the pot.

A man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with his sack full of 20 loaves of barley bread from the first bread of the harvest. Elisha said, “Give it to the people to eat.”

But Elisha’s attendant asked, “What? Am I to set 20 loaves before 100 men?”“Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said, “for this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat, and they will have some left over.’”

When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his clothes. Then, as he was passing by on the wall, the people saw that there was sackcloth under his clothes next to his skin.

Then the people went out and plundered the Aramean camp.It was then that six quarts of fine meal sold for a shekel and 12 quarts of barley sold for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.

The king had appointed the captain, his right-hand man, to be in charge of the gate, but the people trampled him in the gateway. He died, just as the man of God had predicted when the king came to him.

This is what happened to him: the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.

and Hazael asked, “Why is my lord weeping?”He replied, “Because I know the evil you will do to the people of Israel. You will set their fortresses on fire. You will kill their young men with the sword. You will dash their little ones to pieces. You will rip open their pregnant women.”

So Jehu got up and went into the house. The young prophet poured the oil on his head and said, “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I anoint you king over the Lord’s people, Israel.

The next morning when he went out and stood at the gate, he said to all the people, “You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him. But who struck down all these?

Then Jehu brought all the people together and said to them, “Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu will serve him a lot.

When Athaliah heard the noise from the guard and the crowd, she went out to the people at the Lord’s temple.

As she looked, there was the king standing by the pillar according to the custom. The commanders and the trumpeters were by the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. Athaliah tore her clothes and screamed “Treason! Treason!”

Then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord, the king, and the people that they would be the Lord’s people and another covenant between the king and the people.

So all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They broke its altars and images into pieces, and they killed Mattan, the priest of Baal, at the altars.Then Jehoiada the priest appointed guards for the Lord’s temple.

He took the commanders of hundreds, the Carites, the guards, and all the people of the land, and they brought the king from the Lord’s temple. They entered the king’s palace by way of the guards’ gate. Then Joash sat on the throne of the kings.

All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet, for they had put Athaliah to death by the sword in the king’s palace.

Yet the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.

So the priests agreed they would not take money from the people and they would not repair the temple’s damage.

Therefore, the Lord gave Israel a deliverer, and they escaped from the power of the Arameans. Then the people of Israel dwelt in their tents as before,

Yet the high places were not taken away, and the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.

Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was 16 years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

Yet the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.

The Lord afflicted the king, and he had a serious skin disease until the day of his death. He lived in a separate house, while Jotham, the king’s son, was over the household governing the people of the land.

In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee—all the land of Naphtali—and deported the people to Assyria.

Yet the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.Jotham built the Upper Gate of the Lord’s temple.

So the king of Assyria listened to him and marched up to Damascus and captured it. He deported its people to Kir but put Rezin to death.

Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering. Also offer the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings. Sprinkle on the altar all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of sacrifice. The bronze altar will be for me to seek guidance.”

This disaster happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt and because they had worshiped other gods.

Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in place of the Israelites in the cities of Samaria. The settlers took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

The settlers spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations that you have deported and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land. Therefore He has sent lions among them that are killing them because the people don’t know the requirements of the God of the land.”

But the people of each nation were still making their own gods in the cities where they lived and putting them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made.

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak with us in Hebrew within earshot of the people on the wall.”

But the people kept silent; they didn’t say anything, for the king’s command was, “Don’t answer him.”

That night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!

“Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of My people, ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the Lord’s temple.

Then the common people executed all those who had conspired against King Amon and made his son Josiah king in his place.

“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest so that he may total up the money brought into the Lord’s temple—the money the doorkeepers have collected from the people.

“Go and inquire of the Lord for me, the people, and all Judah about the instruction in this book that has been found. For great is the Lord’s wrath that is kindled against us because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this book in order to do everything written about us.”

Then the king went to the Lord’s temple with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the prophets—all the people from the youngest to the oldest. As they listened, he read all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the Lord’s temple.

Next, the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and to keep His commands, His decrees, and His statutes with all his mind and with all his heart, and to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book; all the people agreed to the covenant.

He brought out the Asherah pole from the Lord’s temple to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem. He burned it at the Kidron Valley, beat it to dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.

The king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover of the Lord your God as written in the book of the covenant.”

From Megiddo his servants carried his dead body in a chariot, brought him into Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. Then the common people took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

So Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but at Pharaoh’s command he taxed the land to give the money. He exacted the silver and the gold from the common people, each man according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.

Then he deported all Jerusalem and all the commanders and all the fighting men, 10,000 captives, and all the craftsmen and metalsmiths. Except for the poorest people of the land, no one remained.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the people of the land had no food.

Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.

He took a court official who had been appointed over the warriors from the city; five trusted royal aides found in the city; the secretary of the commander of the army, who enlisted the people of the land for military duty; and 60 men from the common people who were found within the city.

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, over the rest of the people he left in the land of Judah.

Then all the people, from the youngest to the oldest, and the commanders of the army, left and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.