'People' in the Bible

The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was boiling, with a fork of three teeth in his hand;

He said to them, "Why do you do such things? for I hear of your evil dealings from all this people.

No, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: you make Yahweh's people disobey.

Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in [my] habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?'

When the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, "Why has Yahweh struck us today before the Philistines? Let us get the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of Shiloh to us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies."

So the people sent to Shiloh; and they brought from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of Armies, who sits [above] the cherubim: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

He who brought the news answered, "Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured."

So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. It happened, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, "They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to kill us and our people."

They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to its own place, that it not kill us and our people." For there was a deadly confusion throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.

Why then do you harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he had worked wonderfully among them, didn't they let the people go, and they departed?

He struck of the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Yahweh, he struck of the people fifty thousand seventy men; and the people mourned, because Yahweh had struck the people with a great slaughter.

Yahweh said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in all that they tell you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not be king over them.

Samuel told all the words of Yahweh to the people who asked of him a king.

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No; but we will have a king over us,

Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of Yahweh.

He had a son, whose name was Saul, an impressive young man; and there was not among the children of Israel a better person than he. From his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.

They answered them, and said, "He is. Behold, he is before you. Hurry now, for he has come today into the city; for the people have a sacrifice today in the high place.

As soon as you have come into the city, you shall immediately find him, before he goes up to the high place to eat; for the people will not eat until he come, because he blesses the sacrifice. Afterwards those who are invited eat. Now therefore go up; for at this time you shall find him."

"Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man out of the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel; and he shall save my people out of the hand of the Philistines: for I have looked on my people, because their cry has come to me."

When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh said to him, "Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! this same shall have authority over my people."

The cook took up the thigh, and that which was on it, and set it before Saul. Samuel said, "Behold, that which has been reserved! Set it before yourself and eat; because for the appointed time has it been kept for you, for I said, 'I have invited the people.'" So Saul ate with Samuel that day.

It happened, when all who knew him before saw that, behold, he prophesied with the prophets, then the people said one to another, "What is this that is come to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?"

Samuel called the people together to Yahweh to Mizpah;

They ran and fetched him there; and when he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward.

Samuel said to all the people, "You see him whom Yahweh has chosen, that there is none like him among all the people?" All the people shouted, and said, "[Long] live the king!"

Then Samuel told the people the regulations of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before Yahweh. Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house.

Then the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, and spoke these words in the ears of the people: and all the people lifted up their voice, and wept.

Behold, Saul came following the oxen out of the field; and Saul said, "What ails the people that they weep?" They told him the words of the men of Jabesh.

He took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the borders of Israel by the hand of messengers, saying, "Whoever doesn't come forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen." The dread of Yahweh fell on the people, and they came out as one man.

It was so on the next day, that Saul put the people in three companies; and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, and struck the Ammonites until the heat of the day: and it happened, that those who remained were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.

The people said to Samuel, "Who is he who said, 'Shall Saul reign over us?' Bring those men, that we may put them to death!"

Then Samuel said to the people, "Come, and let us go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there."

All the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before Yahweh in Gilgal; and there they offered sacrifices of peace offerings before Yahweh; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.

Samuel said to the people, "It is Yahweh who appointed Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

So Samuel called to Yahweh; and Yahweh sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared Yahweh and Samuel.

All the people said to Samuel, "Pray for your servants to Yahweh your God, that we not die; for we have added to all our sins [this] evil, to ask us a king."

Samuel said to the people, "Don't be afraid. You have indeed done all this evil; yet don't turn aside from following Yahweh, but serve Yahweh with all your heart.

For Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you a people to himself.

Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel, of which two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in the Mount of Bethel, and one thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.

All Israel heard that Saul had struck the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel was had in abomination with the Philistines. The people were gathered together after Saul to Gilgal.

The Philistines assembled themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude: and they came up, and encamped in Michmash, eastward of Beth Aven.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait (for the people were distressed), then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in coverts, and in pits.

Now some of the Hebrews had gone over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead; but as for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.

He stayed seven days, according to the set time that Samuel [had appointed]: but Samuel didn't come to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him.

Samuel said, "What have you done?" Saul said, "Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you didn't come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines assembled themselves together at Michmash;

But now your kingdom shall not continue. Yahweh has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and Yahweh has appointed him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept that which Yahweh commanded you."

Samuel arose, and went from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men.

Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people who were present with them, stayed in Geba of Benjamin: but the Philistines encamped in Michmash.

So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found.

Saul stayed in the uttermost part of Gibeah under the pomegranate tree which is in Migron: and the people who were with him were about six hundred men;

and Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest of Yahweh in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. The people didn't know that Jonathan was gone.

There was a trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison, and the spoilers, they also trembled; and the earth quaked: so there was an exceeding great trembling.

Then Saul said to the people who were with him, "Count now, and see who is missing from us." When they had counted, behold, Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there.

Saul and all the people who were with him were gathered together, and came to the battle: and behold, every man's sword was against his fellow, [and there was] a very great confusion.

The men of Israel were distressed that day; for Saul had adjured the people, saying, "Cursed is the man who eats any food until it is evening, and I am avenged of my enemies." So none of the people tasted food.

All the people came into the forest; and there was honey on the ground.

When the people were come to the forest, behold, the honey dropped: but no man put his hand to his mouth; for the people feared the oath.

But Jonathan didn't hear when his father commanded the people with the oath: therefore he put forth the end of the rod who was in his hand, and dipped it in the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened.

Then one of the people answered, and said, "Your father directly commanded the people with an oath, saying, 'Cursed is the man who eats food this day.'" The people were faint.

How much more, if perhaps the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies which they found? For now has there been no great slaughter among the Philistines."

They struck of the Philistines that day from Michmash to Aijalon. The people were very faint;

and the people flew on the spoil, and took sheep, and cattle, and calves, and killed them on the ground; and the people ate them with the blood.

Then they told Saul, saying, "Behold, the people are sinning against Yahweh, in that they eat meat with the blood." He said, "You have dealt treacherously. Roll a large stone to me this day!"

Saul said, "Disperse yourselves among the people, and tell them, 'Bring me here every man his ox, and every man his sheep, and kill them here, and eat; and don't sin against Yahweh in eating meat with the blood.'" All the people brought every man his ox with him that night, and killed them there.

Saul said, "Draw near here, all you chiefs of the people; and know and see in which this sin has been this day.

For, as Yahweh lives, who saves Israel, though it is in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die." But there was not a man among all the people who answered him.

Then he said to all Israel, "You be on one side, and I and Jonathan my son will be on the other side." The people said to Saul, "Do what seems good to you."

Therefore Saul said to Yahweh, the God of Israel, "Show the right." Jonathan and Saul were chosen; but the people escaped.

The people said to Saul, "Shall Jonathan die, who has worked this great salvation in Israel? Far from it! As Yahweh lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he has worked with God this day!" So the people rescued Jonathan, that he didn't die.

Samuel said to Saul, "Yahweh sent me to anoint you to be king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore listen to the voice of the words of Yahweh.

Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.

He took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the cattle, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and wouldn't utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the cattle, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God. We have utterly destroyed the rest."

But the people took of the spoil, sheep and cattle, the chief of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in Gilgal."

Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of Yahweh, and your words, because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

Then he said, "I have sinned: yet please honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and come back with me, that I may worship Yahweh your God."

The people answered him in this way, saying, "So shall it be done to the man who kills him."

He turned away from him toward another, and spoke like that again; and the people answered him again the same way.

David went out wherever Saul sent him, [and] behaved himself wisely: and Saul set him over the men of war, and it was good in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants.

Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.

The king said to Doeg, "Turn and attack the priests!" Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod.

Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.

David arose, and came to the place where Saul had encamped; and David saw the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the captain of his army: and Saul lay within the place of the wagons, and the people were encamped around him.

So David and Abishai came to the people by night: and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the people lay around him.

and David cried to the people, and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, "Don't you answer, Abner?" Then Abner answered, "Who are you who cries to the king?"

David said to Abner, "Aren't you a man? Who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not kept watch over your lord, the king? For one of the people came in to destroy the king your lord.

Achish believed David, saying, "He has made his people Israel utterly to abhor him. Therefore he shall be my servant forever."

Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep.

David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God.

David came to the two hundred men, who were so faint that they could not follow David, whom also they had made to stay at the brook Besor; and they went forth to meet David, and to meet the people who were with him. When David came near to the people, he greeted them.

They cut off his head, and stripped off his armor, and sent into the land of the Philistines all around, to carry the news to the house of their idols, and to the people.