GENTILES OR NATIONS?
T hroughout this study I have used my own translation unless otherwise marked. I have used italics for ‘understood’ words required in translating. Where the definite article occurs in the original language but is not required in English I have used an asterisk. Thus at times *God is used to represent ‘the God’. I have also used italics for Hebrew, Greek or Latin words. In typing Greek words ‘e’ is used for epsilon, ‘E’ for eta, ‘o’ for omicron and ‘O’ for omega.
In our English Bibles, in the books of both the Old and New Testaments, the word ‘gentiles’ occurs frequently. The word is used to translate the Hebrew word goi of the Old Testament, and the Greek ethnos of the New. (There is also another word rendered ‘gentiles’ in the A.V of the New Testament. This is the Greek, ‘hellEn’, but I will mention this later.)
Both words denote ‘a nation’ or ‘people’ – i.e. they refer to a body of people, irrespective of racial origin, organized as a separate political state, and occupying a definite territory. The Hebrew lexicons tell us that goi, properly ‘a confluence of men’, denotes ‘a body politic, or whole people’ (Gesenius). It is also pointed out, that in the singular, goi usually refers to the ‘nation’ of Israel, and in the plural it is specially used of the (other) nations besides Israel. However both singular and plural are at times used of Israel. For instance it was said to Jacob; ‘A nation (goi) and a company of nations (goyim) shall be from thee,’ (Gen.35:11). The N.T word is used similarly. In the A.V we find both words represented by ‘nations’, ‘gentiles’, ‘heathen’, and ‘people’. The following remarks are pertinent to both Old and New Testaments, but I will confine them to the N.T. ethnos.
In translating this word the A.V. uses ‘heathen’ five times and ‘people’ twice.’Nations’ occurs 64 times and ‘gentiles’ 93. Of these, ‘nations’ occurs 21 times in the gospels, and 43 in the other books. ‘Gentiles’ only occurs 15 times in the gospels, but 78 times in the other books. (Only one of these is in the Book of Revelation). It is the usage in the epistles, and especially those of Paul, that most interests me.
It has been suggested that ‘gentiles’ should he replaced by the correct meaning of ethnos, which is a ‘nation’. However this is not as clear cut as it may appear. Paul does not always apply this word to nations as a whole, but rather to groups of his ‘brethren’ – persons of Israel stock, who are residing in nations other than Israel. It is noteworthy that all his epistles were written to Greeks. (Even his epistle to the Romans is directed to Greeks living in that country.)
His letter is addressed: ‘to all those beloved of God, called ones, set apart (or ‘holy’) ones, being in Rome’. (Rom.1:7) ‘Called’ and ‘set apart ones’ are terms that are specifically used of Israel. It is noticeable that Rome is only mentioned twice in the whole epistle. It was well known, both to the Jews and the Greeks at this time, that they were kinsmen. (See I Macc. 12, and Josephus – Books 12 & 13.)
Paul then, was writing to his ‘brethren’ – a word which should always be given its literal meaning of kinsmen. He makes this clear in Rom. 9:3, which in the A.V reads: ‘For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.’
I would like to digress here to explain this verse, for this is an incorrect and misleading rendition. Could anyone imagine that Paul would wish to be accursed from Christ! The first verb in the verse is in the imperfect tense. Giving this its proper value, Paul’s words become: ‘For I used to wish, I myself, to be accursed (or ‘anathema’); alienated from the anointed One (or ‘the Christ’), for the sake of my *brethren, my *kinsmen according to flesh.’ As the correct translation shows, Paul was alluding to the time before his conversion, when, as Saul, he persecuted our Lord’s followers.
So then the people Paul was addressing in all his epistles were his blood brothers – people of his own race, the sons of Jacob. This being so he was not addressing other nations as such, but his fellow countrymen, who were living in other countries. These are people to whom the word ‘gentile’, if properly understood, is applicable. Before dealing with the proper meaning of this word, let us look at a few passages, which clearly show to whom he was writing when he used ethnos, ‘a nation’.
Romans 11:13,14.
‘But to you, the nations I say, Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of nations, I magnify my ministry if by any means I may excite my flesh to emulation and save some from among them.’
Paul was not speaking to whole nations, but to those of his kinsrnen, his ‘flesh’, who were residing in Rome. Continuing in verse 15, he speaks of their ‘casting away’. The reference can only be to the outcasts of the people of Israel.
I Corinthians 12:2.
In the preceding verse these people are also called his brethren.
‘Ye know that when ye were nations ye were led astray’ These too, were not whole nations (plural). These were Paul’s kinsmen, scattered among the nations. They had become part of the Greek nation and were residing at Corinth.
Galatians 2:12.
Paul was speaking of Peter: ‘For before certain men came from James, he ate with the nations’ Peter did not eat with a number of whole nations, but with persons (of his own people) belonging to another nation – i.e. not Jews.
Ephesians 2:11, 12.
‘Wherefore remember that when ye were the nations, those being called uncircumcision in flesh, by those called circumcision, which was in the flesh, made by hand, that ye were at that time set apart from an anointed people, having been alienated from the citizenship of *Israel, and become strangers in relation to the covenants of the promise, having no hope, and without God, in the world-order.’ These Ephesians were also people from the cast off House of Israel. They were not ‘nations’ (plural), but people of Israel stock residing at Ephesus – originally a Greek city, but under Roman rule. They had been ‘apart from’ the Israel nation -not ‘without Christ’ as in the A.V. The time Paul referred to was prior to the Lords coming.
Ephesians 3:6.
‘That the nations should be joint heirs and a joint body, even joint sharers of the promise, through the good news (‘gospel’) in respect of an anointed people belonging to Jesus.’ The promise is singular, and is that given to Abraham and his seed. I see this as the promise of Genesis 17, the promise of life after death, which is the gist of the covenant symbolised by circumcision. Other nations cannot be heirs to, or share in, that promise. The ‘gospel’ is that of the kingdom – the good news that the outcast sons of Jacob can be received back into the Israel nation through belief. This too cannot apply to nations other than Israel. Again we see that these Ephesians were not a number of whole nations, but were Paul’s kinsmen living in another nation.
The Hebrew goi and the Greek ethnos are equivalent to each other, both meaning ‘a nation, a people’. In the Vulgate version, the Latin gens, and occasionally gentilis, is used to represent these two words. From this the word gentilis has been adopted into our language as ‘gentile’. The Douay version, a translation of the Latin Vulgate into English, has frequently used ‘gentile’ for both goi and ethnos. Our A.V. has gone further, and in the N.T, uses ‘gentile’ more than ‘nation’ to represent ethnos. Many have said that ‘gentiles’ is wrong and should be replaced by ‘nations’ on each occasion. However when the proper meaning of ‘gentile’ is known this is not always true. Although I dislike the incorporation of this Latin word into our language, in many places it actually expresses the intended rneaning better than does ‘nation’. This is particularly the case in many of Paul’s writings.
The Latin gens used in the Vulgate, is equivalent to either goi or ethnos. Like these two words gens is a noun and means ‘a nation’. From gens the adjective gentilis is formed, and this is the word we have absorbed into the English language. Being an adjective, gentilis does not mean ‘a nation’, but means ‘of’, ‘belonging to’, or ‘pertaining to’, a nation. If it is employed as a noun it means ‘one (or ‘ones’) belonging to a nation. If used as a noun to represent ta ethnE, which is the plural of ethnos with the article, it means ‘those belonging’ to the nations’. These meanings also apply to our English word, ‘gentile’. In fact the Oxford Dictionary defines gentile as an adjective: ‘of or pertaining to any or all of the non-Jewish nations’. as a noun: ‘one of any non-Jewish nation’. It is now interesting to go back to any of the examples I have quoted and to substitute either ‘gentiles’, or ‘those belonging to nations’, in place of the word ‘nations’. For example Ephesians 2:11: ‘Wherefore remember that at one time ye were the gentiles’ (Or better, ‘belonging to another nation.’) Ephesians 3:6: ‘That those of our people belonging to other nations … should be joint-heirs, etc.’
I have also mentioned that in the A.V., the meaning ‘gentile’ is given to another word, the Greek, ‘hellEn’. HellEn means ‘a Greek’, and there are just six occasions where the translators have rendered it, not as Greeks, but as ‘gentile’. These are, John 7:35: Romans 2:9,10; 3:9; I Corinthians 10:32; 12:13. Nevertheless this use of ‘gentiles’ where the Scripture has ‘Greeks’ is interesting, for it shows that in the minds of our translators, the Greeks were synonymous with the gentiles. In other words they were applying the plural word ethnE, ‘nations’, to the one nation of the Greeks. It also implies that they, like Paul, used ethnE to indicate some of the people residing in a nation, or nations, other than that of the Jews (or Israel).
Each of the five passages mentioned above will repay closer attention, keeping in mind, that in the places where the A.V. has ‘gentiles’, the Scripture has ‘Greeks’. In Romans 2:9,10 Paul compares Jews and Greeks, but a few verses later, while still discussing the Greeks, he refers to them as gentiles.
Throughout the Book of Acts, and in Paul’s epistles, Jews and Greeks are mentioned together, and compared or contrasted on about 15 occasions. In addition to these, the Greeks are frequently referred to in the N.T. books, and their relationship to the Jews – the only official remnant of Israel at that time – is a rewarding study. (See Josephus and I Maccabeus 12).
