THE USE OF THE WORD "GENTILE" IN THE BIBLE

In the Bible nobody is ever called "a Gentile". The singular form "Gentile" appears incorrectly in only two adjacent verses in the KJV, namely in Romans 2:9-10. In both those verses the Greek word incorrectly translated as "Gentile" is "Hellen" (i.e. hellenos in verse 9, and helleni in verse 10). This Greek word means "a Greek person". And thus many translations have corrected these two KJV mistranslations to correctly read "the Greek" instead of "the Gentile".

Apart from these two (in the KJV) mistranslated verses, the singular "Gentile" is never used in the whole Bible. This means, as I stated above, that the Bible never refers to any individual as "a Gentile".

The plural form "the Gentiles" appears 30 times in the Old Testament, and 91 times in the New Testament (KJV).

In other words, when we correct the mistranslations in Romans 2:9-10, then the KJV only uses the plural form "Gentiles" in both Testaments. The word is used only in the plural, and never in the singular. So in the whole Bible no individual person is ever referred to as "a Gentile".

Did you know that?

But it has been a common practice in the Church for many decades to refer to people from certain backgrounds as "Gentiles", as in the statement "well, he is a Gentile", or in the statement "the first Gentile convert was ...". We accepted this way of thinking from the world’s churches, and they got it from the English translations of the Bible.

In the Church the word "Gentile" (or "Gentiles") is used very freely to refer to all those people who are deemed by the speaker to not be of an ethnic Israelite background, typically when the speaker assumes that he himself is surely "an Israelite".

The word "Gentile" does not come from either the Hebrew language or from the Greek language. The word "gentile" has come into the English language from the Latin language.

The Latin word "gens, gentis" means: a family, a clan, a stock of people, a race, a tribe, a people, a nation. This is the root from which our English word "Gentile" has been formed. Now it should be immediately apparent that "gens" has a considerable scope of meaning and of application. And the plural "gentes" refers to multiple races, tribes and nations. The plural Latin word "gentes" is most assuredly not restricted to any particular ethnic or racial group of people. It applies to people of all ethnic and all racial backgrounds.

However, that is not how the English word "Gentile" is used in the Church of God today, or in our English language translations, is it? When people in the Church use the word "Gentile", then they wish to make a racial distinction.

So the commonly accepted meanings are:

1) All of the racial descendants of the man Jacob are "Israelites".

2) And all other human beings are "Gentiles".

So to be quite clear:

And obviously, all those who accept and use this racial way of dividing humanity would prefer to be a part of the better or more desirable group. And this concept is also based on the unfounded assumption that God is the One who wants to see humanity divided into these two specific groups.

It is a very common human practice to divide all people into two groups: us and them! The "us" can refer to our family, or our team, or our club, or our state, or our nation, or our church, or our ethnic group, etc. And then the designation "them" refers to everyone else. I am reminded of the musical "Oliver" with the song "Consider yourself one of us". That’s when we extend an invitation to one of "them" to be accepted as a member of "us".

This tendency to view people as "us" and as "them" is especially noticeable on the national level. Almost all nations do this. It is common to have slang words for foreigners of certain nationalities. Almost invariably such slang designations are condescending and derogatory. And we certainly don’t use such derogatory expressions to refer to ourselves, do we? No, such expressions are reserved only for people who are not a part of "us".

This practice is not restricted to Jews or Greeks or Frenchmen or Germans or Englishmen, etc. It is pretty well universal, that some people always find ways to refer to people of other nationalities in demeaning ways.

Now consider:

To refer to all those in other parts of the world who are not a part of our nation we have words like "foreigners" and "aliens". These are emotionally neutral words. We understand that in different circumstances (e.g. when we travel to other parts of the world, etc.) these words will apply equally to us.

So in our country you will be a foreigner, and in your country we will be the foreigners. Depending on the circumstances, these words referring to non-citizens can apply to everybody. We are all foreigners and aliens for some countries around the world. These words are not restricted to a specific group of people, as for example the word "Gentile" is supposed to be. Every single human being can be a foreigner or an alien in certain geographic locations.

But that is not how the word "Gentile" functions, is it? If you are "a Gentile", then that designation sticks with you, and you will be "a Gentile" wherever on earth you may be. You can be a foreigner in our country, and we will be foreigners in your country. But it is not that you are "a Gentile" when you come to our country, but that we are "Gentiles" when we come to your country, is it?

No, that’s not how the word "Gentile" functions. We feel that the word "Gentile" will never apply to "Israelites", no matter where on earth they may be. So "Gentile" is not really a synonym for "foreigner", because there is no reciprocity of application for the word "Gentile".

We’ll look at the Hebrew word and the Greek word shortly. But for now I will just mention that the designation "Gentile" was basically a slang term invented by the Pharisees. The Pharisees did not invent a new slang word. Rather, the Pharisees attached a slang meaning to a perfectly legitimate Hebrew word. The Pharisees did the same thing that people in our age have done, when they assigned the meaning of "homosexual" to the word "gay". More on this later.

Let’s look at the Hebrew word that is translated as "Gentile" in the Old Testament.

The Hebrew word translated as "Gentile" in the Old Testament is "goy", the plural being "goyim". Throughout this article I will present these two words "goy" and "goyim", to indicate whether we are dealing with the singular or with the plural of this word. In those cases where a statement applies to both the singular and the plural forms I will write "goy/im".

But here is a basic point we need to grasp:

The Hebrew word "goy" only applies to a group of people. The word "goy" never describes a single individual. That’s the same as our word "nation". The word "nation" can never refer to one single individual. In the same way that one person cannot possibly be "a nation", so likewise one person cannot possibly be a "goy"!

The singular form "goy" always means more than one individual, just like the singular form words "nation" and "family" always mean more than one individual. And like the word "people" always means more than one person. One individual cannot possibly be "a family", and one individual cannot possibly be "a nation". And one individual cannot possibly be a "goy".

In biblical times the word "goy" could not possibly have referred to one individual. So "goy" means "one nation" or "one tribe", and "goyim" means "nations" or "tribes". But "goy" could never refer to one person alone.

With that basic understanding, let’s take a look at how this word is used.

The word "goy/im" is used 558 times in the Old Testament. It is thus a fairly common word. In the KJV of the Bible this word "goy/im" is translated by four different English words:

- 374 times it is translated as "nation",

- 143 times it is translated as "heathen",

- 30 times it is translated as "Gentiles",

- 11 times it is translated as "people".

These are the four words which are presented in dictionaries as the meaning of "goy". But only two of these four words are actually correct translations. The other two words are not really correct translations for "goy".

The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) states for "goy":

TWOT makes clear that "goy" always means more than one person.

The two words "nation" and "people" are the correct translation for this word "goy".

Both of these words are emotionally neutral in the sense of not passing any judgment. The reader has no way of knowing whether the "nation" or the "people" being referred to by this word "goy/im" stand in a good or in a bad relationship towards God in heaven. It is always the context in which these words "nation" or "people" are used that has to show us in what relationship these people stand with God.

The English word "heathen", on the other hand, is a word that makes a judgment! People designated as "heathen" by definition do not live by the laws of the true God, and frequently there is also the implication that a "heathen" lacks culture and/or moral principles. As I said, the word "heathen" passes a moral judgment about the persons so described. And "heathen" is not a correct translation for "goy".

The English word "Gentile" likewise makes a judgment. People designated as "Gentiles" are deemed to be non-Israelites, with a certain amount of put-down being implied. Nobody in the churches of God, no minister and no lay member, has ever at any time used the term "Gentile" to express deep respect and courtesy and politeness towards the people he referred to as "Gentiles". The word is NEVER intended to be an expression of respect or a compliment. The word "Gentile" makes a judgment in the same way that the word "heathen" makes a judgment.

But that is not what God really intended when God Himself repeatedly used this word "goy" throughout the Old Testament. And so "Gentile" is also not a correct translation for "goy".

Let’s look at the facts.

The first time this word "goy/im" is ever used in the Bible is in Genesis chapter 10, where it is used six times in four different verses. Here are these four verses:

So in these four verses the KJV translators decided to translate "goyim" five times as "nations" and one time as "Gentiles". Who told them to render "goyim" as "Gentiles" in the first part of verse 5 and then render it as "nations" in the second part of the same verse, as well as in all four of the subsequent uses of "goyim" in that chapter?

Can you see that the translation "Gentiles" in Genesis 10:5 is based on nothing more than the racial bias of the translators? There was no justification whatsoever for the English word "Gentiles" in this verse. The translators themselves very arbitrarily decided to use the word "Gentiles" in this verse. That was their bias!

Likewise, what led the KJV translators to translate "goy/im" as "Gentiles" in 30 places out of the 558 times this word is used in the Old Testament? And what led these translators to render "goy/im" as "heathen" in another 143 occurrences?

The answer is once again: their own bias led them to do this.

The fact that in two thirds of all occurrences in the Old Testament (i.e. in 374 out of 558) the translators correctly rendered the word "goy/im" as "nation/s" should make sufficiently clear that they correctly understood the meaning of this Hebrew word. We can add to this the 11 places where the word is also correctly translated as "people".

What would we have if we consistently translated "goyim" as "Gentiles"? What would that look like? It would look absurd!

Notice that according to Genesis 10:31 all the descendants of Shem are "goyim". So are all of Shem’s descendants Gentiles? Of course not!

The next verse makes the same point about the descendants of Noah, that they are "goyim". So are all of Noah’s descendants to be referred to as Gentiles? Abraham was a descendant of Noah and of Shem. Therefore Abraham is assuredly included in the term "goyim". Once again, to claim that "goyim" means "Gentiles" is ridiculous.

In fact, the very next usage of "goy" is when God was speaking to Abram in Genesis chapter 12.

So here God Himself used the word "goy" to refer to Abram, saying that his descendants would be a great "goy". So according to God’s statement right here all of Abraham’s descendants are a "goy", a nation. Would that mean that all of Abraham’s descendants are "Gentiles"? Or are we going to pick and choose which meanings we will apply to "goy/im" ... like all those biased translators did?

Does it look like God ever intended the word "goy" to be a pejorative word, you know, like "heathen" or like "Gentile"?

Let’s move on to Genesis chapter 17.

Does this verse make Abraham the father of many Gentile nations? Or are we not going to be consistent with how we translate "goyim"? What these uses of "goyim" show is that God in heaven did not differentiate between Israelite and non-Israelite nations by the descriptive words God used!

Yes, God does differentiate between Israelites and non-Israelites! But that differentiation is not expressed by applying a different label to all the non-Israelite nations. That differentiation is expressed by what God says to and about those nations, not by attaching a different label to them.

Now notice the next verse.

Once again, God is here calling the descendants of Abraham, the twelve tribes of Israel, "goyim", the only Hebrew word that is ever translated as "Gentiles".

Let’s look at the next verse.

Could it really be plainer? God in this verse refers to Abraham’s descendants, including kings like David and Hezekiah, as "goyim", the only Hebrew word for "Gentiles".

So God used the word "goyim" just as freely for Abraham and for the tribes of Israel, as God used that word for all non-Israelite nations. Does that tell you anything about God’s view of the Hebrew word selectively translated as "Gentiles"?

A few verses later God speaks about Abraham’s wife Sarah.

So Sarah became the mother of "goyim". Does that mean that Sarah became the mother of Gentile nations? Of course not!

Let’s move on to the next chapter where God is again speaking to Abraham.

There is not, and has never been a different word for non-Israelite nations. The same word is used for all nations, Israelite and non-Israelite alike. How can anyone possibly argue that God used a different Hebrew word to refer to non-Israelite nations?

It was the Pharisees who attached a condescending meaning to the word "goy", to supposedly set all non-Israelite nations on a lower level.

Now let’s look at Genesis 25:23 where Rebekah was expecting the twins Esau and Jacob.

Here God used the same word for both, the Israelites that would descend from Jacob, and the Edomites that would descend from Esau, and both groups are each in God’s eyes a "goy". Clearly the Israelites are just as much a "goy" as are the Edomites.

Let’s look at what God said to Jacob.

Again, God makes clear that Jacob would be the father of "goyim". So based on this statement from God should Israelites therefore also be referred to as "Gentiles"? Or is the whole concept of "Gentiles" totally unbiblical?

When Jacob went down into Egypt God spoke to him again.

Let’s look at what Jacob under inspiration predicted about Joseph’s son Ephraim.

Once Israel had grown into a nation in Egypt and God then led them out of Egypt, God spoke to Moses about the whole nation. Notice what God said.

Wow! "A holy goy"! Does that look like "goy" is a condescending term to be applied to people on a lower level than Israel? It is hardly appropriate to assume that God ever intended the word "goy" to be a descriptive term for "all non-Israelites"!

Now notice what God said to Moses after Israel had sinned.

Again, the word "goy" does not indicate any difference between Israelites and other people.

Notice how Moses responded to God.

So Moses himself likewise freely used the word "goy" to refer to the people of Israel.

Moses knew that the Hebrew word for "nation" very clearly applies to Israel, as well as to all other nations. The point made by God in Exodus 32:10 is repeated by Moses in Numbers 14:12 and in Deuteronomy 9:14, where in both cases Moses used the word "goy" to refer to Israel.

Let’s now look at Deuteronomy 4:6 where Moses was speaking to Israel about obeying God’s laws.

[COMMENT: The Hebrew word "am" means "people", and with the suffix "i" attached to the word, it becomes "ammi" and means "my people".]

Deuteronomy 4:6 is extremely interesting! In the English text we find the word "nation" twice. But Moses actually used two different Hebrew words here, something that is not apparent from the English text.

Notice these points:

1) In referring to the other nations around Israel, the ones we might typically refer to as "Gentiles", Moses used the Hebrew word "am". Here Moses did not use the word "goyim" for these other nations.

2) But in Hosea 2:1 God refers to Israel as "Ammi". So the Hebrew word "am" can also refer to both Israelite and to non-Israelite nations.

3) Then, when he wanted to refer to Israel, Moses used the word "goy", the only Hebrew word ever translated as "Gentiles".

Do you grasp the far-reaching consequences of Deuteronomy 4:6? Our perception of "goy" would have expected Moses to use these two words the other way around ... using "am" for Israel" and "goyim" for all the other nations. But that’s not how Deuteronomy 4:6 was inspired to be written.

Now notice Deuteronomy 26:5.

Moses here said that in Egypt Israel had become a great and mighty "goy". Nothing non-Israelite about "goy" here.

Notice also what Moses said in a song shortly before his death.

So Moses said that the people of Israel were a "goy" lacking in understanding.

Notice what is recorded when Israel crossed the Jordan River.

In this verse the Bible calls all the people of Israel "goy", no different from speaking about any other nation. The next reference says the same thing.

And again in Joshua 5 verses 6 and 8.

Verse 6 tells us that all the men of war were "goy" and verse 8 tells us that the people Joshua circumcised were "goy".

The Hebrew word "goy" is commonly and regularly applied just as much to Israel as it is to any other nation. If this word means that other nations are "Gentiles", then the people of Israel surely are also just as much "Gentiles"! But obviously, God Himself never at any time attached a meaning like "Gentiles" to the word "goy".

Let’s move on in Israel’s history.

Once again God Himself refers to the people of Israel as "goy".

Let’s move on and see something David said in the Psalms.

The nations of Israel are the only nations whose God has been the true God and they are the only people God had up to that point in time chosen for His own inheritance. So here we see David using the word "goy" for the nation of Israel.

Notice also Psalm 82:8.

So God is going to inherit all "goyim", which obviously includes the "goy" (nation) of Israel.

Notice another psalm.

Here David did not hesitate to refer to God’s chosen people as "goy". So are God’s chosen people "Gentiles"? It simply doesn't make sense to attach the meaning "Gentiles" to the word "goy".

Let’s notice Solomon’s use of this word in his proverbs.

Let’s look at the prophets and how they used this word.

Verse 1 shows this is a song sung in the land of Judah. Thus the righteous "goy" referred to in verse 2 are Jews; they are the ones who live in the land of Judah.

A few verses later the prophet is still speaking to God about the people of Judah. In verse 15 Isaiah wrote:

Clearly Isaiah did not hesitate to refer to the Jews as "goy".

Let’s move on to the prophet Jeremiah. GOD spoke the following words to Jeremiah.

The "goyim" that Jeremiah was sent to as a prophet were Israelites! A few verses later God repeated this point.

Clearly even in the days of Jeremiah God was still referring to Israelites as "goyim". Nothing about this word had changed since God used it over 1000 years earlier in speaking to Abraham!

In Jeremiah chapter 5 God is speaking about the people of Judah (i.e. Israelites). God says:

Clearly God views, and always has viewed, the Jewish people as a "goy". God views all nations as "goyim".

Let’s move on to the prophet Ezekiel.

So in Ezekiel’s time God still referred to the children of Israel as a "goy".

Notice also Ezekiel 35:10.

In this verse Edom is shown speaking about the two nations of Judah and Israel, and God has Edom refer to both of them as "goyim". So "goyim" is a word that other nations would also use to refer to the Jews and to the Israelites. Would other nations refer to the Jews as "Gentiles"? Hardly.

Let’s look at the Minor Prophets.

Here God is speaking about in the future making the Israelite remnant into a strong "goy".

In Zephaniah chapter 2, verse 1 seems to be a reference to Israel, and verse 9 is certainly a reference to Israel. Notice:

Here in Zephaniah God still refers to Israel as "the remnant of My goy". This verse also shows that the expressions "My ammi" and "My goy" are basically synonymous.

Let’s move on to the prophet Haggai.

So in the days of Haggai God still referred to the people of Judah as "this goy".

Let’s go to the last book of the Old Testament (in the order that we are accustomed to in our English language Bibles), the Book of Malachi. In time sequence Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament to have been written.

Right at the very end of the Old Testament God still uses the word "goy" to refer to the Jews, or even to the Church of God, if you wish to view this verse as a prophetic statement.

So here is what we have:

1) I have presented the full text of over 40 different verses, spanning the time from Noah right down to Malachi, which use the Hebrew word "goy" for the people of Israel. This covers the entire period of Israel’s Old Testament history.

2) It is abundantly clear that God never at any time intended this word "goy" to be used to specifically identify non-Israelites. Rather, this word should really always be translated either as "nation/s" or as "people", and never as "heathen" or as "Gentiles".

3) God Himself commonly and frequently, right to the very end of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures, uses this word "goy" to refer to Abraham’s descendants, i.e. to Jews and to all Israelites. God also uses this word to refer to all other nations, something for which I did not feel a need to present abundant scriptural support.

4) Note! When the Old Testament was completed, the Hebrew word "goy" had not yet acquired the discriminatory meaning of "Gentiles" or "heathen", as a way of referring to "people who were non-Israelites", even though this is incorrectly inferred by the KJV translators inserting the words "Gentiles" and "heathen" into the English language edition of the O.T. Scriptures.

5) Shortly we’ll examine the New Testament, and exactly the same picture emerges, that the Greek word sometimes translated as "Gentiles" should really only have been translated as "nation" or as "people" and not as "heathen" or as "Gentiles".

6) The Jews at some point well after the Old Testament had been completed (and they were by then speaking Aramaic rather than Hebrew) changed the meaning of the Hebrew word "goy" to mean all non-Israelites.

It became what we today would call a "slang" expression for "all non-Jews", obviously with derisive overtones.

The Jews did not want this word "goy" to be used in reference to themselves. This is obviously in clear conflict with the way God frequently and commonly used this Hebrew word throughout the Old Testament. But slang has a way of ignoring the real meanings of words and attaching arbitrary new meanings to words.

7) Consider the following point:

The Hebrew language actually has several different words that mean: stranger, alien, foreigner, sojourner, etc. The Hebrew words in question include: "ger", "maguwr", "towshab", "nokriy", "zuwr", etc. Some of these Hebrew words would never be applied to Jews or to Hebrew-speaking Israelites.

Yet the Jews, who wanted a specific word for "non-Israelites", did not select one of these words to convey the concept of "non-Israelites".

No, they chose to turn a word that means "nation" and "people" into a slang term meaning "non-Jews". And they willingly ignore how commonly God Himself used this word "goy" to refer to them and to their own forefathers.

It is like modern slang assigning new meanings to words like "cool" and "gay", meanings which are totally removed from what these words literally mean. The Pharisees did the same thing for "goy".

In the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures we simply do not have the word "goy" set aside to specifically mean "all non-Israelites".

The word "Gentile" would not really make sense in all the Scriptures I quoted earlier. And neither does it make sense to translate "goy" as "Gentiles" or as "heathen" in any of the other more than 500 Old Testament Scriptures that I did not quote.

"Goy/im" is simply not a word that God ever used to distinguish non-Israelites from Israelites. It was the racial bias of the Pharisees that sowed the seeds for our English language word "Gentiles".

Now before we look at the New Testament word for "Gentiles", we should keep something clearly in mind.

The Greek language also had several different words that mean: foreigner, stranger, alien, etc. The biblical Greek words here include the following words: "paroikos", "allotrios", "allophulos", etc.

These words would be applied to non-Greeks.

It is, of course, ridiculous to expect the Greek language to have a word that could possibly mean "all human beings, including all Greeks, except for the people of Israel", because the Greeks had no motivation of any kind to ever consider differentiating between Israelites and all other human beings.

However, the writers of the books of the New Testament could perhaps have used one of the above words for "foreigners" to convey the concept of "all non-Israelites"?

But to actually expect the Greek language to have a word that would mean "all non-Israelites" is like expecting the English language to have one specific word that means "all non-Cubans", or expecting the German language to have one specific word that means "all non-Chinese people", or expecting the Italian language to have a word that means "all non-Canadians", etc. You get the idea? Languages simply don’t have such specific words about third parties.

Think this through very carefully.

There simply was no word in the Greek language that could possibly mean "all non-Israelites"! Why would the Greek language ever possibly have needed such a word? So when you see the word "Gentile" in your English language New Testament, realize that it cannot possibly be the translation of a Greek word that means "non-Israelite" because the Greek language didn’t have such a word, and could not possibly have had such a word.

Keep in mind also that when the writers of the New Testament wanted to convey something for which the Greek language did not have a word, then they simply made up a Greek word from the Hebrew word that they wanted to convey. This they did to make sure they correctly conveyed what they intended to say. For example, the Greek language originally did not really have a word for "Sabbath", so in the B.C. centuries the Jews created the Greek word "sabbaton" from the Hebrew word "shabbath".

By this means (i.e. by creating a new Greek word from the original Hebrew word) concepts that were foreign to the Greek language could still be accurately expressed. We do the same thing today: we either accept foreign words into the English language or else we anglicize some foreign words.

Now let’s examine the word "Gentile" in the English language New Testament.

The Greek New Testament word that is translated as "Gentiles" is "ethnos". This word is used 164 times in 152 different verses in the New Testament. It is in the KJV of the Bible translated by the same four English words that we found used for the Hebrew "goy": "nation, people, Gentiles, heathen". "Ethnos" is translated 93 times as "Gentiles", 64 times as "nation", 5 times as "heathen" and 2 times as "people".

[Comment: The Greek word "hellen" is used 27 times in the New Testament. 20 times it is correctly translated as "Greek". But 7 times in 6 verses it is incorrectly translated in the KJV as "Gentile/s". In two of those places it is translated as the singular "Gentile" (Romans 2:9-10), and in the other five places it is the plural "Gentiles". We will ignore these 7 obvious mistranslations.]

It should not come as a surprise that in the Greek language LXX version of the Old Testament the Hebrew word "goy" is usually represented by this Greek word "ethnos". The Greek word "ethnos" and the Hebrew word "goy" mean the same thing.

So let’s see whether in the New Testament this word "ethnos" is used to signify "all non-Israelites" or whether it is also freely used to refer to both Israelites and to other nations.

Here are a number of places where "ethnos" is used in the New Testament. Let’s examine what this word really means.

It is interesting that the "nations" where by far the greatest number of people have been taught God’s truth are the Israelite nations.

Anyway, in this expression "all nations" Jesus Christ was most assuredly including all the Israelite nations as a part of the "ethnos". And in this verse the word "ethnos" cannot possibly refer to only "all non-Israelites".

Again, here Jesus Christ certainly included the nations of Israel in "all nations". That is where the gospel has been published more than anywhere else. So if the other nations are "Gentiles", then by this statement so are the Israelite nations.

Notice this verse!

Here the elders of the Jews were speaking about a Roman centurion, and these elders of the Jews said to Jesus Christ that this Roman centurion "loves our ethnos".

So here Jewish leaders did not hesitate to apply the Greek word "ethnos" to themselves! This shows that at that point in time (i.e. during Christ’s ministry!) the Jews still freely referred to themselves as an "ethnos". Therefore the word "ethnos" obviously could not yet have acquired the meaning of "all non-Israelites".

Here the leaders of the Jews had brought Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate and again these Jewish leaders freely referred to themselves as an "ethnos". So again this word obviously cannot mean "all non-Israelites".

Here the chief priest and the leading Pharisees had a meeting, and even amongst themselves they referred to themselves as an "ethnos". Obviously they did not yet at that point in time think "ethnos" meant "all non-Israelites".

Here even the High Priest Caiaphas used the word "ethnos" to refer to himself and to all the Jewish people. Again here there cannot be the meaning of "all non-Israelites".

Here Pontius Pilate used the word "ethnos" to refer to the Jews.

Here we have the expression "the ethnos of the Jews". So once again, "ethnos" cannot mean "all non-Israelites".

Here the High Priest used the services of an orator named Tertullus to accuse the Apostle Paul before the Roman governor Felix. And the Jewish orator Tertullus here referred to the Jews as "this ethnos".

In his reply the Apostle Paul also freely used the word "ethnos" to refer to the Jewish nation. Clearly Paul did not feel that this Greek word "ethnos" must somehow mean "all non-Israelites".

Before King Agrippa Paul again referred to the Jewish people as "my own ethnos at Jerusalem". So if the word "ethnos" is supposed to mean "Gentiles", then the Jews who dwelt at Jerusalem during the time of the early Church must also have been "Gentiles". That’s what we would have to conclude from Paul’s words ... if "ethnos" is supposed to mean "Gentiles".

In speaking to the leaders of the Jewish community in Rome, Paul again freely used the word "ethnos" to refer to the Jewish nation.

Here Paul is quoting from Genesis 17:5. And Paul translated the Hebrew word "goyim" into Greek as "ethnos". This should make clear that the Greek word "ethnos" means exactly the same thing as the Hebrew word "goy". Paul here confirms that the LXX rendering of "goy" as "ethnos" in Greek is indeed correct.

So Abraham became the father of many "ethnos". Clearly "ethnos" refers just as much to all of the nations of Israel as it does to all the other nations. The word "ethnos" most certainly does not in any way imply a distinction between people who are Israelites and those who are non-Israelites.

The Apostle Peter is here saying that members of God’s Church are "a holy ethnos". The word "ethnos" can here hardly have the meaning of "Gentile" as we have so commonly assumed in the past.

Here we see that after the new heaven and the new earth have been brought about, and when the New Jerusalem has come down to the new earth, at that point the people who have been "saved" and are able to walk into this New Jerusalem are still referred to as "ethnos" (i.e. as described from our point of view in this age, without trying to preempt what that word might be in the new language which will then be spoken). So even into the future, at the time of Revelation 21:24, the word "ethnos" is still going to refer to all the people in God’s Family, be they Israelites or be they non-Israelites.

We have now looked at over a dozen different verses in the New Testament that make quite clear that the Greek word "ethnos" means exactly the same as the Hebrew word "goy", and that "ethnos" also very clearly cannot have the exclusive meaning of "all non-Israelites".

So here are the facts:

1) There is only one Hebrew word in the Old Testament that is translated into English as "Gentile". That is the word "goy".

2) We have seen that from the days of Noah right up to the end of the Old Testament, right up to the Book of Malachi, this word "goy" cannot possibly have the exclusive meaning of "non-Israelite". The word is clearly used to refer to Abraham and all of his descendants time and time again.

3) So throughout Old Testament times the idea that one specific word (i.e. the word translated "Gentile") could identify the distinction between Israelites and non-Israelites simply did not exist. And in the Old Testament no single individual is ever referred to as "a Gentile". The word "goy" cannot refer to a single individual because, like the English words "nation" and "people", it only applies to groups of individuals.

4) There is only one Greek word in the New Testament that is translated into English as "Gentile". That is the word "ethnos" (i.e. apart from the blatant mistranslation of "hellen").

5) We have seen from the Gospels all the way up to the end of the Book of Revelation that this word "ethnos" also cannot possibly have the exclusive meaning of "non-Israelite". The word is clearly used to refer to the Jewish people, and even to all those who will comprise the Family of God in the New Jerusalem. "Ethnos" means "nation", and it always refers to a group of individuals.

6) So ignoring the mistranslation in Romans 2:9-10, nowhere in the New Testament do we find the concept of "Israelites versus Gentiles" expressed in one simple word. And no single individual in the New Testament is ever referred to as "a Gentile".

7) In other words, nowhere in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, do we ever see a distinction between Israelites and non-Israelites expressed by applying a very specific name or label to all non-Israelites.

So since the concept of "Gentiles" is not based on anything that is found either in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, the question is:

Where did we, the people in the churches of God, get the idea that God’s Word has set aside one specific word, "Gentiles", to mean "all non-Israelites"? Where does this concept come from?

Let’s consider two different linguistic developments, separated by well over 1500 years.

1) Until about 50 years ago the English word "gay" always meant: joyous, lively, merry, happy, light-hearted, bright, brilliant, etc. It was freely used with these meanings by poets and authors like Shakespeare. It was still used with these meanings in the 1950s in hit records like "THE GREAT PRETENDER" by "The Platters" ("Oh yes, I’m the great pretender, Just laughing and gay like a clown"), and in songs like "WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE" by "Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers" ("Why do birds sing so gay? And lovers await the break of day? Why do they fall in love?"),etc.

Then at some point this word "gay" was hijacked by some homosexuals, to describe themselves. They didn’t like the blunt, no-frills label "homosexual". They wanted a more attractive-sounding and more acceptable euphemism for their sexual orientation. So they started to use the word "gay" to mean "homosexual". And they were very militant in getting this word "gay" to be accepted to mean "homosexual".

This aggressive use of the word "gay" has obviously stopped everybody else from using the word "gay" with its original meaning of "joyous, merry, happy", etc. And so today many young people assume that "gay" means "homosexual" and that is all it means. And 50 years from now nobody will even remember what the word "gay" used to mean. The original meaning will have been obliterated!

2) 2000 years ago the Hebrew word "goy" meant: a nation, people, a tribe, etc. That is what this Hebrew word had always meant since before the time of Moses. This word applied to all nations on earth. As we have seen, it was also freely used for Abraham and Jacob and the tribes of Israel and the Jews.

But by the start of the New Testament era the Jews were no longer speaking Hebrew. They had switched about 400 years earlier to speaking Aramaic, a somewhat related language. Hebrew had become the domain of religious scholars and priests.

The word "Pharisee" means "one who separates himself from the common people". It is well-known that the Pharisees had "pretensions to superior sanctity", meaning that they had a "holier than thou" attitude. They believed that they were better than other people. Even with a Roman Governor residing a hundred yards down the road, the arrogant Pharisees had the attitude "we be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how do you say, You shall be made free?" (see John 8:33). While saying those words they were in fact "in bondage" to the Romans.

The Pharisees controlled religious studies and discussions in Judah. Their opinions prevailed, and they wrote the Talmud. In the process they freely changed the meanings of any number of Hebrew words to suit their own distorted teachings. (On my website under "Research Center >> Jewish Terms and Their Meanings >> Introduction" I discuss this matter of the tannaim assigning totally new meanings to established words in more detail, and to illustrate this practice I present the examples of the Hebrew words minhag, mishnah, mitzvah, and mohar. Feel free to check it out.)

To enable them to express their attitude of superiority to all other people, the tannaim decided to change the meaning of the word "goy". They arbitrarily decided that from then onwards the word "goy" would refer to all non-Jewish people and nations.

Even the Apostle Peter had grown up deceived by the unbiblical laws and rules and customs that the Pharisees had invented. It required a vision from God to get Peter to understand that the laws established by the Pharisees were perverse.

You know the account where Peter went to see the Roman centurion Cornelius. Notice one statement that Peter made after God had given him a vision.

What do you mean ... it is an unlawful thing for a Jew to keep company with non-Jews? At that point Peter had been an apostle for several years ... and he still did not understand that this "unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew" was not an instruction from God. At no point did God ever instruct the Jews to "not keep company with one of another nation".

And it took a vision from God for Peter to finally understand that this pharisaic "law" was garbage! It was the Pharisees who referred to all other people as "common" and as "unclean". And it was the Pharisees who invented the concept of "Gentiles"!

That is what the term "Gentile" implies ... that "Gentiles" are common and unclean people and below Israelites in their standing with God. It is all pharisaical hypocrisy.

God showed Peter that he shouldn’t think of any man as "common or unclean". What this means to us is that we should not think of any man as "a Gentile"!

That’s what the vision Peter saw in Acts 10:10-16 was intended to teach Peter ... that he should not think of any man as "a Gentile"! And we in God’s Church have never gotten the point, have we? Hey, that was a vision for Peter, and it’s got nothing to do with us, right? Okay, so Peter until then had his racial bias towards all non-Israelites, but that was his problem, not ours.

Look, the whole purpose of Peter’s vision and of the story with Cornelius is to teach us to not refer to any other people of any race or nationality as inferior, or as below us, or as Gentiles. That’s what God "has showed us".

So the Pharisees decided that the singular "goy" would henceforth mean "heathen". That is why the KJV translators translated "goy/im" 143 times as "heathen" ... because the Pharisees in post-New Testament times had unilaterally determined the meaning "heathen" for "goy/im". It was the Pharisees’ equivalent of determining that the word "gay" shall mean "homosexual".

So understand this:

Ascribing the meaning of "heathen" to the Hebrew word "goy/im" is not based on anything in the Old Testament! It is not based on how God used the word "goy/im" for Abraham and for Israel. Ascribing the meaning "heathen" to the word "goy/im" was a very arbitrary decision by the Pharisees, to give them a slang expression to refer to people of all other nations.

The Hebrew word "goy/im" does not mean "heathen", anymore than the English word "gay" means "homosexual". "Heathen" was a deliberate perversion of the actual meaning of "goy/im", even as calling homosexuals "gays" is a deliberate perversion of the actual meaning of "gay".

Okay, so now we have the Pharisees attaching a slang meaning to the Hebrew word "goy/im". So how did we get from there to the word "Gentile"?

Now we come to Jerome and his Latin language translation known as the Vulgate. Jerome translated "goy" correctly into Latin as "gens, gentis", as I mentioned at the start.

So we have the following situation:

1) The Hebrew word "goy" means: a nation, a tribe, people.

2) The Greek word "ethnos" means exactly the same as "goy".

3) The Latin word "gens, gentis" also means exactly the same as "goy".

Three words in three different languages have the identical meaning. So for this Hebrew word we do not have a translation problem as far as the Greek LXX and the Latin Vulgate are concerned.

Regarding the Hebrew word "goy": all three languages use the correct word that means "nation, tribe, people", etc. Up to this point we don’t yet have the designations "heathen" and "Gentiles" to deal with.

When the KJV translators came along, they all understood that "ethnos" in Greek and "gens, gentis" in Latin both mean: people, nation, tribe, etc.

All the translators understood the Greek and the Latin words correctly.

Yes, they understood that "goy" means "nation" and "people". They couldn’t avoid knowing this from the hundreds of places where they correctly translated "goy/im".

But they were also heavily influenced by Hebrew scholars, who at that point in time had all bought into the pharisaic idea that "goy" (supposedly) also means "heathen". The only Hebrew scholars around at the time of the KJV translation were the spiritual descendants of the Pharisees. These scholars had all their lives been conditioned to "goy" supposedly also meaning "heathen", a convenient way to look down on people from other nations.

So the KJV translators accepted this assertion, and obligingly translated "goy/im" as "heathen" in 143 places. But they also coined the word "Gentile" from the Latin word "gens, gentis". This word "Gentile" is based on the teaching of the Pharisees that all human beings can be grouped into "Israelites" and "goy/im". So in our English Bibles all human beings can be divided into Israelites and Gentiles.

The word "Gentile" was supposed to fill a void. It was aimed at expressing a concept that could not be expressed in English without creating a new word. The word "Gentile" met that need. The word "Gentile" made it very easy to divide all of humanity into "Jew and Gentile", or as church people would prefer, into "Israelite and Gentile".

"Gentile" was to mean exactly the same as "heathen", but it was supposed to be a less offensive term ... just like "gay" is supposed to be a less offensive term than the factual term "homosexual". "Gentile" is supposed to sound more neutral than "heathen".

And, as already mentioned, there is no biblical justification of any kind for this Latin-derived disparaging title "Gentile". It is nothing other than a barely disguised racial slur on those who are judged to be not of Israelite stock. The word "Gentile" is a descendant of the hypocritical teachings of the Pharisees.

The word "Gentile" is not based on anything in the Hebrew text. So it really has no direct connection to the Old Testament. And the word "Gentile" is also not based on anything in the Greek NT text. So it has no direct connection to the New Testament either. And the word "Gentile" doesn’t have any roots in the English language either. It was imported from the Latin language, the "mother tongue" of the false church.

Simply because the translators mistranslated the word "Gentiles" into our English language editions, that doesn’t make it biblical! There is nothing about the whole concept that is biblical. It is just as stupid as the absurd idea that the Prophet Isaiah was supposedly "sawed in half" ... another preposterous invention of the Pharisees. (For that absurd idea see the Talmud, Mas. Yevamoth 49b.)

We need to understand that the word "Gentile" is just as much a derisive term as are words like "Krauts, Kaffirs, Coolies, Wogs, Frogs, Niggers, Hairybacks", etc. These are all offensive terms of contempt for the people so referred to, and I looked all of them up in "READER’S DIGEST OXFORD COMPLETE WORDFINDER", copyrighted in 1993. The word "Gentile" is of exactly the same genre.

The "COMPLETE WORDFINDER" also defines the word "Goy" as follows: "plural goyim, slang, sometimes derogatory, a Jewish name for a non-Jew". This book defines the word "Gentile" as follows: "not Jewish, heathen, slang derogatory goyish".

Notice that this reference work acknowledges that both, "goy" and "Gentile" are derogatory slang terms. Slang designations are not intended to be respectful. Notice also that it is applied to "non-Jews", even though the Bible freely uses the word "goy" for Abraham and Israelites and Jews, etc.

We need to understand that when we use the word "Gentiles" then we are perpetuating a racial bias that was introduced by the pharisaical teachers and then transferred into our English language Bibles. And then we need to learn the lesson of Peter’s vision ... to call no man "a Gentile".

One last point.

I in no way mean to imply that the Jews are more derogatory towards non-Jews than any other people are derogatory towards anyone who is not one of them. This is not a Jewish problem, but a human problem. The offensive terms I quoted earlier from the "COMPLETE WORDFINDER" are a very tiny sample of hundreds of words that illustrates this human problem. Many people in many different nations have found ways to express pride in themselves and contempt for people from other nations.

The word "Gentiles" is one more example of this approach towards others who are not a part of "us".

Frank W Nelte