Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the Bible: People
Subjects in this Topic:
PEOPLE.—This is the translation used in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] for a large number of Hebrew and Greek terms. In some cases ambiguity occurs, as the pl. ‘peoples’ is not used in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] except in Rev_10:11; Rev_17:15. Thus ‘people’ is used sometimes of the people of Israel, and often of heathen nations. RV [Note: Revised Version.] uses ‘peoples’ freely, and this makes the meaning much clearer in such passages as Psa_67:4, Isa_55:4; Isa_60:2 etc. (see art. Nations, also preface to RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
A special phrase ‘the people of the land’ occurs frequently in the OT, especially in Jeremiah, Ezeklel, 2Kings., and 2 Ch. In most of these cases it means the general body of the people, the common people as opposed to the courtiers or the ruling class. In Gen_23:7; Gen_23:12-13, Num_14:9 the term is applied to non-Israelites. In the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah the ‘people of the land’ are the half-heathen, half-Jewish population with whom the less scrupulous Jews intermarried, but who were avoided by the stricter party represented by Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezr_10:2; Ezr_10:11, Neh_10:30-31; cf. Neh_9:1, Neh_9:30). The same phrase was used by the Rabbis to describe the common people, who were lax in observing the Mosaic law (Joh_7:49).
W. F. Boyd.