A foreign nation ; hence, a Gentile ; also (figuratively) a troop of animals, or a flight of locusts
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גּוֹי is the standard Hebrew word for a nation — a people defined by shared territory, descent, social identity, and often by the gods they serve. In its most basic sense, the word simply means a body of people constituted as a distinct political and ethnic entity.
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Full entry for גּוֹי (H1471) · Open the biblical lexicon
גּוֹי is the standard Hebrew word for a nation — a people defined by shared territory, descent, social identity, and often by the gods they serve. In its most basic sense, the word simply means a body of people constituted as a distinct political and ethnic entity.
The BSB source-word alignment has 561 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the nations (117), nations (93), among the nations (63), of the nations (56), nation (55).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 10:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Ezekiel (87), Jeremiah (87), Isaiah (73), Psalms (60).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
גּוֹי is the standard Hebrew word for a nation — a people defined by shared territory, descent, social identity, and often by the gods they serve. In its most basic sense, the word simply means a body of people constituted as a distinct political and ethnic entity. But in the theology of the Hebrew Bible, גּוֹי does not remain neutral for long. Once Israel is constituted at Sinai as YHWH's own people, the word acquires a relational charge. The nations — הַגּוֹיִם — are the peoples who stand outside the covenant, who do not know YHWH by name, who build their lives around other gods, and whose practices are held up as the anti-pattern to which Israel must not conform.
This is not a word about ethnic inferiority. The Bible shows YHWH as the God who made every nation, set their boundaries, and governs their histories (Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26). The selected canonical texts keep the nations within God's care and sovereign reach. They appear in the Abrahamic promise as the very ones through whom blessing will flow. Abraham is called so that all the families of the earth might be blessed through him — and the nations are that "all." The word גּוֹי, then, carries both a shadow and a promise within it.
In prophetic literature, the nations become the instrument of YHWH's judgment against unfaithful Israel and, at the same time, the recipients of YHWH's future grace. Isaiah's servant passages and the great eschatological oracles envision the nations streaming to Zion, hearing the word of the Lord, being gathered in. גּוֹי is the Hebrew word standing behind the Gentile question that runs through the whole New Testament — not as a solved problem but as the New Testament's reading of the Abrahamic promise and the prophetic hope.
Pastorally, this word refuses to be domesticated. It will not let Israel — or any covenant people — forget that God's purposes are not tribal. It will not let the nations be reduced to a backdrop for Israel's story. They are the audience, the beneficiary, and in the end the co-heirs of the promise that launched everything with Abraham. A congregation that encounters גּוֹי is encountering the scope of the gospel before the gospel is named.
Genesis 12:2 — YHWH promises Abram that he will become a great גּוֹי, and that all the families of the earth will be blessed through him. From its first theologically freighted use, the word carries both particular election and universal purpose.
גּוֹי enters the theological story not as an accident of vocabulary but as a structural term. The moment YHWH calls Abram, the word nation is deployed in both directions at once: Abram will become a great nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. Election and mission are bound together from the first use of the word that matters most. This dual charge — a people set apart for the sake of a people drawn in — recurs in later uses of גּוֹי across the Hebrew canon.
At Sinai, the term acquires its sharpest contrast. Israel is constituted as YHWH's distinctive possession, a holy nation, set apart from the nations (הַגּוֹיִם) whose practices represent the worship of other gods, the subjugation of the vulnerable, and the rejection of the moral order YHWH is establishing. The nations in Deuteronomy are not simply ethnic others — they are, in the narrative logic of the text, a picture of what faithlessness toward YHWH produces. Israel's holiness is meant to be a living demonstration that there is a better way, a way that reflects the character of the God who redeems rather than enslaves.
But the prophets will not let the nations remain merely a warning. From Isaiah to Zechariah, the nations become the horizon of YHWH's redemptive movement. The servant is given as a light to the nations; the glory of YHWH will be seen among the nations; many peoples will come seeking the Lord; the nations will stream to Zion. This is not an unexpected reversal — it is the explicit fulfillment of what the Abrahamic covenant held from the beginning. Across these selected passages, the nations function both as a contrast that clarifies Israel's calling and as peoples included in the horizon of promised blessing.
In the New Testament, the word behind גּוֹי — rendered in the LXX as ἔθνος — becomes the term for the Gentiles whose inclusion in the body of Christ is Paul's central gospel burden in Romans and Ephesians. The dividing wall between Jew and Gentile is broken down not because the distinction was arbitrary but because Genesis 12:3 and the New Testament's canonical reading place blessing for the nations within the covenant horizon. To read גּוֹי well is to read the whole story of Scripture as a missionary story — not just the story of a people kept safe, but the story of a people sent out so that the nations might come home.
The canonical trajectory of גּוֹי runs from the Abrahamic promise through the constituting of Israel as a holy nation, through the prophetic vision of the nations streaming to Zion, and into the New Testament where the boundary between Jew and Gentile is reconstituted in Christ. The LXX renders גּוֹי most frequently as ἔθνος (G1484), the same word Paul uses to describe his apostolic calling to the Gentiles and the co-heirs of the promise in Ephesians 2–3.
The connection is direct and lexical: what the Hebrew Bible called גּוֹיִם, the New Testament calls τὰ ἔθνη, and the question of their inclusion under the covenant is not a new problem but the New Testament development of the Abrahamic promise that all families of the earth would be blessed.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Ethnic or national group distinct from Israel; carries covenantal exclusivity when applied to non-Israelites as Gentiles
Ethnic or national group distinct from Israel; carries covenantal exclusivity when applied to non-Israelites as Gentiles
a foreign nation; hence, a Gentile; also (figuratively) a troop of animals, or a flight of locusts BDB: nation Usage: Gentile, heathen, nation, people.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 567 lexical occurrence verses.
גּוֹי is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
This word opens the missionary and global scope of the biblical covenant from its earliest pages. It allows a congregation to see that Israel's particular covenant story includes a stated purpose of blessing the families of the earth. It creates pastoral space for preaching on election as commission rather than privilege, and for showing how the inclusion of the Gentiles in the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Torah, not its contradiction.
גּוֹי corrects the assumption that the Old Testament is a tribal story and the New Testament is where the gospel becomes global. The nations are already on the horizon in Genesis 12. It also corrects a reductive reading of the law's boundary-marking function — the Torah's distinctions set Israel apart, while the Abrahamic promise and prophetic texts keep the nations within the horizon of God's concern and promised blessing. It resists any theology that turns election into ethnic exclusivity.
Begin with what your congregation already carries: the sense that the Old Testament is Israel's story and the New Testament opens it to everyone. Name that intuition honestly, then show them that the very first use of this word already holds both. God calls Abram to become a nation so that all the nations of the earth might be blessed. The inclusion of the Gentiles is not a plan B — it was the plan.
From there, show them how the word moves through the canon, from boundary marker in the Torah to eschatological destination in the prophets, and then to the apostolic mission in the New Testament.