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Bible Dictionaries
People
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or 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 Revelation 10:11; Revelation 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 Psalms 67:4 , Isaiah 55:4; Isaiah 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 Genesis 23:7; Genesis 23:12-13 , Numbers 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 ( Ezra 10:2; Ezra 10:11 , Nehemiah 10:30-31; cf. Nehemiah 9:1 , Nehemiah 9:30 ). The same phrase was used by the Rabbis to describe the common people, who were lax in observing the Mosaic law ( John 7:49 ).
W. F. Boyd.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'People'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/p/people.html. 1909.
