Tribe

Tribe - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

A collection of families descending from one ancestor. The "twelve tribes" of the Hebrews were the twelve collections of families which sprang from the sons of Jacob. In Matt. 24:30 the word has a wider significance. The tribes of Israel are referred to as types of the spiritual family of God (Rev. 7). (See [643]ISRAEL, KINGDOM OF; [644]JUDAH, KINGDOM OF.)

Tribe - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

TRIBE, n. [L. tribus.]

1. A family, race or series of generations, descending from the same progenitor and kept distinct, as in the case of the twelve tribes of Israel, descended from the twelve sons of Jacob.

2. A division, class or distinct portion of people, from whatever cause that distinction may have originated. The city of Athens was divided into ten tribes. Rome was originally divided into three tribes; afterward the people were distributed into thirty tribes, and afterwards into thirty five.

3. A number of things having certain characters or resemblances, in common; as a tribe of plants; a tribe of animals.

Linneus distributed the vegetable kingdom into three tribes, viz. monocotyledonous, dicotyledonous, and acotyledonous plants, and these he subdivided into gentes or nations.

By recent naturalists, tribe has been used for a division of animals or vegetables, intermediate between order and genus. Cuvier divides his orders into families, and his families into tribes, including under the latter one or more genera. Leach, in his arrangement of insects, makes his tribes, on the contrary, the primary subdivisions of his orders, and his families subordinate to them, and immediately including the genera.

Tribes of plants, in gardening, are such as are related to teach other by some natural affinity or resemblance; as by their duration, the annual, biennial, and perennial tribes; by their roots, as the bulbous, tuberous, and fibrous-rooted tribes; by the loss or retention of their leaves, as the deciduous and ever-green tribes; by their fruits and seeds, as the leguminous, bacciferous, coniferous, nuciferous and pomiferous tribes, _c.

4. A division; a number considered collectively.

5. A nation of savages; a body of rude people united under one leader or government; as the tribes of the six nations; the Seneca tribe in America.

6. A number of persons of any character or profession; in contempt; as the scribbling tribe.

TRIBE, v.t. To distribute into tribes or classes. [Not much used.]

trib (in the Old Testament always for matteh, 183 times, or shebhet, 145 times, also spelled shebhet; Aramaic shebhat (Ezr 6:17)): Both words mean "staff," and perhaps "company led by chief with staff" (OHL, 641) is the origin of the meaning "tribe." In the Apocrypha and New Testament always for phule, from phuo, "beget," with dodekaphulon, "twelve tribes," in Ac 26:7. Of the two Hebrew words, shebhet appears to be considerably the older, and is used in Ps 74:2; Jer 10:16; 51:19 of the whole people of Israel, and in Nu 4:18; Jud 20:12 (Revised Version margin); 1Sa 9:21 (Revised Version margin) of subdivisions of a tribe (but the text of most of these six verses is suspicious). Further, in Isa 19:13, shebhet is used of the "tribes" (nomes?) of Egypt and phule in Mt 24:30 of "all the tribes of the earth," but otherwise shebhet, matteh and phule refer exclusively to the tribes of Israel. In 2Sa 7:7 for shibhete, "tribes," read shophete, "judges" (of the Revised Version margin).

Burton Scott Easton

Definition

A tribe is a group of people who are descended from a common ancestor.

• People from the same tribe usually also share a common language and culture.
• In the Old Testament, God divided the people of Israel into twelve tribes. Each tribe was descended from a son or grandson of Jacob.
• A tribe is smaller than a nation, but larger than a clan.

(See also: clan, nation, people group, twelve tribes of Israel)

Bible References

• 1 Samuel 10:19
• 2 Kings 17:16-18
• Genesis 25:16
• Genesis 49:17
• Luke 2:36-38

Word Data

• Strong’s: H0523, H4294, H7625, H7626, G14290, G54430