Bible Strong
Explore
Open the app

nation

Translation Words · Door43 World Missions Community, unfoldingWord contributors

Definition

In the Bible, a nation is a large group of people who share a common identity and speak the same language. The people of a nation often have the same ancestors and share a common ethnicity.

  • In the Bible, a nation could be a country with an extensive government structure and defined boundaries (such as Egypt or Ethiopia), but usually it is more general and refers to a people group.
  • Nations in the Bible included the Israelites, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites, the Romans, and the Greeks, among many others.
  • Sometimes the word “nation” was used figuratively to refer to the ancestor of a certain people group, as when Rebekah was told by God that her unborn sons were “nations” that would fight against each other. This could be translated as “the founders of two nations” or the “ancestors of two people groups.”
  • When used in the plural in a general way, the word translated as “nations” often referred to the people who were not Israelites, that is, to Gentiles, the people who do not worship Yahweh. The context usually makes the meaning clear.

Translation Suggestions

  • Depending on the context, the word “nation” could also be translated as “people group” or “people” or “country.”
  • If a language has a term for “nation” that is distinct from these other terms, then that term can be used wherever it occurs in the Bible text, as long as it is natural and accurate in each context.
  • The plural term “nations” can often be translated as “people groups.”
  • In certain contexts, this term could also be translated as “Gentiles” or “non-Jews.”

(See also: Assyria, Babylon, Canaan, Gentile, Greek, people group, Philistines, Rome)

Bible References

Word Data

In other dictionaries

Read “Nation” in the 2 dictionaries

Source of the article

The original work by unfoldingWord is available from https://www.unfoldingword.org/utw. Bible Strong converted the Markdown and resource links to its dictionary schema and normalized Bible references.

Bible Strong adaptation of unfoldingWord Translation Words release v90