Letter 474 (Gentile Exposed) 21/01/2011
Psalm 83:2-4: "For behold, Your enemies make
a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your
people/am, and consulted together against Your sheltered/hidden/treasured ones.
They have said, 'Come, and let us cut
them off from being a nation/goy, that the name of
For several years now, I have had cause to suspect the usage,
in the English translations, of the Hebrew word "goy" and "goyim." The more I thought and prayed about it, the
more I began to be alarmed, especially after reading Psalm 83. Indeed, if the enemies of
Ethnos" is
typically translated "Gentile” in the New Testament. But we have to
remember that in the Church's understanding even when it is rendered "nation"
all too often it is perceived as a non-Israelite or “a mixed multitude”. In
Was Paul another one who was sent out to the nations to procure
the sons of Israel (the "lost sheep") who had become nations and
kings? I'm sure Yeshua didn't change his
mind when He said that He was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel (ref. Mat. 15:24). In the following scriptures Paul
writes (quoting from the Tanach): "For
I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise
in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until
the fullness of the Gentiles [ethnos] has come in. And so all Israel
shall be saved: as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer,
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob…" (Romans 11:25-26 (Isaiah 59:20) emphasis added). Again, the usage of "Gentiles"
totally takes the reader away from understanding the "mystery of the
blindness of
A similar case could be made in regard to Peter's commentary,
where he quotes from the Tanach (Old Testament) about
Did St. Jerome and the Catholic Church have any reason to introduce a translation of the Bible (the Vulgate) that would eliminate Israel as YHVH's legitimate chosen nation/goy? It is not that Latin did not have a word for nation/goy. As a matter of fact, the origin of the English "nation" comes from the Latin "natio" (close in sound to the Greek "ethno," which is the root word the Greeks used for the Hebrew "goy," as mentioned above). Jerome adapted the term “gentile” from the Latin “genitalis,” which in English is “genital” (male or female sex organs). Of course, the seed issues from the male genital to the female’s, but humans do not become sex organs - “gentiles”!
YHVH defined "goy" and "goyim" when He divided the people and divvied out to them their lands (see Genesis 10:5, 32). Thus, the true definition of "nation/goy" has three basic aspects: a people, tribe, or families living on a piece of real estate/land and subject to one government. Thereby, we could say that government, people, and land are the necessary components that define a "nation." If we look at the covenant with the forefathers, it always entailed these three: land, a people, and YHVH's kingdom government (or man's).
What is so amazing is that even Jewish Israelis of today, as well as the Messianic Jews, do not identify themselves as a "goy." They make use of the term "goy" or "goyim" exclusively for non-Jews or "Gentiles." However, "goy" is still the one Hebrew word that YHVH uses to unite us as one people, and one nation (see Ezekiel 37: 22). Without correcting this obvious mistranslation and misunderstanding, the "one new man" idea of Ephesians 2:15 is a nice concept, but it does not bring about unity. The existence of thousands of Christian denominations attests to this fact; nor does it bear witness to YHVH's faithfulness in keeping covenant with Abraham and the "goy gadol" - "great nation" – Israel that was to issue forth from his loins.