People
( and )
(without art._) designates Israel in Jud 1:5 (cf. Sir 46:7, Wis 18:13), Gentile believers in St. Jamess speech at the Council (Act 15:14); the fact that St. Luke himself does not use of Christians is justly regarded as a proof of the early date of Acts (Harnack, Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr._, London, 1909, p. 51). in the prayer of the Church (Act 4:27) is an interesting addition to those gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ (Psa 2:2). In Rom 9:25-26 St. Paul applies the promises of Israels restoration in Hos 1:10; Hos 2:23 to the calling of the Gentiles (God, in reversing His sentence on Israel, embraces in the arms of His mercy all who were not His people, and says of them all, that they should be My people and beloved [E. B. Pusey, Minor Prophets, London, 1886, p. 22]; cf. Rom 11:25-26; Rom 11:32). In 1Pe 2:10 Hoseas prophecy is applied to the Gentile Christians of Asia Minor: they, before receiving the gospel, belonged to the most diverse races, and were not a people at all; now they are become a people of God, even a (v. 9; cf. Isa 43:21, Mal 3:17 LXX_). In Tit 2:14, Christians are called a -the LXX_ rendering of i in Exo 19:5, Deu 7:6 (see S. R. Drivers notes, Cambridge Bible for Schools, Exod., Cambridge, 1911, p. 171, ICC_, Deut.2, Edinburgh, 1896, p. 100). The occurrence of (without art._) in Luk 1:17, Act 18:10 also deserves attention. is the usual designation for the Jewish people in the religious or political sense (Mat 2:4; Mat 4:23, Joh 11:50; Joh 18:14, Act 3:23; Act 21:28; Act 26:17; Act 26:23, Heb 7:11; 2Pe 2:1). In Mat 1:21 ( = in Psa 129:8 LXX_) the apologetic purpose of this Gospel reveals itself as in Mat 1:1 -Jesus the Messiah, who fulfils the promises to the house of David and the seed of Abraham. also designates Israel in Luk 1:68; Luk 7:16, Rom 11:1; Rom 15:10, St. Paul having in mind in Rom 11:1 a phrase that appears in 1Sa 12:22, Ps 93:14, Psa 94:4 LXX_. Israels title, , is extended in Heb 4:9; Heb 11:25 to the NT Church: it was a point with the Author to identify Christian Hebrews with the people of God (A. B. Davidson, Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, n.d., p. 95)._
In the foregoing survey we see the designation passing over from the OT to the NT Church. The process was gradual. The idea would not occur to the members of the Christian community at Jerusalem, who continued to attend the Temple and the synagogues, that their kinsmen according to the flesh had lost their right to be called the . On the contrary, they were willing to admit that the people and their rulers had acted in putting Jesus to death, and they looked for their repentance and conversion, which should bring in the promised and at the speedy return of their Lord (Act 3:17-26). But as time went on, and Jewish hardness and unbelief remained unchanged, they must have recalled such sayings of Jesus as those about the vineyard of the wicked husbandmen being given to others, and the supper that should not be tasted by the first-bidden guests (Mar 12:9, Luk 14:24). It is remarkable that while Jesus Himself occasionally referred to the Jews as , He never once spoke of them as the (cf. DCG_ ii. 334). Joh 8:39 reports His having denied that His opponents were true children of Abraham, which reminds us of St. Pauls demonstration in Romans 3-4, Galatians 3-4 that they who have the right to call Abraham their father are those only who believe Gods promise of salvation as he did (cf. Rom 9:7). Another correspondence between this Gospel and St. Paul appears in our Lords greeting Nathanael as (Joh 1:47), and the Apostles distinguishing an Israel (1Co 10:18) from an Israel (Gal 6:16; which may refer to the Jewish believers of St. Pauls circle, but more probably designates all Christians). In discriminating between circumcision as an external rite and the circumcision of the heart (Rom 2:29; cf. Php 3:3) St. Paul follows the OT (e.g. Deu 10:16, Jer 9:26). It is true that in Rom 11:17 f. the Jews still remain the , and the Gentiles are ingrafted into the people to whom the promises belong, as the wild olive branch into the good olive tree-a comparison which Harnack thinks must have been very unpleasing to Gentile Christians (Date of Acts, p. 48, note 2). But in 1Co 12:13 (cf. Gal 3:28, Rom 10:12) Jews and Gentiles are one body, having received the same Spirit; and this fundamental idea is fully developed in St. Pauls later Epistles (Col 3:11, Eph 2:14; Eph 3:6 f., Php 3:3 f.)._ St. Peter, without explicitly designating his readers , applies to them all Israels characteristics (1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:9), and says that it has now devolved upon them to rise to the high ideal set forth in the Law (1Pe 1:15 f.); with this we may compare St. Pauls warning to the Jewish and other Christians of Corinth (1Co 10:1 f.) not to dally with idolatry, lest they should perish in the way as their fathers did before reaching the promised land, notwithstanding their having had means of grace which corresponded with the two sacraments instituted by Christ.
Although we Gentile Christians are fully warranted in believing that the title of the people of God is included in the all things that are ours (1Co 3:21), yet we are forbidden by St. Pauls words in Rom 11:1-2 to limit Gods people whom he foreknew to a spiritual Israel, foreknown and predestined to be saved through their reception of the gospel (E. H. Gifford, Speakers Commentary, Romans, London, 1881, p. 191). We believe that God accepts the Here am I of those who are called to rule over Jewish congregations (see New Chief Rabbis Message, Scotsman, Feb. 21, 1913).
Literature.-Much valuable information may be found in the works of Zahn and Harnack, both of whom have given special attention to the subject of this article. See T. Zahn, Introduction to the NT, Eng. tr._, Edinburgh, 1909, i. 81, note 9, ii. 142 f., 253 f., 545; A. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, Eng. tr._, do., 1904-05, i. 60, 67, note 1, 80, note 2, 300, 315, 343 f., The Date of the Acts and of the Synoptic Gospels, Eng. tr._, London and N.Y., 1911, pp. 42, 45, 48, 56, 58, 63, 112. Of great interest is the statement of Harnack (Expansion, p. 344 ff.) that the designation of Christians as the third race was perfectly common on the lips of the heathen in Carthage about the year a.d. 200. He quotes Tertullian (ad Nat. i. 8.), who says, Plane, tertium genus dicimur. The Greeks, Romans, and all other nations were the first race, the Jews the second, the Christians (with their spiritual God, their lack of images and sacrifices, and their contempt for the heathen deities) the third (cf. p. 352).
James Donald.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
People
If goi denotes a nation regarded from without, Am () signifies a people as viewed by one of themselves. Sometimes it is used in the familiar and domestic way in which we speak of ‘folk,’ a rendering which it has received in Gen 33:15 in the LXX it is generally rendered . It is often brought into direct relationship or contrast with god. Thus Moses, speaking to God concerning Israel, says, ‘This nation (goi) is thy people (am),’ Exo 33:13. It is used by the later O.T. writers to distinguish Israel as God’s people, and to mark them off from the surrounding goim. Yet the prophets give a hope that the Goim who had not been ammim should become the people of God through Divine mercy. Thus in Psa 18:43 we read, ‘Thou hast made me the head of the heathen (goim): a people (am) whom I have not known shall serve me.’ this will come to pass when God shall be recognised as holding rule as ‘King of the goim’ (see Jer 10:7). Compare Hos 1:9-10; Hos 2:23.
A word which occupies a less definite position than either goi or am is Lom (), a race. It is generally found in the plural, and is used frequently in the Psalms and Isaiah, and two or three times in earlier and later books. It first appears in Gen 25:23, ‘two races shall be separated from thy loins; the one race shall be stronger than the other race.’ See also Hab 2:11, and Jer 51:58, which is quoted from it. this word is applied sometimes to Israel, and sometimes to other nations. Ummah (), a tribe or family, literally those sprung of one mother, is rendered people in Num 25:15 and Psa 117:1, and nations in Gen 25:16, Ezr 4:10, and throughout the Book of Daniel.
Nations and People in the NT
The word first occurs in the N.T in the phrase ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ (Mat 4:15). Here the title is brought into close juxtaposition with , which is used in the words which immediately follow, ‘The people that sitteth in darkness hath seen a great light.’
Other passages in which the words and ; are contrasted are:–Luk 2:32, ‘A light for the purpose of revealing the truth to Gentiles, and a glory of thy people Israel.’ Act 4:25; Act 4:27, ‘Why do the Gentiles rage, and the people (pl.) imagine a vain thing? . for verily against thy holy servant [See chap. i. 5.] Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people (pl.) of Israel, were gathered together.’ Act 15:14, ‘God determined to take from among the Gentiles a people for his name.’ Act 26:17, ‘Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee.’ Verse 23, ‘That Christ should suffer, that he the first should proclaim light to the people and the Gentiles.’ Rom 15:10, ‘Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.’ Verse 11, ‘Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people’ (pl.). 1Pe 2:9, ‘A holy nation and peculiar people.’
The exact interpretation of the phrase ‘all nations’ or ‘all the Gentiles’ is sometimes attended with difficulty. We meet with it in the following passages:–Mat 24:9, ‘Ye shall be hated by all nations.’ Verse 14, ‘This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, as a witness to all nations’ (compare Mar 13:10). Mat 25:32, ‘All nations shall be gathered before him.’ Mat 28:19, ‘Make disciples of all nations.’ Mar 11:17, ‘Thy house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.’ Luk 21:24, ‘They (the Jews) shall be carried captive to all nation s.’ Luk 24:47, ‘That in his name should repentance and remission of sins be proclaimed to all nations.’ Act 14:16, ‘ in past times suffered all the Gentiles to walk in their ways.’ Act 15:17, ‘That the remnant of men should seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles over whom now my name is called.’ Rom 1:5, ‘Apostleship for the obedience of faith in all nations.’ Rom 15:11, ‘Praise the Lord, all ye nations.’ Rom 16:26, ‘Made known unto all the Gentiles.’ Gal 3:8, ‘ in thee all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.’ Rev 12:5, ‘To rule or feed all nations.’ Rev 15:4, ‘All nations shall come and worship before thee.’ Rev 18:3, ‘She hath called all nations to drink of her cup.’ Verse 23, ‘All nations were deceived by thine enchantment.’
With these passages may be compared Psa 67:2; Psa 72:11; Psa 72:17; Psa 82:8, Isa 2:2; Isa 25:7; Isa 61:11; Isa 66:18, which set forth the Divine promises to all nations of the earth. this expression, however; cannot always be understood in its full and literal sense, as will be seen by the examination of 1Ki 4:31; 1Ch 14:17; Jer 27:7; and Zec 14:2.
Fuente: Synonyms of the Old Testament
People
PEOPLE.This collective term, which occurs about 120 times in the Gospels, is used to denote sometimes in a lesser or more general way the people () among whom Christ lived and fulfilled His mission, but oftener the smaller or larger crowds of people () who, from time to time, and in the various scenes of His labour, waited upon His ministry (see art. Crowd). But people () is several times employed in the religious sense that attaches to such phrases as the people of God, or Christs people (Mat 1:21; Mat 2:6, Luk 1:17; Luk 1:77; Luk 2:32; Luk 7:16). It is only in this latter sense that the word calls for special notice, and as so viewed it possesses considerable importance.
The most noteworthy thing in regard to the religious use of the word in the Gospels is, that it is never in any of them employed by Christ Himself. All the instances in which it is found are in narratives connected with His birth and infancy, except the one in Luk 7:16; and in this case it was the people who beheld the restoration of the widows son to life who said, that a great prophet is risen among us; and that God hath visited his people. The fact that Christ discarded the use of the word people in its religious sense cannot be regarded as a matter of little or no consequence. In doing so He must have acted with deliberate purpose, and for reasons considered by Himself to be valid. This view is evident from a variety of considerations: (1) The religious sense of the phrase the people of God had occupied a place of high importance in the historical relation between God and the Hebrew race. (2) It had been organically associated by the OT revelation with the prospective advent of the Messiah and His Kingdom. (3) According to Messianic prophecy, the one people of God would eventually consist of all the peoples of the earth united in a common relation to Him. (4) Christ was aware of these facts. He knew that He was Himself the Jewish Messiah and the Saviour of the world. And He was inspired and controlled by the idea that the object of His mission was to bring the true and full sense of the phrase the people of God to perfect realization in the Kingdom of heaven. (5) If He had chosen to do so, it would have been easy for Him to express all the essential truths of His message to mankind in terms of the people of God. Moreover, this phrase could not be without attractions for Him. Why, then, did He never let it fall from His lips when addressing His audiences in public and in private?
One of His reasons must have been the significance of the phrase as it presented itself to His own mind. The ideas with which He would charge it may be inferred from the essential nature of the truths embodied in the message He left behind Him. In thinking of God and His people, He would think of Him as a moral Being and of them as moral beings. He would think of the relations between Him and them as moral, and therefore as founded in this direct inward relation to them as individuals. He would think also of His relation to them as absolutely impartial, and of their relations to Him as absolutely equal. And for all these reasons He would think of the relation between God and His people, as His people, as in no sense legal, and as not permitting Him to show towards any people in particular either national favour or political privileges. Finally, all this implies that Christ would think of God and His people in terms of purely moral universality. But if such is the meaning that He would attach to the phrase alluded to, does not that seem to favour His use of it, and to make His rejection of it still more difficult to understand? Quite the reverse, as another reason shows.
As a teacher, Christ had to consider not only the meaning that He attached to the phrase Himself, but also the meaning attached to it by the Jews among whom He taught, and who believed that they themselves were the people of God, and they alone of all the peoples or mankind. The people of Israel were the people of God. This was one of the most essential and distinctive dogmas of the fully developed, orthodox, and official Judaism with which our Lord everywhere and always had to reckon as a teacher; and this dogma, adhered to and upheld by the fanatical zeal of the rigid and conservative devotees of Judaism, was the most embarrassing that He had to reckon with as a teacher sent from God. For what did the dogma in question mean and imply? It rested upon a denial of the essential oneness of the relation of God to all the peoples of the world, and of the essential oneness of the relation of all the peoples of the world to Him. It was founded in the notion that the relation between God and His people was national, and that the nature of the national bond was not moral but legal. For Divine righteousness and the obedience of faith, the only real and permanent, because moral, conditions on which the relations between God and His people repose, it substituted ancestral descent from Abraham, and the observance of the national rite of circumcision. And the only way, it contended, for Gentiles to obtain admission within the circle of the people of God, was to become Jews by observing this national rite. It is manifest, then, that the ideas of Judaism and the ideas of Christ on the subject of the people of God were in direct and complete antagonism to one another. This fact Christ had to consider, and it was necessary for Him as a teacher to weigh the question as to what the inevitable consequences would be for Himself and His cause, if He attempted in the course of His teaching to present and explain His ideas on the subject of the people of God in their real and inherent antagonism to the ideas on the same subject which had become fixed and hardened in the perverted Judaism of His time. Evidently He came to the conclusion that the handling of this subject would involve Himself and the interests of His mission in great risks and dangers. It is certain that such would have been the case. For if He had taught and insisted on the acceptance of the truths of moral unity and universality that belong to the relations between God and His people as He understood them, the bigoted adherents of Judaism would have forthwith resented His teaching and made Himself the object of their fanatical and malignant hostility. He therefore persistently ignored the phrase the people of God. It was highly expedient for Him to do so.
But the adoption of this course did not entail any compromise of those truths of moral unity and universality that are of the essence of the relations in which God stands to His people and they to Him. He showed His sense of the greatness and validity of these as well as of other moral truths, and secured the interests attaching to them, by two other vastly important things that He did as a teacher. In the first place, He embedded all the truths of moral unity and universality referred to in His parables, which He spoke as illustrative of the rich and diversified order of ideas presented by Him under the designation of the kingdom of God. His reason for couching these ideas in parabolic forms He Himself explained (Mat 13:10-16). His explanation implies that He would have preferred to employ a more explicit way of communicating the ideas in question if circumstances had permitted; that the hearts of the adherents of the existing perverted Judaism had been blinded and hardened by the influence of their system; that it was impossible for them to see the truth and validity of these ideas; and that they were not in a mood to extend to them or to Himself toleration. Such was His reason for speaking of the Kingdom of heaven in parables. The true meaning of the latter was veiled from the enemies of the truth by the blindness of their eyes. But, on the other hand, the parables, He knew, would preserve the essence of the truth as He had taught it, and to all who were of the truth the latter would in due time become revealed.
But, secondly, Christ guarded and effectively secured the interests of the truths of moral unity and universality, which are of the essence of His gospel, in another way. In the Kingdom of God and in the relations between God and His people, moral unity and moral universality are founded on their human side on moral individuality. In any case, therefore, it would have been necessary for Christ to give to moral individuality a place of supreme importance in His teaching. And this is precisely what He did. He knew and never lost sight of the truth that moral unity and universality can never come to actual realization in the Kingdom of heaven, or, in other words, in the relations between God and His people, unless in so far as men are saved, and become morally perfect as individuals. And therefore He not only gave His just and constant consideration to the individual, but held up before His disciples the moral perfection of God, their Father in heaven, as the ideal which they should strive individually to realize in their own character and life (Mat 5:43-48). This is the basis on which moral unity and universality are realized in the relations of men to God as His people.
W. D. Thomson.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
People
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 Rev 10:11; Rev 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 Psa 67:4, Isa 55:4; Isa 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 Gen 23:7; Gen 23:12-13, Num 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 (Ezr 10:2; Ezr 10:11, Neh 10:30-31; cf. Neh 9:1, Neh 9:30). The same phrase was used by the Rabbis to describe the common people, who were lax in observing the Mosaic law (Joh 7:49).
W. F. Boyd.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
People
This, though a word of general import as referring to nations, or the persons of particular kingdoms, yet in respect to the Lord’s people, hath a special designation. The redeemed of Christ are called a peculiar people, (1Pe 2:9) -a “people that dwell alone, and are not reckoned among the nations.” (Num 23:9) Hence God the Father, speaking of them to his dear Son, saith,”Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” (Psa 110:1-7) And elsewhere the Lord saith, “Thou art an holy people to the Lord thy God; the Lord, thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” (Deu 7:6) And it is wonderful to observe how distinguishing the grace of God is manifested towards them. They are given of the Father to the Son, and set apart in the counsel and purpose of God from all eternity; they are the object of Jesus’s love before all worlds; and they are brought; under the anointings of God the Holy Ghost, with pepeculiar marks of his love during the whole of their eventful pilgrimage-state, from the first dawnings of grace unto the fulness of glory. Such are the characters of the redeemed of the Lord. “Oh! bless, our God, ye people, and make the voice -of his praise to be heard.” (Psa 66:8)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
People
pep’l: In English Versions of the Bible represents something over a dozen Hebrew and Greek words. Of these, in the Old Testament, , am, is overwhelmingly the most common (about 2,000 times), with , le’om, and , goy, next in order; but the various Hebrew words are used with very little or no difference in force (e.g. Pro 14:28; but, on the other hand, in Ps 44 contrast Psa 44:12 and Psa 44:14). Of the changes introduced by the Revised Version (British and American) the only one of significance (cited explicitly in the Preface to the English Revised Version) is the frequent use of the plural peoples (strangely avoided in the King James Version except Rev 10:11; Rev 17:15), where other nations than Israel are in question. So, for instance, in Psa 67:4; Isa 55:4; Isa 60:2, with the contrast marked in Psa 33:10 and Psa 33:12; Psa 77:14 and Psa 77:15, etc. In the New Testament, , laos, is the most common word, with , ochlos, used almost as often in the King James Version. But in the Revised Version (British and American) the latter word is almost always rendered multitude, people being retained only in Luk 7:12; Act 11:24, Act 11:26; Act 19:26, and in the fixed phrase the common people ( , ho polus ochlos) in Mar 12:37; Joh 12:9, Joh 12:12 margin (the retention of people would have been better in Joh 11:42, also), with crowd (Mat 9:23, Mat 9:25; Act 21:35). The only special use of people that calls for attention is the phrase people of the land. This may mean simply inhabitants, as Eze 12:19; Eze 33:2; Eze 39:13; but in 2Ki 11:14, etc., and the parallel in 2 Chronicles, it means the people as contrasted with the king, while in Jer 1:18, etc., and in Eze 7:27; Eze 22:29; Eze 46:3, Eze 46:9, it means the common people as distinguished from the priests and the aristocracy. A different usage is that for the heathen (Gen 23:7, Gen 23:12, Gen 23:13; Num 14:9) or half-heathen (Ezr 9:1, Ezr 9:2; Ezr 10:2, Ezr 10:11; Neh 10:28-31) inhabitants of Palestine. From this last use, the phrase came to be applied by some rabbis to even pure-blooded Jews, if they neglected the observance of the rabbinic traditions (compare Joh 7:49 the King James Version). For people of the East see CHILDREN OF THE EAST.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
People
laos (G2992) People
ethnos (G1484) Nation, Gentiles
demos (G1218) Multitude
ochlos (G3793) Crowd
Although laos rarely is used in Attic prose, it is used between one and two thousand times in the Septuagint, where it usually is reserved for the elect people, the Israel of God. There are, however, some exceptions. The Philistines are described as a laos (Gen 26:11), as are the Egyptians (Exo 9:16), the Moabites (Rth 1:15), and others. Occasionally the plural hoi laoi is used as an equivalent for ta ethne.Sometimes laoi is used with ethne as an exhaustive way to refer to the whole human race. In all the passages from Revelation, the exhaustive enumeration is fourfold; phylai (G5443) and glossai (G1100) are added to laoi and ethne. On one occasion, phylai gives way to basileis (G935; Rev 10:11) and on another to ochloi (Rev 17:15). The use of laoi and ethne to refer to the whole human race in an exhaustive sense may be contrasted with a distributive use of these terms, where laos is used in the singular (Luk 2:32; Act 27:17; Act 27:23). In such constructions, the two terms refer to the whole of mankind, laos to the chosen people of God only, and ethne to all mankind outside of the covenant, a distinction that generally is true when the terms are used separately. In such cases, laos refers to the chosen people, ethne to the rest of mankind. In the singular, ethnos has no such restriction but was a name given to the Jews by others, who intended no slight by its use. Thus we read to ethnos ton loudaion (G2453; Act 10:22). Because it was not a dishonorable title, the Jews freely applied ethnos to themselves in the phrases to ethnos hemon (our nation) and to ethnos touto (this nation). Sometimes, and with certain additions, ethnos is a title of highest honor. Thus the Jews were ethnos hagion (G40, a holy nation) and ethnos ek mesou ethnon (a nation in the midst of Gentiles). If ethnos is used with ethos (G1485) to indicate a group of people who live according to one set of customs and rules, then no nation deserves this title more than the Jews. The lives of the citizens of Israel probably were ordered according to more distinctive and rigidly defined customs than those of any other nation in history.
Demos is used four times, all in Acts, in the section where Luke described the varied conditions of the heathen world (Act 12:22; Act 17:5; Act 19:30; Act 19:33). Each of these passages exemplifies Luke’s accurate and precise use of technical terms, which is characteristic of so highly educated a man. The Greek demos is equivalent to the Latin populus (a people), which Cicero defined this way: “Populus is not every assembly of people gathered in any manner, but an assembly of a large number uniting together with consent of the law and for mutual benefit.” Very often demos refers to an assembled group of people who are actively exercising their rights as citizens. This idea so dominates demos that en to demo is equivalent to “in a popular assembly,” which is the way Luke invariably used demos. The exact opposite to demos is ochlos, the disorganized or unorganized multitude. In classical Greek, ochlos often has a certain tinge of contempt and designates those who share neither in the duties nor the privileges of free citizens. This contempt, however, is not necessarily part of ochlos’s meaning (Act 1:15; Rev 7:9), and there is no hint of it in Scripture, where a man is held worthy of honor even though the only politeuma (G4175, citizenship) he can claim is that which is eternal in the heavens (Php 3:20).
Fuente: Synonyms of the New Testament
People
is used of (a) “the people at large,” especially of people assembled, e.g., Mat 27:25; Luk 1:21; Luk 3:15; Act 4:27; (b) “a people of the same race and language,” e.g., Rev 5:9; in the plural, e.g., Luk 2:31; Rom 15:11; Rev 7:9; Rev 11:9; especially of Israel, e.g., Mat 2:6; Mat 4:23; Joh 11:50; Act 4:8; Heb 2:17; in distinction from their rulers and priests, e.g., Mat 26:5; Luk 20:19; Heb 5:3; in distinction from Gentiles, e.g., Act 26:17, Act 26:23; Rom 15:10; (c) of Christians as the people of God, e.g., Act 15:14; Tit 2:14; Heb 4:9; 1Pe 2:9.
“a crowd, throng:” see CROWD, MULTITUDE.
“the common people, the people generally” (Eng., “demagogue,” “democracy,” etc.), especially the mass of the “people ” assembled in a public place, Act 12:22; Act 17:5; Act 19:30, Act 19:33.
denotes (a) “a nation,” e.g., Mat 24:7; Act 10:35; “the Jewish people,” e.g., Luk 7:5; Act 10:22; Act 28:19; (b) in the plural, “the rest of mankind” in distinction from Israel or the Jews, e.g., Mat 4:15; Act 28:28; (c) “the people of a city,” Act 8:9; (d) Gentile Christians, e.g., Rom 10:19; Rom 11:13; Rom 15:27; Gal 2:14. See GENTILES, NATION.
“man,” without distinction of sex (cp. aner, “a male”), is translated “people” in Joh 6:10, RV (AV, “men”).