WHEN IS THE CHOSEN PEOPLE CALLED A GÔY ?

BY

AELRED CODY Jerusalem (Jordan)

In the Old Testament the Chosen People is usually called an (am, and the quasi-synonym goy is ordinarily reserved for the heathen nations. The immediate impression is that the Old Testament writers do not like to call their people agqy, and this impression is intensified when we remember that in later judaismg6y is a technical term for someone who is not a Jew at all but rather an unbeliever. Yet there _ are texts, in fact, in which the Chosen People is called not an (am but a goy. Is this an abuse of a word which necessarily bears a conno- tation of heathenness, or is it a use positively called for by a particular sense which g6j has in the classical language but which (am does not have? Leonhard RosT has already given us an excellent survey of the general uses ofg6 y and especially of (am in the Old Testament but a brief classification and analysis of the more particular application of goy to the Chosen People itself may be of use to lexicography and to the study of Israel's social consciousness. If we take all the occurrences of goy applied to the Chosen People in the Bible and classify them according to use in context, we find that they fall into one or the other of the following categories: 1. In a hypothetical generalization or example which is semantically applicable to all nations equally, although in context to be applied to the Chosen People-Dt. iv 7f., 34; Ps. xxxiii 12; Isa. lviii 2; Jer. xviii, 7, 9. (Cf. also category 7 below). 2. Of Israel growing into the status of a nation (like the other . nations of the earth)-descending from the Patriarchs, Abraham: Gen. xii 2; xviii 18; Jacob: Gen. xxxv 11; xlvi 3; Jacob and Esau (g&im); Gen. xxv 23 (all either promises of God or, in Gen. xviii 18, an allusion to such a promise); another promise of God in Isa. Ix 22; a part of the cultic recital of God's benefits in the history of Israel: Dt. xxvi 5.

1) L. ROST, "Die Bezeichnungen für Land und Volk im Alten Testament" in Festschrift Otto Procksch (Leipzig 1934), pp. 125-48. 2

3. In a context of taking possession of a geographical area or land - Jos. iii 17; iv 1; v 6, 8; x 13; Isa. xxvi 2, 15; Ezek. xxxvii 22; also Ezek. xxxv 10 of the Chosen People and their land being taken as possession by pagan nations. (The consistency of usage in this sort of context is noteworthy; we shall have a suggestion to make in this regard below, in examining Ezek. xxxvii 22 under category 7.) 4. In words put on the lips of foreigners-Dt. iv 6; Ps. lxxxiii 5; also Ezek. xxxv 10 (cf. category 3). Foreigners would naturally not distinguish Israel as an 'am contrasted against other nations as goyim, but when words are put on their lips in an apocalyptic context where the sentiment is really that of the Israelite writer subjectively, (am is used, in fact, of Israel (cf. Isa. lxii 12). 5. In words of rejection by God (the Chosen People unfaithful and unworthy to be distinguished from the other, pagan, nations)- Dt. xxxii 28; Judg. ii 20; Isa. i 4; x 6; Jer. v 9, 29; vii 28; ix 8; xii 12; xxxi 36; xxxiii 34; Ezek. ii 3; Hag. ii 14; Mal. iii 9. 6. Merely to have a correlative parallel with xxxiii 13; Zeph. ii 9; Ps. cvi 5 (cf. vs 4 of the same Psalm). 7. In parallel with some word expressing rule or sovereignty (the nation as a whole in parallel with the ruling power in the nation)- Mic.i v 7; Ezek. xxxvii 22; Exod. xix 6; also, although less clearly, Jer. xviii 7, 9 (cf. category 1 above). In the first five categories goy has its ordinary meaning: a "nation" inhabiting a certain territory on the face of the earth, and goy is used of the Chosen People because Israel is being considered a goy among goyim, either because it is being looked upon as an individual within the class (categories 1-3), or because the pagans in contexts of national consciousness do not distinguish Israel from other goyim (category 4), or because God, in upbraiding the infidelity of the Chosen People, reduces it from the preferable status of His 'am to that of a mere g6y like all the rest (category 5). In the sixth category, semantic property is thinned down in parallelism. In the seventh, however, g6y has a special semantic charge with which it is a complement of a word expressing ruling power. It will be worth our while to look more closely at the examples which belong to this category.

The first example is Mic. iv 7:

I will make the lame a remnant, And the sick a strong nation (goy) And Yahweh will rule (mälak) over them in Mount Zion ...