גוי

Forms

גּוֹי (gôy) noun, masculine^[1][4] Plural גּוֹיִם, written גֹּיִים as Ketiv in Genesis 25:23 and Psalms 79:10; construct plural גּוֹיֵי; with suffix גּוֹיִ, גּוֹיֵהֶם.^[2][4]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[5][6] In StarLing it is inherited from Proto-Semitic *gaw(V)y- (“community group sharing a territory”), and Huehnergard reconstructs a Central Semitic *gāy- (“tribe”).^[7][8] The nearest cognates are Phoenician gw (“community”) and Sabaean gw “tribes”, and Akkadian gāʾum of Mari, which AHw glosses “people” and CAD “group, gang (of workmen)”, both taking it as a West Semitic loan.^{[4][2][9][10]} Tawil reports Malamat's view that the Mari word first meant a kin group, like the Hebrew one.^[11]

Klein and Wiktionary suggest a link with גֵּו (gēw, “back, body”), making the word an “ethnic body”.^[5][6] Bauer derived it instead from גָּאָה (gāʾâ, “to rise”), comparing Arabic قَوْم (qawm, “people”) from قَامَ (qāma, “to stand”), a view Nöldeke rejected.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is in the Oracles of Balaam, among the archaic poems.^[12][1] Israel is hen-ʿām ləḇāḏāḏ yiškōn ûḇaggôyim lōʾ yiṯḥaššāḇ, “a people that dwells apart and does not count itself among the nations” (Numbers 23:9), and Amalek is rēʾšîṯ gôyim, “first of the nations” (Numbers 24:20).^[1] In Genesis 12:2 God promises Abraham wəʾeʿeśḵā ləḡôy gāḏôl, “I will make you a great nation”.^[1][2]

Semantic evolution

In the Bible the word means a people, the whole population of a territory;^[2] Rost, cited by HALOT, contrasts עַם (ʿam), which stresses kinship, though the two are often hard to tell apart.^[2] Israel itself is a gôy, gôy qāḏôš, “a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), ^[13] but the plural gôyim often means the foreign peoples as against Israel, “the heathen” of the Psalms and Ezekiel.^[2][1] It also means simply people, persons, and in Joel 1:6 a swarm of locusts, as Greek uses ethnos of insects and birds.^[2]

The Septuagint renders it almost always with Ancient Greek ἔθνος (éthnos).^[1] In the Damascus Document the plural already means the gentiles,^[2][6] and in Rabbinic Hebrew the singular came to mean an individual non-Jew, gôy beside נכרי (noḵrî, “foreigner”).^[2][14] This is the sense of Yiddish גוי (goy) and of English goy, recorded from 1815.^[6][15] Modern Hebrew גוי (goy) keeps both “nation” and “gentile”.^[5]

Timeline

• Archaic Hebrew poetry – ûḇaggôyim lōʾ yiṯḥaššāḇ “and does not count itself among the nations” in the Oracles of Balaam (Numbers 23:9).^[12][1]
• Classical Biblical Hebrew – the promise ləḡôy gāḏôl “a great nation” (Genesis 12:2) and gôy qāḏôš (Exodus 19:6).^[1][2]
• Prophets – 288 of the 555 biblical uses, mostly the plural “nations”.^[1]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it with Ancient Greek ἔθνος (éthnos).^[16][1]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 557 uses in the Dead Sea Scrolls; in the Damascus Document the plural means the gentiles.^[17][18][2]
• Rabbinic Hebrew – gôy an individual gentile, feminine gôyâ.^[14]
• 1815 – English goy “a gentile” from Hebrew.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. a nation, a people with its own land; also Israel.^[2][4]
2. (plural) the foreign nations, the heathen, as opposed to Israel.^[2][4]
3. (plural) mankind.^[2]
4. people, persons.^[2]
5. (of animals) a swarm of locusts.^[2]
6. (Rabbinic) a gentile, a non-Jew.^[2][14]

Descendants

• Yiddish גוי (goy)^[6]
• English goy^[15]
• Modern Hebrew גוי (goy)^[6]

Related words

• עַם (ʿam)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. גּוֹי
3. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
4. ^ a b c d e Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. גּוֹי
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. גּוֹי
6. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
7. ^ Militarev, Alexander, et al., Semitic Etymology (database semet), The Tower of Babel (StarLing), starling.rinet.ru
8. ^ Huehnergard, John (2011), "Proto-Semitic Language and Culture" and "Semitic Roots", in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ von Soden, Wolfram (1965–1981), Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 284
10. ^ Gelb, Ignace J., et al., eds. (1956–2010), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 21 vols, Chicago: Oriental Institute, p. G 58
11. ^ Tawil, Hayim ben Yosef (2009), An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents, Jersey City: Ktav, p. 64
12. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69
13. ^ Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. גּוֹי
14. ^ a b c Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. גּוֹי
15. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. goy
16. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
17. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
18. ^ Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss