Extended Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (Brown-Driver-Briggs based)
nation
Usage: 1) nation, people 1a) nation, people 1a1) usually of non-Hebrew people 1a2) of descendants of Abraham 1a3) of Israel 1b) of swarm of locusts, other animals (fig.)
Goy means “Gentile” — full meaning, definition, and every linked Bible usage across the indexed canon.
Same number, other testament: Strong's G1471 — enkyos (“great with child”) in the Greek Bible.
Strong's H1471 גּוֹי גּוֹי (gowy) is a Hebrew Strong's word-study entry. gowy (go'-ee) (rarely (shortened) goy {go'-ee}) n-m. 1. a foreign nation 2. (hence) a Gentile It has 511 linked Bible usages across 34 books. Visible English usage signals include nations, nation, and into. Indexed coverage on this page includes Old Testament.
gowy (go'-ee) (rarely (shortened) goy {go'-ee}) n-m. 1. a foreign nation 2. (hence) a Gentile 3. (figuratively) a troop of animals, or a flight of locusts [apparently from the same root as H1465 (in the sense of massing)] KJV: Gentile, heathen, nation, people. See also: H1465
How independent scholarly lexicons define Strong's H1471. Each definition is shown with its source so you can compare and cite the original reference works.
nation
Usage: 1) nation, people 1a) nation, people 1a1) usually of non-Hebrew people 1a2) of descendants of Abraham 1a3) of Israel 1b) of swarm of locusts, other animals (fig.)
The English word each shown verse actually uses to render gowy, taken from the interlinear word alignment (the same word underlined in the excerpts below). Where a rendering is used more than once, the count is shown.
Indexed coverage includes Old Testament. Each section below keeps corpus counts and sample passages visible so readers can compare the word across contexts instead of reading one flat concordance list.
Indexed usage grouped by testament and extended corpus so readers can compare this word across the Bible, Septuagint, deuterocanonical books, and 1 Enoch where present.
511 indexed usages in Old Testament.
By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.
These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.
First 120 linked usage excerpts for Strong's H1471.
By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.
These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.
These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations;
With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.
And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, LORD, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?
And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.
Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.
And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.
And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.
And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.
For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.
And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.
Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.
And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.
I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.
Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying,
For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.
God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.
And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, Amalek was the first of the nations; but his latter end shall be that he perish for ever.
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?
And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.
As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.
Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,
Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.
Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.
Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:
When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.
When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;
When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.
When the LORD thy God hath cut off the nations, whose land the LORD thy God giveth thee, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their cities, and in their houses;
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous:
And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the LORD thy God, as he hath spoken.
And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:
The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.
The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.
The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;
A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:
And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:
(For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee,
The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the LORD hath said.
When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.
And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying,
For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey.
And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole.
And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
The king of Dor in the coast of Dor, one; the king of the nations of Gilgal, one;
And ye have seen all that the LORD your God hath done unto all these nations because of you; for the LORD your God is he that hath fought for you.
Behold, I have divided unto you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even unto the great sea westward.
That ye come not among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them:
For the LORD hath driven out from before you great nations and strong: but as for you, no man hath been able to stand before you unto this day.
Else if ye do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you:
Know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you.
And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice;
I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died:
Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.
Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan;
And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river of Kishon.
But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left.
And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods?
Which also king David did dedicate unto the LORD, with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of all nations which he subdued;
Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people, thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen: a people which I knew not shall serve me.
Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name.
For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about.
Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.
And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
As the LORD thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not.
And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.
But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel.
And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.
Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land.
Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.
They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.
So these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.
Every indexed verse link for Strong's H1471, grouped by book.
Goy (Strong's H1471) is a Hebrew word most simply glossed "Gentile". gowy (go'-ee) (rarely (shortened) goy {go'-ee}) n-m. 1. a foreign nation 2. (hence) a Gentile
This page currently indexes 511 linked usages for Strong's H1471 across 34 books.
Use the linked verse references on this page to study Strong's H1471 in context. The indexed coverage includes Old Testament.
The visible usage excerpts most often surface English words such as nations, nation, and into. These are scanning signals from the displayed verses, not replacements for the original-language definition.