The Hebrew word translated “gentiles” in the Old Testament is gowy or goy. It literally means a “massing.” The same word is used to describe herds of animals or locusts. It suggests large numbers. In English, we still use terms such as “the masses.” In the New Testament, gowy is translated into Greek as ethnos, meaning “race, tribe, nation, people.” An image sometimes used for gentiles in the Bible is the sea—massive, powerful, chaotic, unpredictable, and dangerous—in which every drop of water is indistinguishable from the next.

There is also another word in the Old Testament: am, meaning “tribe, nation, people.” The New Testament uses two words for this concept: laos, meaning “people” (from which we get our word “laity”) and ochlos, meaning “throng, rabble, company, multitude.” The Israelites were God’s chosen “people” (am), chosen out of all the other peoples (am).

So, should “gentiles” be capitalized? No. The gentiles were not a specific nation or people but rather non-specific people, the “other people,” those who weren’t Israelites or Jews, the undifferentiated mass of humanity. There is a sense that the gentiles were looked down on as “not special” or “not chosen.” The Hebrew word is not necessarily negative, but certainly not positive, perhaps neutral at best.

It should be pointed out that other nations have similar concepts. The Greeks divided the world into “Greeks” and “barbarians.” The Romans, following the Greeks, divided the world into “Romans” and “barbarians.” Europeans distinguished between themselves and “the heathen,” “savages,” and “the uncivilized.” The European aristocracy also divided the world into “nobles” and “commoners.” The aboriginal peoples of northern Canada call themselves Inuit (the people), suggesting that other people aren’t really people.

It is common among people to look down on other people. This is certainly the attitude many Israelites and Jews had. But that is not necessarily God’s view. When God said that the Israelites were His chosen people, it did not give them justification for taking pride in the designation. It did not mean they were superior. It simply meant that God had chosen this people out of all the other people. What made them special was not their own worthiness but simply God’s choice. The same applies to God’s New Testament people, Christians. Peter said to Christians: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10 NIV). This should not lead to pride but to humility, wonder, and gratitude. The apostle Paul said something similar in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29: “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” Paul also said: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

Does God make distinctions between people? God has designated certain people as His people, but He invites and welcomes everyone else to join them.