society
nation
גוי · עם · לאום · אומה
Bottom line
Goy is the loose word: a nation in the sense of a mass of people with no one king over them. Am is the tight word: a people united under a single king, leader, or under Hashem, and the only one of the four that regularly takes a possessive (ami, "My people"). Leom is a nation bound by a shared religion, so it can cover more than one kingdom. Umah stands with leom against goy as a nation that does have a crown. On Heidenheim's approach it follows that every am is also a goy, but not every goy is an am. The trap is the colloquial "gentile": goy literally means nation, and in Tanach it is applied to Yisrael too.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| גוי | goy | nation | no single king; united by land, language, descent, or convenience (Ibn Shuaib, Heidenheim, Malbim); associated with sheer numbers (Malbim) |
| עם | am | people, nation | united under one king or under Hashem (Heidenheim, Malbim); like-minded and acting alike (Wertheimer); takes the possessive (Mecklenburg) |
| לאום | leom | nation, kingdom | joined by common religion, may span kingdoms (Malbim); a clan within a nation (Edel) |
| אומה | umah | nation | a nation that is under one king, against goy which is not (Ibn Shuaib) |
Where the authorities disagree
Which word carries the shared character. Malbim, Heidenheim, and Wertheimer all make am the word of shared allegiance or shared conduct and goy the mere aggregate. The Vilna Gaon (Biur HaGra to Yeshayahu 1:4) reverses it: goy denotes people who share a common manner, am a mass of individuals. The column brings the Gra as a "nonetheless" against the others and does not adjudicate; the Bottom line leads with the first group because that is the reading the column develops at length, and the Gra stands beside it, not behind it.
Whether goy can name one person. Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi (to Bereishis 20:4): goy is only ever a nation, never an individual. Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Melech (Michlal Yofi there) and Radak (Sefer HaShorashim) in the name of Rabbeinu Yonah: it can name an individual. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg proves from Shemos 21:8 that both am and goy can point to any single member of the group, which is the ground of the everyday usage.
What leom is. Malbim (on the Midrash): a religious grouping, wider than am. Wertheimer: either a common king (so Rashi and Targum to Bereishis 25:23 render it "kingdom") or a common religion. Edel: a family or tribe inside a nation, tied to em and Aramaic imma, mother, which is narrower than either. Render by context; "kingdom" where the pasuk is political, "nation" where it is not.
Distinctions
goy (גוי)
Malbim ties it to gviah, a body, so at its crudest a goy is a collection of bodies joined into one unit. He lists four things that can do the joining: living in one place, speaking one language, descending from one forefather, or simply agreeing to a political union. None of these is a shared purpose, so the bond is a marriage of convenience. Because the word leans on numbers, Tanach occasionally calls Yisrael a goy precisely when it wants the multitude in view (Malbim). Rabbi Yoel Ibn Shuaib: the Pelishtim, ruled by five lords (Yehoshua 13:3), are the model of a goy.
am (עם)
Heidenheim: a group united by one leader, king, or God. Malbim: a smaller, more specific unit than goy, and bound up with sovereignty, which is why it is almost the standing word for Yisrael. Wertheimer: like-minded people who act alike, which is why the day of Kabbalas HaTorah makes Yisrael an am (Devarim 27:9) and why a swarm of locusts is called an am (Yoel 2:2) though locusts have no king (Mishlei 30:27). Mecklenburg and Malbim: Tanach almost never conjugates goy in the possessive, but does conjugate am, ami, amcha, amo, because a loose confederation cannot be attributed to one king while an am by definition is ruled by one; with Yisrael the possessor is almost always Hashem. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, cited approvingly by Heidenheim: am is spelled like im, "with", which says that the bond among its members is the closer one.
leom (לאום) and umah (אומה)
Rashi (to Tehillim 2:1) in the name of Rabbi Menachem Ibn Saruk treats leomim, umim, and goyim as bearing very close meanings; Heidenheim infers from the wording that they are near synonyms, not identical. Ibn Shuaib sets umah and leom together as the nation under one king, against goy. Malbim, on Bereishis Rabbah 63, makes leom a religious body, which can be wider than am when several kingdoms hold one faith. Edel takes leom or om, the form later poets use, as a family or tribe within a nation, related to em and imma.
Rendering guidance
- Bereishis 25:23 stacks all three: goyim, leumim, leom. Do not let "nation" absorb them. A workable rendering keeps "two nations" for goyim, "two peoples" or "two kingdoms" for leumim, and "one nation" for leom, with a note that the Hebrew shifts words.
- Trap: English "nation" covers goy, am, leom, and umah alike. Where the drashah turns on the difference (as it does on this pasuk), reserve "nation" for goy, "people" for am, and "kingdom" for leom.
- Never render goy as "gentile" inside a pasuk. The sense is nation; the gentile sense is a later usage that Mecklenburg's proof from Shemos 21:8 accounts for, and it reads as an anachronism in Chumash.
- Am Yisrael is "the Nation of Israel" or "the Jewish People", not "the People of Israel" if that would suggest a geography rather than a body under Hashem.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "The Unaffiliated Nations," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 29 Cheshvan 5778 (2017-11-18): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7491-the-unaffiliated-nations.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 25:23 with Rashi and Targum; Rashi to Tehillim 2:1 citing Ibn Saruk; Yehoshua 13:3; Devarim 27:9; Yoel 2:2 with Mishlei 30:27 (the article prints Mishlei 30:7; the pasuk that says the locust has no king is 30:27); Biur HaGra to Yeshayahu 1:4; Shemos 21:8; Bereishis 20:4 with Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi and Michlal Yofi; Radak, Sefer HaShorashim, in the name of Rabbeinu Yonah; Bereishis Rabbah 63 (the article prints §63:27).