is repeated in Hebrews 11:9,13.  After the formation of Israel and the giving

of the law, the nation is not again reminded that they were strangers and

sojourners except in one passage, namely in Leviticus 25:23, where the laws

governing the sale of land showed that the Lord Himself was the true Owner,

Israel only holding the land as it were on a lease.  One further note is

necessary before we attempt a conclusion, and that concerns the word

translated `nation'.  An attempt has been made, in order that a certain

popular theory might be supported, to show that Ephraim was to become

`Gentilized'.  The Hebrew word translated `nations' is goyim, the plural of

goi.  This word is translated in the A.V. as follows: `Gentile' thirty times,

`heathen' 142 times, `nation' 373 times, `people' eleven times.  It is easy,

when we are reading the passages where `Gentile' and `heathen' occur, to jump

to the conclusion that the word means, `all nations of the world, excepting

the Jews', but this is an error.

The first six occurrences of goyim occur in Genesis 10, and as Israel

was not in existence at the time, it is evident that the word can only mean

`nations'; the inclusion of the word `Gentiles' in the A.V. of Genesis 10:5,

being an anticipation and having no immediate meaning until placed over

against the word `Jew'.  The R.V. has recognized this, and inserted `nations'

instead.  In Genesis 12:2 we read the words of the great prophetic promise to

Abraham concerning his seed, Israel, `I will make of thee a great nation',

while in Genesis 17:4,5,6 this promise is expanded to include `many nations',

returning in 18:18 once more to the `great nation'.  So in Genesis 35:11 we

read, `a nation and a company of nations', the only distinction between Jew

and Gentile being, not in the use of a different word, but in the use of the

singular for the Jew, and the plural for the Gentile.  So again in

Deuteronomy 4, we have interchangeably `this great nation', `what nation is

so great', `the heathen', `a nation from the midst of another nation' and

`the nations', that were to be driven out of Canaan, all being translations

of the one Hebrew word.  Even in the Greek New Testament  when the

distinction between Jew and Gentile is acute, we still find ethnos used both

of the Gentiles and of Israel (Acts 22:21; 26:4,17; 28:19,28).  (See

While, therefore, goyim means at times Gentile or heathen, it always

means `nation' whether the nations outside the covenant, or the great nation

of promise.  The promise that Israel should be `great' must not be

misunderstood.  With us, `greatness' is associated with nobility of mind, but

originally the word gadol translated `great' means `growth' or

`augmentation'.  So we read of `great lights', `great whales', a `great city'

in Genesis.  The word, moreover, is used to indicate `the elder' son (Gen.

10:21; 27:1; 29:16) who may not necessarily have been `greater'.

Israel are indeed at the present day `minished and brought low through

oppression' (Psa. 107:39), but it is an integral part of the promise to

Abraham, that Israel should not only be great in spiritual qualities, but

great in numbers.  The promise reads, `I will make thy seed as the dust of

the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy

seed also be numbered' (Gen. 13:16).

The figure is changed in Genesis 15:5 to the innumerable stars of

heaven, with the added words, `so shall thy seed be'.  Yet once again the

figure is changed to `the sand upon the sea shore' (Gen. 22:17).

`Sir Arthur Eddington is of the opinion that one hundred thousand

million stars make one galaxy, and one hundred thousand million