a people: a body of people bound together as one, set apart from those around them
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this word names not a random crowd but a people who belong together and are recognized as a single body. The same word can zoom in or out depending on who is in view. Up close it is the ordinary population of a place, the general public as opposed to its rulers. Pulled back, it is one whole nation among the nations of the earth, often listed alongside tribes and languages.
In the Bible its most loaded use is narrower still: Israel, the one nation God claimed as his own. From there the New Testament makes a striking move. It takes the very word for God's historic people and applies it to those, both Jews and people from every nation, who now belong to God through Christ. The word does not change, but who counts as the people does.
These senses are one word, not several, because they all turn on the same idea of a bonded body set apart. Context decides how wide the circle is drawn and whether the bond is mere shared origin or a claim God himself has made.
Nuances
1athe general population of a place, the ordinary people as opposed to their leaders
Names God's own covenant people: Israel as the nation the Lord has claimed for himself, the people he saves and to whom the promises belong.Mat 1:21Mat 2:6Luk 1:68
Is the word for "the people" as the gathered populace around Jesus and the leaders, the crowd whose response the chief priests and elders fear and reckon with.Mat 26:5Luk 19:48Luk 22:2
Both
Both name a corporate body of human beings, and in the scope of redemption they stand side by side: God now takes a "people" for himself out of the "nations," so the two words together mark the full reach of salvation.Act 15:14
Both appear together in the worship of the redeemed, where the saved are gathered from every people and nation alike, the categories piled up to mean "all humanity without exception."Rev 5:9Rev 7:9
Both are used of Israel and the nations as the audience God addresses, with the prophetic hope that the nations would one day rejoice alongside God's people.Rom 15:10Rom 15:11
Names the nations as those OUTSIDE Israel and its covenant: the Gentiles, the non-Jewish peoples, often with the edge of "heathen" or "pagan" set over against God's chosen ones.Mat 10:5Act 9:15Act 11:18
Marks a political or ethnic grouping: a nation as a bloc among the world's nations, the way kingdoms and peoples are counted off against one another.Mat 24:7Mrk 13:8Luk 21:10
Is the standard word for the worldwide reach of the gospel mission, where "all nations" means every people group on earth to be discipled and reached.Mat 28:19Mrk 13:10Luk 24:47
ὄχλοςa crowd, an unorganized throng gathered in one place; this word names a people bound together as a settled body, not just a momentary mass.
Names a defined people bound together by descent and identity, above all Israel as God's own covenant nation, not a momentary gathering.Luk 1:68Mat 2:6Act 15:14
Carries a covenant and salvation weight: it is the word for the people God redeems and claims as his own.Mat 1:21Tit 2:14Luk 2:32
Used of the people in contrast to their rulers, the people as a body politic whose leaders fear or court them.Luk 19:47Luk 22:2
Both
Both can simply name the large body of people present at a scene, the company on hand at a given moment.Luk 6:17
Both appear together for the throng that comes to seize Jesus, the crowd as the muscle and the people as the body it is drawn from.Mat 26:47
In visions of the redeemed both name vast multitudes drawn from every nation, the people-groups and the uncountable throng standing before God.Rev 7:9
An anonymous mass of people pressing together in one place, with no shared identity beyond happening to be there.Mat 13:2Mrk 3:9
Typically the crowds that gather around Jesus to be taught and healed, a fluid throng that comes and goes.Mat 4:25Mat 9:36Mat 15:30
Can carry the sense of a disorderly or fickle mob, swayed and stirred up by others.Mat 27:20Mrk 14:43
ἐκκλησίαthe assembly or church as the gathered community of believers; this word names them rather as God's claimed people, stressing belonging more than the act of gathering.
Names a people as a single corporate body that belongs to someone, above all Israel as the nation God has claimed as his own.Mat 2:6Luk 1:68Rom 11:1
Marks out the new people God takes for himself in Christ, drawn from every nation as his own possession.Tit 2:141Pe 2:9Act 15:14
Often means simply the common people or crowd, set over against the rulers, priests, and authorities.Mat 26:5Luk 19:47Act 4:1
Both
Both can name the covenant people of God assembled before him, looking back to Israel gathered at Sinai and in the wilderness.Act 7:38Heb 2:12Heb 8:10Rom 11:2
Names a concrete gathering or congregation: a particular community that meets in a place, like the church in a named city or a house.1Co 1:2Rom 16:5Act 14:23
Carries the new sense of the whole church as Christ's body and bride, founded on him and built up by him.Mat 16:18Eph 5:25Col 1:18
Can name an ordinary public assembly with no religious meaning at all, including a riotous town meeting.Act 19:32Act 19:39Act 19:41
names a nation as a single body, above all Israel as the covenant people God claims as his ownMat 1:21Mat 2:6Luk 2:32
names the ordinary populace or crowd, often set over against the rulers and leadersMat 26:5Luk 19:47Luk 22:2
Both
both name a collective group defined by shared belonging, and 1 Peter stacks them to describe the church as God's chosen race and his own people1Pe 2:9
Names a people as a defined body with an identity, above all the covenant people God claims as his own.1Pe 2:9Tit 2:14Act 15:14Heb 4:9
Marks the ordinary people as set apart from their rulers, especially the crowd the chief priests fear during the passion.Luk 19:47Luk 20:19Mat 26:5Act 4:2
Denotes one nation among the nations, an ethnic group listed alongside tribes, tongues, and nations.Rev 5:9Rev 7:9Rev 14:6
Both
Both can name the crowd of common people assembled in one place, so closely that Luke writes them together as the multitude of the people.Luk 6:17Act 21:36Luk 1:10Luk 23:27
Measures sheer quantity, and applies to things as readily as to people: a haul of fish, countless stars, a heap of sins.Luk 5:6Jhn 21:6Heb 11:12Jas 5:20
Names a crowd gathered at a moment by its size, the mass that came, followed, or pressed in.Mrk 3:8Luk 19:37Act 5:16
Stands for the whole assembly of believers acting as one body, the full congregation.Act 6:2Act 15:12Act 4:32
Names a whole people as one body, above all God's covenant people, the recurring "my people" or "his people" that God saves, redeems, and visits.Mat 1:21Luk 1:68Luk 2:10Luk 2:32
Marks the ordinary populace set over against its leaders: the crowd of the people as distinct from the chief priests, scribes, and elders who feared them.Mat 26:5Luk 19:47Luk 20:19Luk 22:2
Both
Both name a grouping of human beings, and Revelation stacks them side by side in its roll call of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation to sweep in all humanity at once.Rev 7:9
Names one of the descent groups within Israel, a tribe defined by common ancestry: the tribe of Judah, of Benjamin, of Asher, of Levi.Luk 2:36Php 3:5Heb 7:14Rev 5:5
Pins down a person's line of descent, the ancestral stock someone belongs to, which is why it settles questions of priestly or royal eligibility.Act 13:21Heb 7:13
Stands for the twelve tribes together as the full structure of Israel, the framework the nation and its future are measured by.Mat 19:28Jas 1:1Rev 21:12
laos in the other biblical languages
עַםHebrew“people”the standard Hebrew word for a people, and especially for Israel as God's own; this Greek word is its regular counterpart in the Greek Old Testament.
In the New Testament narrows to the people as a religious entity, very often Israel as a single body distinct from its rulers, and is later claimed for the church as God's peopleLuk 1:681Pe 2:9Tit 2:14
In the Gospels regularly names the crowd of ordinary Israelites set over against the chief priests and scribes who fear themLuk 20:19Mat 26:5
Both
λαός is the standard Greek rendering of this Hebrew word, especially for Israel as the LORD's own people, the covenant relationship the church then reads as fulfilled in itselfLev 26:122Co 6:16
Both name the people the LORD redeems and binds to himself, the heart of the covenant formula I will be their God and they shall be my peopleExo 6:7Heb 8:10
Is the broad Hebrew word for a people of any kind, used freely of Israel, of foreign nations, of kin, populace, and troopsExo 9:27Jos 8:1
גּוֹיHebrew“nation”the Hebrew word usually rendered nation or Gentiles, the peoples other than Israel; this Greek word matches it only in its broad nations sense, not its covenant-people sense.
Its dominant New Testament use is the covenant people God claims as his own, Israel and then the church, the very group held apart from the surrounding nations.Mat 1:21Luk 1:681Pe 2:9
It can name the crowd or populace gathered in one place, the ordinary people listening or assembling, with no ethnic or political weight at all.Luk 1:10Act 5:12
Both
Both name a broad ethnic or national grouping of people, so the New Testament can use the Greek word in the plural for the peoples of the earth exactly where the Hebrew word means the nations.Rev 7:9Psa 117:1
Both stand in the prophetic vision of all the nations streaming to God, the New Testament drawing the Old Testament summons to the peoples into the same wide scope.Rom 15:11Isa 2:2
In the plural it is the standard word for the Gentile nations, the peoples outside Israel, often as rivals, threats, or objects of judgment.Psa 2:1Isa 2:4Jer 1:5
It carries a concrete political and ethnic sense of an organized nation with land and rulers, and can even be applied to Israel itself as one nation among the nations.Gen 12:2Deu 4:6
This is the standing word for Israel as the people God has claimed as his own, the group he promises to rescue and keep. The Hebrew word is never used of Israel that way.Mat 1:21Luk 1:68Tit 2:14
It regularly names the ordinary population actually present at a scene, the listening or pressing crowd set over against the officials who fear them.Luk 20:19Luk 23:13Act 21:36
It also carries the New Testament's startling move of calling non-Jews God's people, a body that once was not a people at all.Act 15:14Rom 9:251Pe 2:10
Both
Both name a whole body of people counted as one unit, and both stand in the same sweeping lists beside "nations" and "tribes" when the whole human race is in view.Psa 117:1Rev 7:9
The Greek word takes over the Hebrew word's wide plural sense of "the peoples" when the New Testament quotes the summons for every population on earth to praise God: the call of Psalm 117:1 comes back in Paul's chain of quotations with the Greek word doing the Hebrew word's work.Psa 117:1Psa 57:9Rom 15:11
It can name a tribal branch inside one family line, the clan-sized unit that a father's house splits into, which the Greek word never does.Gen 25:16Num 25:15
In the Psalms it is almost always a plural of outsiders looked at from Israel's side, the foreign populations who jeer at Israel or who face God's reckoning, and never Israel itself.Psa 44:14Psa 149:7
Names the assembled congregation gathered to act together in worship, such as the whole community keeping the Passover or held jointly responsible for a sin.Exo 12:3Lev 4:13
Functions as Israel's formal deliberative and judicial body, the assembly that renders decisions, judges a case, and is led by its appointed chiefs.Num 35:12Num 16:2
Carries the covenant weight of God's own chosen people, a nation set apart as his prized possession, extended in the New Testament to the church gathered from every nation.Tit 2:141Pe 2:9Act 15:14
Marks the ordinary populace over against their rulers, the common crowd the chief priests fear and try to sway.Luk 19:47Luk 20:19Act 5:26
Both
Both name a whole nation as one defined body counted among the peoples of the world.Rev 7:9Dan 7:14
Both are used of Israel specifically as God's people, the nation he redeems and claims as his own.Luk 1:68Ezr 5:12
Belongs to the fixed royal proclamation formula "peoples, nations, and languages," naming the many subject nations of a world empire summoned by imperial decree, a purely political register with no covenant coloring.Dan 3:4Dan 4:1Dan 6:25
What scholars say about laos
Standard lexica (BDAG) divide the word into the general populace, a people group or nation, the people of Israel, and the people of God in the new Christian sense. Its theological weight comes from the Greek Old Testament, where it became the regular rendering of Hebrew am and the term for Israel as the LORD's covenant people, set against the goyim or nations. The New Testament writers exploit this background: Luke and Acts use it heavily for both the Jerusalem populace and Israel, while Paul (Romans 9 to 11, quoting Hosea), Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation extend the Israel word to the church, the people God now claims from Jew and Gentile alike. TDNT (Strathmann) traces this shift in detail as the heart of the word's significance.