The Everlasting Covenant

Desiring to be like the Heathen

In the Bible the “nations” are the heathen. The Hebrew word which is often rendered “nations” is the identical word from which the word “heathen” always comes. Perhaps Psalm 96:5 makes the case as clear as may be to the English reader. “For all the gods of the nations are idols; but the Lord made the heavens.” Here it is very evident that the “nations” are heathen. In Psalm 2:1 where we read, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” The Revision has it. “Why do the nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” Such an idea as a “Christian nation” is as much a contradiction of terms as a “Christian heathen,” or a “Christian sinner.” A “nation” in God’s use of the term, when speaking of earthly nations, is a collection of heathen. So what the Jews really said was this: “We will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the heathen.” That was what they wanted, because all other people acknowledged other gods than Jehovah, and all the people on earth, with the exception of Israel, had kings over them. The Danish Bible renders 1 Samuel 8:20 plainly, “We will also be like all the heathen;” and the German of Luther still more pointedly has it, “That we also may be like all other heathen.” EVCO 398.3