Luke 23:2

Company of People ≠ The People

While both λαός and ἔθνος may be rendered "people" or "nation" in English, they differ substantially in their semantic scope and sociolinguistic connotations. According to LSJ and Bailly:

• λαός (laós) refers more narrowly to a cohesive body of people, typically of the same stock, language, and name, forming a cultural-political unity. In early Greek usage, especially Homeric and Classical, it often denotes the common people, especially as distinguished from their leaders (e.g., Il. 2.365), but also encompasses a tribe or nation under a common ethnonym—as in Pindar (Ol. 8.30: “Δωριεῖ λαῷ”) or Aeschylus (Pers. 770: “Λυδῶν δὲ λαὸς καὶ Φρυγῶν”). The term thus emphasizes internal unity and collective identity.

• By contrast, ἔθνος (éthnos) has a broader and more fluid reference, denoting any group living together—not necessarily defined by kinship, language, or political unity. It applies to humans, animals, and even professional or social castes. LSJ and Bailly note usages such as “ἔθνος μελισσάων” (Il. 2.87, a swarm of bees) and “δημιουργικὸν ἔθνος” (Plato, Gorgias 455b, a craftsmen class). It may refer to foreign tribes, occupational guilds, or ethnic categories, but lacks the inherent unifying identity conveyed by λαός.

Thus, while λαός tends to denote a people bound by shared ethnocultural traits and recognized as a single whole, ἔθνος is more generic: it classifies any aggregate or kind—from the biological (species, swarms) to the social (tribes, nations, professions)—without implying inward cohesion or a name-bearing identity.

This distinction remains salient in later Greek, especially in the Septuagint and New Testament, where λαός often designates the people of God (i.e., Israel, a theologically or ethnically unified group), and ἔθνη refers to the "Gentiles", i.e., non-Israel peoples conceived in a collective but external and unbound sense.

Thus, Luke 23:2 deserves a little extra philological attention.

According to classical and Hellenistic Greek usage:

• λαός would be the more natural and ideologically loaded term for Israel—a covenant-bound, ethnically united, and divinely called people, often used in the Septuagint and New Testament to represent the elect or sacred collective (e.g. Exod. 3:7 LXX: εἶδον τὴν ταλαιπωρίαν τοῦ λαοῦ μου).

• ἔθνος, by contrast, as both LSJ and Bailly demonstrate, is a general term for a group or multitude, frequently applied to Gentile nations and even to swarms or herds. It carries no intrinsic sense of divine calling, ethnic unity, or historical covenant.

Thus, for the Jewish religious leaders—who so frequently demarcated Israel from τὰ ἔθνη (the Gentile nations)—to refer to Israel as τὸ ἔθνος ἡμῶν "the gentiles of us" before a Roman Governor introduces a semantic dissonance, if not rhetorical irony. It is as if they temporarily collapse the covenantal distinctiveness of Israel to present themselves as simply one of many subject peoples under Rome. leveraging imperial categories to frame the Messiah as a political threat. By referring to themselves as τὸ ἔθνος the ethnos, they might be deliberately suppressing their theological identity to make a more legible political accusation:

“This man is stirring up sedition within our (submissive) population!”

This self-minimization would reflect a bunch of cowards, aimed at maintaining their political status over defending Israel's covenantal identity. Is that even smart to say if you wanted to keep the respect of your "covenantal company of people"?

Or perhaps they are just deeply confused? This resonates with Luke-Acts as a whole, where many Jewish leaders are portrayed as spiritually or morally adrift—failing to recognize what truly constitutes the people of God. Did they really just call themselves "Gentiles"?

Or perhaps, they are speaking the truth? That their use of ἔθνος is signaling a dark, tragic irony: that they are no longer a λαός, in the full theological sense. That is, by their own admission—whether conscious or not—they are just another "swarm of people," not the People.

This irony becomes even richer when contrasted with Acts 4:27 and Acts 4:25, where τὰ ἔθνη the ethne refers explicitly to the hostile Gentile powers raging against the Lord's anointed—echoing Psalm 2:1 (“Why did the nations rage?”), where ἔθνη  marks those outside the covenant. 

(cf. LSJ, Bailly, et. al., on ἔθνος and λαός)