What does the Bible mean when it refers to the diaspora?

The term applied to the nation of Israel as now scattered throughout the world. Esther 3:8; Jer. 25:34; Ezek. 36:19; John 7:35. It was to believers among them that the Epistles of James and 1 Peter were specially addressed.

Indeed the word, diaspora, a pure Greek word, has been transliterated, and has found its way into the English language. The dictionary gives the meaning, “dispersion, used collectively for the dispersed Jews after the Babylonian captivity, and also in the apostolic age for the Jews living outside of Palestine.”

"The dispersion" is a phrase evidently familiar to the Jews, which first occurs in John 7:35, and clearly means the Jews dispersed among the Greeks or Gentiles. For the genitive here as often elsewhere expresses a dependence, not immediate but remote and external, as for instance μετ. Βαβ. removal to Babylon (Matt. 1:11).

There can be no legitimate doubt, I think, that την διασποραν των Ἑλληνων means (abstract for concrete) the Jews dispersed among the Gentiles (lit. Greeks, as their most striking representative). The Greek genitive is capable of expressing many relations besides that of possession. Compare μετοικεσια βαβυλωνος (Matt. 1), etc. James 1:1. means the twelve tribes scattered abroad, i.e. living in that condition. 1 Peter 1:1, characterises the believing Jews in a similar way, and furnishes further example of the comprehensiveness of the genitive in Greek. The teaching of the Greeks, or Gentiles, is another step in John 7:35.

(V. 1). The first verse tells us to whom the Apostle addressed his Epistle. He wrote to “the strangers” scattered throughout the province of Asia Minor. “Sojourners of the dispersion” is the better translation. The Apostle therefore writes to the Christians among the Jews who had been “dispersed” among the Gentiles. The Pharisees referred to these Jews when they asked, concerning the Lord, “Will He go to the dispersed among the Gentiles?” (John 7:35).

The fact that God's ancient people are addressed as scattered or “dispersed” is proof that the nation had completely broken down, and for the time being all is out of order on earth. Man has failed in every position in which God has set him, and lost everything committed to his responsibility. The Garden of Eden, fresh from the hand of God, was committed to Adam to dress and keep. He failed, and was driven out; and his son was driven from God's face to be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth (Genesis 4:12-14). The new world was committed to Noah. He failed, and his descendants were divided and scattered “abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9). The Land of Canaan was given to Israel; they utterly failed, and were scattered among the nations, even as God foretold (Deuteronomy 28:64). The church, in its administration, was committed to the responsibility of men, and again man has failed, and outwardly the church is divided and scattered. Even so, although we have failed, God in His goodness may recall a few to the original ground of the church, but here also there is failure, division and brokenness.

Just as the Lord at one time had blessed and multiplied the nation, so He would curse and diminish them (v.63) and scatter the people among all nations, where they would serve idols (v.64). We know this has taken place, for Jews have been scattered over all the world and the recognition of their God has become vague and in many cases extinct.

It is a matter of history that the Jews were driven from their own land, and scattered among the nations. The diaspora, as the scattering was called, was a grim reality. We stand amazed at the spectacle of a people without a country, scattered in many lands, without cohesion, without a centre, surviving in spite of cruel persecutions, resisting assimilation with the countries where they sojourned. By all the laws governing such situations the Jew should have been tracelessly absorbed centuries ago. Apart from the power of God and the light Scripture throws on the subject, the Jew presents an insoluble mystery. Disliked, despised, destroyed in vast numbers, the Jew has survived and increased, marked by indomitable will, physical endurance, and racial pride.

It is quite true that all believers are strangers in this world (for they are not of it), and that they are "scattered." But Peter, it must be remembered, was the apostle of the circumcision; and as such he wrote his epistles to the believers among the Jews, and to those who were found in the various places named in the first verse. A more exact translation is "to the sojourners of the dispersion"; that is, he addressed those who were outside the limits of Palestine, and who were living in these several provinces of Asia Minor. The term "dispersion" (scattered abroad) is a technical word for their description. (See John 7:35; James 1:1.) The meaning of "strangers" or sojourners is simply living in a strange place. In chapter 2:11 the same word is employed with the addition of another, signifying "aliens" or "foreigners." It is rendered in our version "strangers and pilgrims"; and these terms exactly describe what these believers were, and what indeed all Christians are. We are not at home, and we are therefore strangers; we are passing through this world, and thus, as on a journey, we are pilgrims. In verse 2 we have a very striking setting forth (a contrast, we doubt not, with Israel as the earthly people) of the peculiar blessedness of these chosen ones from among the Jewish nation. They were elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father (compare Ephesians 1:4-5), and thus the object of His eternal counsels, and to know God, not now as Jehovah, but as their God and Father in the intimate relationship of children, doubtless in association with Christ, as in John 20:17. The accomplishment of God's counsels was to be "through sanctification of the Spirit," for it was by His mighty power they were set apart for the glory of God. The end of their election of God the Father was - for we do not in this epistle go beyond the earth, precisely because it is addressed to sojourners - "unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." Formerly they had been set apart to obey the old covenant, the ten commandments; now Christ was to be their pattern, and they were to obey as He obeyed. (See 1 John 2:6.) They were moreover separated unto God, to be brought under all the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ, to be perfected for ever, as to the conscience, by the value of His one sacrifice, that they might be free both in heart and conscience before God to run in the way of His commandments, and live by every word which proceeded out of His mouth. Happy people they surely were as placed in such a blessed position, and begotten as they were to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead unto an incorruptible and heavenly inheritance.

It definitely addresses the "strangers scattered" in the provinces of Asia Minor, yet "elect" — i.e., Peter writes to converted people of his own nation scattered throughout the regions to the north of Palestine. Peter was the apostle to the circumcision (see Gal. 2:7-8), yet it was Paul who traversed these lands and evangelized the Jews while carrying the Gospel to the Gentiles; so Peter exercised his ministry towards them by pen and ink.

This last is made plain and certain by the second term, "sojourners," when combined with the word "dispersion" which it qualifies. They were not the primitive possessors of these countries, nor simply "elect" from among its settled inhabitants. They were not only Jews scattered in those parts, but elect "pilgrims" or "sojourners." This was a title of grace, as "dispersion" was of judgment. Their election in this case was bound up with the journey to the better country, that is, a heavenly. Originally Jews, they were now Christians. This entirely accords with the writer of the Epistle. Peter was an "apostle of Jesus Christ" as he here introduces himself; and as the gospel of the uncircumcision had been confided to Paul, so was that of the circumcision to Peter (Gal. 2:7). Hence it is to such that these two Epistles were addressed. Compare 2 Peter 3:1 with the verse before us. As this is certain, it is unbelieving to allow that any other statements can countervail. Even a man would not write so incoherently: why should men of faith think so unworthily of scripture? Can such persons hold divine inspiration?