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“What is a ‘remnant’ in the Bible?”

A clear and authoritative answer to this question is a very good thing to have in mind when reading the Psalms and Prophets. Scripture uses the word and its cognates over 100 times in different contexts.

As the writers of the Bible use it, any remnant is simply an amount left over after some event, a remainder or residue.

Generic Remnants

You might have the remnant of last night’s dinner on the second shelf in your fridge; the bit you didn’t manage to scarf down. The Bible uses this same word frequently to describe the survivors of God’s judgment or of an invasion by an enemy, or the group left over after some accounting process.

In this generic sense, “remnant” can refer to the survivors of any nation. Joshua warned Israel not to intermarry with the remnant of the Canaanites after they conquered the land of promise. Samuel refers to the Gibeonites living within Israel’s borders as “the remnant of the Amorites”.

Used this way, remnants are not always a good thing. Leaving the Amalekites a remnant almost got Israel exterminated.

Specific Remnants

The writers of scripture also use “remnant” more specifically to refer to a godly, believing subset of Israel throughout history. Almost as long as there has been an Israel, there has been an Israelite remnant.

In its very first generation, Joseph explained his own suffering and subsequent exaltation to his brothers in this manner: “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.” God may have been the author of the worldwide famine they were experiencing, but he had made provision for Jacob’s family so that they would not be eliminated from the earth, even though not all who were preserved in Egypt were men and women of faith.

A Godly Remnant

Later, the prophets would use the expression “the remnant” to denote a subset of godly Israelites within a nation of idolaters, fakes and compromisers. In Elijah’s day, 7,000 men refused to bow the knee to Baal in the northern kingdom. Elijah did not call them a remnant, but the apostle Paul does.

Isaiah uses the same term to describe the Judeans besieged in Jerusalem who cried out to the Lord for deliverance in the days of Hezekiah. He promised, “Out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this.” That night the angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 Assyrians in their camp, and the remnant of Judah began to take root once again.

A Future Remnant

Micah speaks of a godly remnant in chapters 2, 4, 5 and 7, more than any other Minor Prophet. Zephaniah speaks of a future remnant, as does Zechariah, a post-exilic prophet, so we know he is not talking about a diaspora remnant but a future one. In the New Testament, we find Paul referring to first century godly Jews as “the Israel of God”, and calling them “a remnant, chosen by grace”. Jeremiah speaks of a gathering of the Israelite remnant in the far-flung future “out of all the countries where I have driven them”.

So there has always been an Israelite remnant, and there will be until the day that “all Israel will be saved” and the unrighteous banished from the presence of the Lord forever. During the great tribulation of the future, two-thirds of Israel will perish, leaving only the godly remnant.

You can find out more about this remnant concept here and here.