However, in Isaiah 9:1 the phrase (gelîl haggôyim) is used as a description of “the land west of the Jordan,” northern Galilee, inhabited by pagans even in the time of the eighth-century prophet. Whether that is a stringent argument for that area in first-century Palestine is not apparent. J.M. Ross, who maintains that Greek was widely used in lower Galilee, doubts that it was true of northern Galilee (Irish Biblical Studies 12 [1990], p. 42).