The term "the people of the Land" (עם הארץ am ha'aretz) is a term found in the Hebrew Bible which, when singular "the people," and where "the land" refers to the land of Israel, refers to Jews. When plural "the peoples (plural) of the land (singular)" (Hebrew plural 'ammei ha'aretz) would refer to non-Jews, and when both words are plural (Hebrew plural ammei ha'aretzot, lit. "peoples of the lands") to peoples of gentile lands.
In Rabbinic Judaism the Talmud applies "the people of Land" to uneducated Jews, who were deemed likely to be negligent in their observance of the commandments due to their ignorance, and the term combines the meanings of "rustic" with those of "boorish, uncivilized, ignorant" (compare the meaning of Latinate "pagan").
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In Biblical Hebrew, the term "the people of the land" (Hebrew am ha'aretz) refers to a special social group or caste within the kingdom of Judah. Among the activities of the Biblical am ha'aretz was the revolt against Athaliah. By contrast, the plural ammei ha'aretz or ammei ha'aretzot refers to foreigners, either the nations of the world (gentiles) or the native Canaanite population living within Eretz Israel.
In the Second Temple era, the "people of the land" (am ha'aretz) are contrasted with those returning from exile;
Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, Ezra 4:4 KJV, 1611
It is unclear whether the term refers to the people of Judah who remained behind and adopted syncretistic views, or to non-Hebrews.[1] Rubenstein (2003) considers that in Ezra and Nehemiah it designates the rural Jews who had remained in the land while the aristocratic and priestly classes were deported to exile in Babylonia.[2] In the view of Kartveit (2009) the terms used in Ezra and Nehemiah may not be precise in their distinctions; there may be implication is that the "people of the land" (Ezra 4:4) had intermarried with the "peoples of the lands" (Ezra 9:1 ammei ha'aretzoth), and there may be an equation or relation with the origin of the Samaritans.[3]
While the term am ha'aretz does occur in the Hebrew Bible, its usage there has very little connection to the usage from the Hasmonaean period and hence in the Mishnah. The am ha'aretz were of two types, the am ha'aretz le-mitzvot, Jews disparaged for not scrupulously observing the commandments, and am ha'aretz la-Torah, those stigmatized as ignoramuses for not having studied the Torah at all.[4]
In antiquity (Hasmonean to Roman era, 140 BCE–70 CE), the am ha'aretz were the uneducated rustic population of Iudaea, as opposed to the learned factions of the Pharisees or Sadducees. It was in this milieu that Messianic sectarianism thrived, which among other things resulted in the emergence of Christianity.
The am ha'aretz are denounced in BT Pesachim 49, where they are contrasted with the hakhamim or "wise" and talmide hakhamim or "students of the wise", i.e. scholars of the Talmud. The text contains the rabbinical teaching that no man should marry a daughter of an am ha'aretz because if he should die or be exiled, his sons will then also be ammei ha'aretz (see Jewish matrilineality). A man should rather sell all his possessions in order to afford marriage to a daughter of a hakham talmid. Marriage of a talmid hakhim to a daughter of an am ha'aretz is compared to the crossbreeding of grapevine with wild wine, which is "unseemly and disagreeable".[5]