(2) The sons of Japheth.--Of these, seven main divisions are enumerated, some of which are subsequently sub-divided; they are--
1. Gomer, whose name reappears in the Cimmerians. Their original settlement was between Magog and Madai, that is, between the Scythians and the Medes. After remaining some time on the Caspian and Black Seas, on which latter they have left their name in the Crimea, a powerful branch of them struck across the centre of Russia, and, skirting the Baltic, became the Cimbri of Denmark (whence the name of the Chersonesus Cimbrica, given to Jutland), the Cymry of Wales, &c. Generally they are the race to which the " name is given of Celts.
2. Magog. The Scythians, who once possessed the country north and south of the Caucasus. The Russians are their modern representatives, being descended from the Sarmatians, a Scythic race, with a small admixture of Median blood.
3. Madai. The Medes, who dwelt to the south and south-west of the Caspian. Mada, in the Accadian language, means land, and it was in the Median territory that Kharsak-Kurra, "the mountain of the East," was situated, on which the Accadians believed the ark to have rested, whence possibly Media took its name, being "the land" above all others (Chald. Gen., p. 196).
4. Javan, that is, Ionia, the land of the Greeks.
5. Tubal. The Tibareni, on the south-east of the Black Sea.
6. Meshech. The Moschi, a people of Colchis and Armenia.
7. Tiras. According to Josephus and the Targum, the Thracians. Other races have been suggested, but this is probably right; and as the Getae, the ancestors of the Goths, were Thracians, this would make the Scandinavian race the modern representatives of Tiras.
In this enumeration the race of Japheth is described as occupying Asia Minor, Armenia, the countries to the west as far as the Caspian Sea, and thence northward to the shores of the Black Sea. Subsequently it spread along the northern shores of the Mediterranean and. over all Europe. But though unnoticed by the writer its extension was equally remarkable towards the east. Parthia, Bactria, the Punjab, India, are equally Japhethite with Germany, Greece, and Rome; and in Sanscrit literature the Aryan first showed that genius, which, omitting the greatest of all books, the Semitic Bible, has made this race the foremost writers in the world.
Verse 2. - The sons of Japheth are first mentioned not because Japheth was the eldest of the three brothers, although that was true, but because of the greater distance of the Japhetic tribes from the theocratic center, the Hamites having always been much more nearly situated to and closely connected with the Shemites than they. The immediate descendants of Japheth, whose name, Ἰάπετος, occurs again in the mythology of a Japhetic race, were fourteen m number, seven sons and seven grandsons, each of which became the progenitor of one of the primitive nations. Gomer. A people inhabiting "the sides of the north" (Ezekiel 38:6); the Galatae of the Greeks (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 1:06); the Chomarii, a nation in Bactriana on the Oxus (Shulthess, Kalisch); but more generally the Cimmerians of Homer ('Odyss.,' 11:13-19), whose abodes were the shores of the Caspian and Euxine, whence they seem to have spread themselves over Europe as far west as the Atlantic, leaving traces of their presence in the Cimhri of North Germany and the Cymri in Wales (Keil, Lange, Murphy, Wordsworth, 'Speaker's Commentary ). And Magog. A fierce and warlike people presided over by Gog (an appellative name, like the titles Pharaoh and Caesar, and corresponding with the Turkish Chak, the Tartarian Kak, and the Mongolian Gog: Kalisch), whose complete destruction was predicted by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 38, 39.); generally understood to be the Scythians, whose territory lay upon the borders of the sea of Asoph, and in the Caucasus. In the Apocalypse (Revelation 20:8-10) Gog and Magog appear as two distinct nations combined against the Church of God. And Madai. The inhabitants of Media (Mada in the cuneiform inscriptions), so called because believed to be situated περὶ μεσην τὴν Ασίαν (Polyb. 5:44) on the south-west shore of the Caspian And Javan. Identical with Ἰάων (Greek), Javana (Sanscrit), Juna (Old Persian), Jounan (Rosetta Stone); allowed to be the father of the Greeks, who in Scripture are styled Javan (vide Isaiah 66:19; Ezekiel 27:13; Daniel 8:21; Daniel 10:20; Joel 3:6). And Tubal, and Meshech. Generally associated in Scripture as tributaries of Magog (Ezekiel 38:2, 3; Ezekiel 39:1); recognized as the Iberians and Moschi in the north of Armenia, between the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Black Sea (Josephus, Knobel, Lange, Kalisch). And Tiras. The ancestor of the Thraciaus (Josephus), of the Tyrrheni, a branch of the Pelasgians (Tuch), of the Asiatic tribes round the Taurus (Kalisch), in support of which last is a circumstance mentioned by Rawlinson, that on the old Egyptian monuments Mashuash and Tuirash, and upon the Assyrian Tubal and Misek, stand together as here. Tiras occurs nowhere else in Scripture.
10:1-7 This chapter shows concerning the three sons of Noah, that of them was the whole earth overspread. No nation but that of the Jews can be sure from which of these seventy it has come. The lists of names of fathers and sons were preserved of the Jews alone, for the sake of the Messiah. Many learned men, however, have, with some probability, shown which of the nations of the earth descended from each of the sons of Noah To the posterity of Japheth were allotted the isles of the gentiles; probably, the island of Britain among the rest. All places beyond the sea from Judea are called isles, Jer 25:22. That promise, Isa 42:4, The isles shall wait for his law, speaks of the conversion of the gentiles to the faith of Christ.
The sons of Japheth,.... Who though mentioned last, the genealogy begins with him, by a figure which rhetoricians call a "chiasm". The posterity of Japheth are those whom Hesiod (z) often calls "Iapetionides", and him "Iapetus". According to Josephus (a), the sons of Japheth inhabited the earth, beginning from the mountains Taurus and Amanus, and then went on in Asia unto the river Tanais, and in Europe unto Gadira. Seven of his sons are mentioned, and the first is Gomer; from whom, according to the same writer (b), came the Gomareans or Gomerites, in his time called by the Greeks Galatians, that is, the Gauls of Asia minor, who inhabited Phrygia; both Gomer and Phrygia signifying the same, as Bochart (c) observes, and the country looking as if it was torrified or burnt; and Pliny (d) makes mention of a town in Phrygia, called Cimmeris; and the Cimmerians and Cimbri are derived by some from this Gomer, whom Herodotus (e) makes mention of as in Asia and Scythia, and speaks of a country called Cimmerius, and of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and these seem to be the Gauls before mentioned, under a different name; and it is to be observed, that the Welsh, who sprung from the Gauls, call themselves to this day Cumero, or Cymro and Cumeri. It is plain from Ezekiel 38:6 that Gomer and his people lay to the north of Judea, and the posterity of Japheth went first into the northern parts of Asia, and then spread themselves into Europe: six more of his sons follow, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras; the first of these, Magog, was the father of a northern people which bore his name, see Ezekiel 38:2 and according to Josephus (f), who is generally followed, are the same that were called Scythians; from Madai came the Medes, often spoken of in Scripture, along with the Persians; so Josephus (g) says, from him came the nation of Madaeans, whom the Greeks call Medes; and very frequently in Scripture the Medes go by the name of Madai, their original ancestor; see Daniel 5:28 but Mr. Mede (h) is of opinion, that Macedonia was the seat of this Madai, which was formerly called Aemathia; that is, as he gives the etymology of it, "Madai", the country of Madai; but the former sense is generally received. Javan is by all agreed to be the father of the Grecians; hence Alexander, king of Grecia, is in Daniel 8:21 called king of Javan; and one part of Greece bore the name of Ionia; and the sea that washed it is called the Ionian sea. And his posterity are "Iaonians", in Homer (i) and Aristophanes (k); and the scholiast of the latter says, that the Barbarians call all Greeks Iaonians. The next son of Japheth is Tubal or Thobel, as Josephus calls him, who says (l) the Thobelians in his time were called Iberians, a people in Asia, that dwelt near the Euxine sea; and in Albania was a place called Thabilaca, as may be seen in Ptolemy (m), and another called Thilbis, from whom might spring the Iberians in Europe, now called Spaniards; but Bochart (n) thinks that the Tibarenes are the descendants of Tubal, a people that dwelt between the Trapezuntii and Armenia the less; and he wonders that this never was thought of by any; but in that he is mistaken, for our countryman Mr. Broughton (o) makes the Tibarenes to spring from Tubal; and Epiphanius (p) many hundreds of years before him. Meshech, his next son, is mentioned along with Tubal in Ezekiel 27:13 from him came the Mosocheni, as Josephus (q), who in his time were called Cappadocians, with whom there was a city then named Mazaca, since Caesarea (r); and these seem to be the same that Pliny (s) calls Moscheni, who inhabited the mountains Moschici, which were at the north east of Cappadocia. Some derive the Muscovites from them, which is not improbable: the last of Japheth's sons is Tiras or Thiras, which Jarchi interprets very wrongly by Paras, or Persia; much better the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, and so a Jewish chronologer (t), by Thracia; for the descendants of Thiras, as Josephus (u) observes, the Greeks call Thracians; and in Thrace was a river called Atyras (w), which has in it a trace of this man's name; and Odrysus, whom the Thracians worshipped, is the same with Tiras, which god sometimes goes by the name of Thuras; and is one of the names of Mars, the god of the Thracians.
(z) In Theogonia. (a) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.((b) Ib. (c) Phaleg. l. 3. c. 8. col. 171, 172. (d) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 30. (e) Clio sive, l. 1. c. 16, 103. & Melpomene sive, l. 4. c. 11, 12, 13. (f) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (g) Ib. (h) Dissert. 48. (i) Iliad. 13. ver. 685. (k) Acharneus. Acts 1. scen. 3. p. 376. (l) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.((m) Geograph. l. 5. c. 12. (n) Phaleg. l. 3. c. 12. col. 180. (o) See his Works, p. 2, 58. (p) Ancorat. p. 546. (q) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (r) Vid. Ammian. Marcellin. l. 20. p. 170. Ed. Vales. (s) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 9, 10. (t) Sepher Juchasin, fol. 145. 1. Vid. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 10. 1.((u) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (w) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 4. c. 11.
1. Gomer, whose name reappears in the Cimmerians. Their original settlement was between Magog and Madai, that is, between the Scythians and the Medes. After remaining some time on the Caspian and Black Seas, on which latter they have left their name in the Crimea, a powerful branch of them struck across the centre of Russia, and, skirting the Baltic, became the Cimbri of Denmark (whence the name of the Chersonesus Cimbrica, given to Jutland), the Cymry of Wales, &c. Generally they are the race to which the " name is given of Celts.
2. Magog. The Scythians, who once possessed the country north and south of the Caucasus. The Russians are their modern representatives, being descended from the Sarmatians, a Scythic race, with a small admixture of Median blood.
3. Madai. The Medes, who dwelt to the south and south-west of the Caspian. Mada, in the Accadian language, means land, and it was in the Median territory that Kharsak-Kurra, "the mountain of the East," was situated, on which the Accadians believed the ark to have rested, whence possibly Media took its name, being "the land" above all others (Chald. Gen., p. 196).
4. Javan, that is, Ionia, the land of the Greeks.
5. Tubal. The Tibareni, on the south-east of the Black Sea.
6. Meshech. The Moschi, a people of Colchis and Armenia.
7. Tiras. According to Josephus and the Targum, the Thracians. Other races have been suggested, but this is probably right; and as the Getae, the ancestors of the Goths, were Thracians, this would make the Scandinavian race the modern representatives of Tiras.
In this enumeration the race of Japheth is described as occupying Asia Minor, Armenia, the countries to the west as far as the Caspian Sea, and thence northward to the shores of the Black Sea. Subsequently it spread along the northern shores of the Mediterranean and. over all Europe. But though unnoticed by the writer its extension was equally remarkable towards the east. Parthia, Bactria, the Punjab, India, are equally Japhethite with Germany, Greece, and Rome; and in Sanscrit literature the Aryan first showed that genius, which, omitting the greatest of all books, the Semitic Bible, has made this race the foremost writers in the world.
(z) In Theogonia. (a) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.((b) Ib. (c) Phaleg. l. 3. c. 8. col. 171, 172. (d) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 30. (e) Clio sive, l. 1. c. 16, 103. & Melpomene sive, l. 4. c. 11, 12, 13. (f) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (g) Ib. (h) Dissert. 48. (i) Iliad. 13. ver. 685. (k) Acharneus. Acts 1. scen. 3. p. 376. (l) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.((m) Geograph. l. 5. c. 12. (n) Phaleg. l. 3. c. 12. col. 180. (o) See his Works, p. 2, 58. (p) Ancorat. p. 546. (q) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (r) Vid. Ammian. Marcellin. l. 20. p. 170. Ed. Vales. (s) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 9, 10. (t) Sepher Juchasin, fol. 145. 1. Vid. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 10. 1.((u) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (w) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 4. c. 11.