1. The Japhethites represent groups and races lying to the north of Palestine. Of the ‘sons’ of
apheth, namely, Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras, the majority have been identified. GoMER is the equivalent of the Gimirrai frequently referred to in the inscriptions of Assyrian kings, and represents a promiscuous group of peoples who, forced across the Black Sea by Scythian hordes pressing upon them, settled in Cappadocia. In the early part of the 7th cent. we find these Gimirrai in conflict with Assyria and Lydia, and shortly after the middle of that century they are driven still farther to the east. Mapal is Media, JAVAN represents the Ionians, while TUBAL and MESHECH are found in juxta- position in the Assyrian inscriptions under the forms Tabal and Muski; and the location of these groups may with certainty be fixed in central Asia Minor. There remain only Magog and Tiras. Outside of the occurrence of MAGOG here (and in 1 Ch 15, which is copied from Gn 10?) the name is found twice in Ezekiel (38? and 396). In the former of these oa it is a gloss to Gog, indicat- ing the identity of Gog and Magog in the mind of the annotator ; while in the second passage the LXX has ‘Gog,’ which the Hebrew text also exhibits in Ezk 38-16-18 and 391. In view of this, it seems reasonable to suppose that Magog is a slip for Gog, the m being superinduced perhaps by the M of the following Madai.. The error, once introduced, was carried over into Ezekiel, once as a variant, and in the second case as an actual read- ing instead of Gog. From the passages in Ezekiel the views connected with Gog may be clearly de- duced. The name is a collective one, for a whole series of peoples coming from the north, and threatening at one time, during the 7th cent., to engulf the Semitic world much as the Goths and Vandals threatened the Roman empire. The danger was averted, but so great was the terror inspired by the northern hordes that Gog survived to a late period as the symbol of wickedness and evil power —a pre-Christian Antichrist. The identification of 'TrRAS is not certain. The view
* The expression ‘dwelling in the tents of Shem’ (927) points to a land adjacent to Palestine.
of Ed. Meyer (Gesch. d. Alterthwms, i. p. 260), which associates Tiras with the Turusha, a sea- faring nation mentioned in the Egyptian inscrip- tions of the 13th cent., and whom the Greeks reckon to the Pelasgians, has been generally accepted; but recently W. Max Miiller (Orient. Lit.-Zeitung, 15th Aug. 1900, col. 290) prefers to regard Tiras as a doublet—a variant of Tarshish mentioned in v.4, and to identify both with Turs, i.e. the land of the Tyrsenians or Italy. ‘
As subdivisions of Gomer, there are mentioned Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The passage in Jer 51%, where ASHKENAZ is placed in juxta- position with Minni and Ararat, is conclusive for placing the Ashkenazites in western Armenia, while the occurrence of a personage Ascanios as a leader of the Phrygians and Mysians in the [dad (ii. 862 and xiii. 79) has, together with some other evi- dence (see ASHKENAZ in vol. i.), led some scholars to fix upon the Phrygians as the group more particu- larly denoted. For the location of RIPHATH there are no certain data, while TOGARMAH appears to be some part of Armenia, whence horses and mules were exported to the markets of Tyre (Ezk 38°).
As of Gomer, so of Ionia, a number of sub- divisions are noted—Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. It has become customary to identify ELISHAH with Hellas; but since W. Max Miiller has shown satisfactorily that Alashia, occurring in the Tel el-Amarna tablets, is the ancient name for Cyprus, it seems natural to connect Elishah with this term (Or. Lit.-Zeit., 15th Aug. 1900, col. 288). TARSHISH has commonly been identified with the Pheenician colony Tartessus in southern Spain; KITTIM with Cyprus, in view of the town Citium ; and DopDANIM, for which the LXX as well as the parallel passage (1 Ch 1’) has ‘ Rodanim,’ with Rhodes. There are, however, serious objections against all these identifications. One can hardly suppose that a writer would jump in this wild fashion from Hellas to Spain, then back to Cyprus, and then on to Rhodes. The very frequent refer- ences to Tarshish—no fewer than twenty-five times in theOT—make it certain thatan intelligentreader knew where to look for it. But while there was one Tarshish, whose location was well known, which probably lay in Spain, it does not follow that “Tarshish’ in all passages refers to this place. There is significance in the juxtaposition with Pul (prob- ably an error for Put, or Punt) and Lydia in Is 66". This suggests another Tarshish adjacent to Asia Minor; and, while in many if not most of the passages the location in Spain suits the context, in Gn 10 and in some other instances we do not appear to be justified in going so far to the west. Whether Kittim is really the city of Citium in Cyprus has been questioned by both Winckler and Miiller (see Or. Lit.-Zeit., 15th Aug. 1900, 2b.). If Dodanim is really a corrupt reading for Rodanim, the identifica- tion with Rhodes may be admitted, but we cannot be certain that the LXX reading and the one in 1 Chron. do not represent an intentional change with a view of suggesting this identification. All therefore that can be said with regard to Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim is that we must probably seek for them among the larger islands of the Mediterranean and Algean Sea—preferably among those adjacent to the southern and western coasts of Asia Minor. On this assumption we can understand the reference in v.5 to the ‘islands of the nations,’ which appears to be a convenient manner of designating the minor islands of this region. The groupings of these four names is based on a tradition which regards the people meant as offshoots of Ionia on the Asia Minor coast. It does not, of course, follow that ‘the sons of Japheth’ represent necessarily subdivisions of the Aryan race. As already pointed out, the